Digestivo

As we saw last week, Hannibal and Will ended up in the hands of Mason Verger and his eager chef and nurse Cordell. As one might have guessed, they arrived in his hands with the private help of the greedy Florentine Police Inspector. They arrive just in time to save Will from his grim fate, capturing both Will and Hannibal, and leaving Jack to be murdered by the police. Jack is saved at the last minute by Chiyo, who frees him in return for the location of Hannibal’s destination. In the meantime, Hannibal is having a grand old time allowing Mason to go about his preparations to eat him. Having Will in his clutches, Mason also intends to take Will’s face and make it his own before eating Hannibal. He also reveals to Margot that he had her eggs harvested before removing her uterus and that there is currently a surrogate on the premises. Margot discovers that this surrogate is actually a farm pig and finds that the child inside is dead. While Alana was happy enough to lead Hannibal to his death, she is not happy about having Will in danger. She and Margot release Hannibal in return for his help to save Will and harvest Mason’s sperm. Hannibal also agrees to take the blame for Mason’s death should Margot decide to finally kill him. Mason is put under for his face transplant surgery, but awakes instead to find Cordell’s face just loosely covering his own. Having got her insurance policy in the form of Mason’s sperm, Margot and Alana hold him under the water in his eel tank until he is suffocated by the eel forcing its way down his throat. Meanwhile, Hannibal takes Will home where Will basically breaks up with him, telling him to run away and never let him know where he is. Instead, Hannibal surrenders himself to the police when they arrive so that Will will always know exactly where to find him.

Will and Hannibal

Will finally decides that he wants and needs to let Hannibal go so that he can move on. To do this, Hannibal needs to be away somewhere where Will can’t find him if he doesn’t look. He tells Hannibal to run away, that he won’t miss him, or think about him, or look for him. Hannibal does not take this well. While it seems that he acquiesces to Will’s wishes – though clearly as deeply hurt as Hannibal is capable of being by Will’s dismissal – instead he vindictively places himself in a situation in which Will will always know Hannibal’s exact location, a constant temptation and reminder.

Mason

This is one of the most twisted episodes of the entire series – at the very least the most twisted episode since Mason sliced his own face off – and its mostly due to the combination of the psychopathic imaginations of Mason and Hannibal. Mason, of course, is a sadist at heart and loves more than anything to give hope only to cause pain. He reveals to Margot that she has a child gestating in a surrogate somewhere on the estate. How like Mason to tell Margot what he really think of her and her child by having the surrogate be an actual pig. Of course, the child dies – giving Margot hope only to take it away. This basically seals his doom. In addition to this, he intends to eat Hannibal with Will’s face. How appropriate. What really elevates this episode beyond Mason’s sick whims and obsessions are Hannibal’s own alienated and amused whims – giving Mason Cordell’s face in place of Will’s, harvesting his sperm with a cattle prod, encouraging Margot and Alana to kill Mason, and all the while contemplating and consulting over his own preparation and consumption.

The scene in which Mason is killed by his own amusingly dangerous pet says a lot about the kind of person Mason is. In the film Hannibal, Mason is similarly killed by his own man eating pigs which he’d had trained to eat Hannibal. These man eating pigs, of course, won’t touch the animal loving Hannibal who walks fearlessly among them. And that’s one of the major differences between Mason and Hannibal as psychopaths. Mason is careless, inconsiderate, cruel, and rude – everything that makes him the perfect target for the sophisticated and mannered Hannibal. Mason will run around sticking his pigs for fun, while Hannibal perceives animals as pure innocents.

Alana and Margot

Alana and Margot had a lot bringing them together already – similar vendettas against the psychopathic men in their lives, mutually beneficial and coinciding goals, and a general camaraderie. Now they have Mