Hannibal: Naka-Choko Rewatch

May 8, 2015 7:56 AM - Season 2, Episode 10

Will's willingness to go to dark places strengthens his bond with Hannibal -- and garners Jack's attention; Hannibal gives Margot advice about her brother's violent nature.

Good lord, I don't even know where to start with this episode. It caused an incredible stir and a lot of debate when it aired because of the direction things go with Freddie... But it also contains one of the weirdest sex scenes ever. On top of that we have Murder Husbands in full bloom at this point, Will empathing himself, Mason being every bit the total fucker Michael Pitt could make him and so much more.

Removed from the anxiety of what's going on with Freddie or not, this is just a hell of an hour of TV. Not the kind of thing you could show someone out of context and expect them to "get" why this show is so special, but in context is a pretty perfect example of this show firing on all cylinders and doing things no one else'd even consider.

As ever, the script is available, though I've not had a chance to skim through it looking for things that were excised during production.

posted by sparkletone (23 comments total)

I didn't think for a second that Freddie was dead (mostly because I took the earlier ice fishing scene to be a very clear indication that Jack and Will were working together all along, which was not universally the case). I do remember the stir caused by the production team releasing this image before the episode aired, though. We were really debating whether or not it would actually happen in a non-metaphorical sense, which in retrospect, of course it wouldn't have. And a lot of people insisted that the image must be photoshopped...
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:55 AM on May 8, 2015

Also: going back through the first season, it's pretty incredible how they basically blatantly laid out the direction season 2 would go in some of the earliest episodes. Particularly Oeuf (we make our OWN [murder] families!) and Fromage (I can finally imagine the possibility of [murder] friendship!). I feel like at the time we were just like "what is this strange game Hannibal is playing," and then suddenly Hannibal and Will are mutilating and eating human bodies and having freaky mindsex. Imagine showing this episode to someone who was like halfway through season 1...
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:01 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

I feel like I was very conflicted (and feel like my comments here at the time bare this out). On the one hand, I didn't think they'd (meaning Bryan and the other writers) actually do what they seem to... But at the same time I felt like I wouldn't put it past them. That's actually a huge compliment to their skill for me. That inability to be entirely sure even as I get very "hoe don't do it" about this kind of turn... That's not something most shows ever get with me.
posted by sparkletone at 9:32 AM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

The only way you know the threesome pic is not part of the story is because they're all smiling.

It's not because the show has a safeword. It doesn't.
posted by tel3path at 10:19 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I thought it was very unlikely that Freddie was dead, but I couldn't be sure.

This is what I don't get when people complain "why did Hannibal fall for such an obvious trick". Pulling off a trick like that would require a full-on conspiracy, which Hannibal would not have been expecting. I don't know if it was as outrageous and illegal as Kade Purnell was making it out to be when they faked up Freddie's corpse - it's not like they were "fabricating evidence" to present in court, just to fool a suspect! But Purnell's reaction clearly shows how unexpected it was, and that is also how Beverly nearly caught him - by doing the unexpected.

Hannibal also assumes he can tell when people are lying. But as he said in the dream "in love, we take leave of our senses", and Will had successfully gotten Hannibal to mostly tune out everyone else as background noise he only needed to pay attention to now and again.

The Science Bros are much better liars than anyone had any right to expect, as well. Hannibal confuses his willingness to lie and manipulate with being smarter than anyone else, but actually, it's more to do with the willingness to lie vs the other's assumption that they can take you mostly at face value.
posted by tel3path at 11:27 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't know if it was as outrageous and illegal as Kade Purnell was making it out to be when they faked up Freddie's corpse - it's not like they were "fabricating evidence" to present in court, just to fool a suspect!

I think her issue was not with the Freddie fakeout, but with the whole "killing Tier and then mutilating the body" thing, which to be fair IS super illegal. Even in clear-cut self defense you have to report it, and at the VERY least they also broke into the museum and damaged a valuable skeleton...
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:23 PM on May 8, 2015

In the shooting scripts she demands of Price and Zeller "did you fabricate evidence?" and they reply "define 'fabricate'"
posted by tel3path at 12:43 PM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

But then, the things that don't make it into the show, it's for a reason. Eh.

Anyway, I'm not surprised Hannibal was fooled, just as he was fooled earlier when Bev did the unexpected.

I'm fairly sure that museum exhibit dinosaurs aren't real skeletons. Dippy, in the Natural History Museum, is not real. I was heartbroken when I learned that.
posted by tel3path at 1:34 PM on May 8, 2015

Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. Real ones are much more expensive.

I just had a real wishful thinking thought, by the way - in addition to incorporating locations we've seen before, might Hannibal's ~memory palace~ house people, as well? People like his victims? Including, perhaps, Beverly? This show has already shown dead people talking to live people about a million times, so why not?

I just want Bev back ok
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:07 AM on May 9, 2015

Alas, I doubt Beverly was particularly important to Hannibal.

She might be to Will, though, and also to Jack. Hopefully it's memory palaces all round.

The deciding factor is how expensive Beverly is :-(
posted by tel3path at 8:37 AM on May 9, 2015

...but gosh, I am certainly looking forward to Beverly coming back from maternity leave!

And Will waking up from that terrible bout of encephalitis where he imagined an entire other life for himself in which Hannibal was a serial killer.
posted by tel3path at 7:41 PM on May 11, 2015

NBC promo! I love the messaging here - basically "aren't you embarrassed not to be watching this critically acclaimed show? Better get on it before everyone else finds out about it!"
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:01 PM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Mason's accent does some clever things, he has that flat, blunt affect when he's talking to Margot but puts on a very polite, mid century mid Atlantic neutral when talking to Hannibal ...until Mason gets excited and his true accent comes out.

Also, in retrospect, everyone is speaking really clearly, stating their opinions and what will happen. Freddie, like Chilton, gets to voice the truth

"if you can't beat Dr. Specter why not join him?"

Yeah she's talking about Will but she's saying it to Alana, right after finding out she's sleeping with Hannibal

Also that dinner, Alana all but blurts out "ARE YOU TWO FUCKING?" There's being blind and then there's willing willfully blind Dr. bloom.
posted by The Whelk at 8:17 PM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also, dear god Hugh Dancy is terrifying when he attacks Freddie. He's even using his creepy Hannibal voice.
posted by The Whelk at 8:22 PM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

ALso, I never thought for a second Freddie was in *real* danger cause Will's whole arc is "PRETEND TO BE THE PERFECT MURDERER PET FOR YOUR VAMPIRE HUSBAND SO HE DOESN'T KNOW YOU'RE WORKING FOR THE FBI"

that being said, Will is super scary when he has to make it real and you know, having to mimic Hannibal enough to make Hannibal buy it is going to take a toll on Will.

Like I know TV!Will won't end up a drunk in Florida with a bad face but you can't blame him at this pont.
posted by The Whelk at 11:39 PM on May 13, 2015

(Like I honestly think Hannibal's reasoning might be "Well I suspect he's doing these things to get close to me but It won't mater cause in trying to mimic me and get close to me he'll corrupt himself enough to basically become me" cause he's a vampire dracula person and being able to replicate himself is kind of his ultimate goal)

That being said, I think Show Hannibal totally buys it at this point. He's finally found love! Everything will be murder flowers and rainbows from now on! Perfect precious Will is the only one who understands him! It's why he gets sloppy later, he's too much in love
posted by The Whelk at 11:42 PM on May 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

You see I think Freddie, perhaps inadvertently, came up with the rare argument that was actually capable of getting through to Alana. In saying "If you can't beat Dr Lecter, join him" she identified something Alana was doing, and therefore Alana was able to comprehend that Will might be doing it. Alana isn't good at taking any perspective other than her own, but by projecting Alana's motives onto Will, Freddie opened a trapdoor into Alana's hermetic/monotonic belief system.

And Hannibal actually said (in a dream) that "in love we take leave of our senses" so, yeah. I don't think the fake reality Will was creating was particularly unconvincing given that it was a conspiracy that, against all probability, the BAU was participating in. But whatever latent doubts he might have had were smoothed away by his intense desire to believe it.
posted by tel3path at 4:20 AM on May 14, 2015

Whelk you're psychic sort of
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:30 AM on May 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

That was 50% right, for sure.
posted by tel3path at 8:43 AM on May 14, 2015

At the beginning of rewatching this episode, I managed to totally convince myself that Mason and MArgot's father might still be alive, but incapacitated to the point where Mason was running everything. And then Mason said "after Papa died" and that theory went to shit, but then I wondered - could he be BRAIN dead?

The reason I ask is, as far as I can see, the stuff about "Papa's will" makes no sense if he IS already dead. Because at that point, Mason has inherited everything and Margot had inherited nothing, and all that matters now is Mason's will, not his dad's.

So, therefore, my pet theory that is almost certainly incorrect is that Papa Verger is hooked up to some machines and clinging to life, and Margot was racing to get pregnant BEFORE he died physically.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:27 PM on May 14, 2015

I think there must have been a clause whereby if Papa's male heir died the estate could only be passed on to another male heir. They now either are, or feel, unable to contest the terms of that will.
posted by tel3path at 2:17 AM on May 15, 2015

Aha! The money could be in a dynasty trust! Which... seems like a kinda fucked up concept in general?

You have a lot of control over a dynasty trust—your descendants have little. This offers both benefits and disadvantages. You get to decide who your beneficiaries are and what rights they have. Typically, children are the first beneficiaries; after their deaths, the grandchildren are next in line.

You appoint a trustee—usually a bank or trust company—to manage the money and spend it on beneficiaries’ needs according to the terms you set out in the trust. Those rules can be as vague or as detailed as you wish. You can also give the beneficiaries power to give away some of the trust assets or leave them to others at their own deaths.

But because dynasty trusts are irrevocable, you can’t change your mind later, and your descendants can’t alter the terms of the trust when family or financial circumstances change. You’re guessing about what will be good for your distant relatives, decades in the future.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:08 AM on May 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Why did Alana Bloom?
Because Hannibal Lecter.

It's a pun.

Sorry.
posted by Grangousier at 3:52 PM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]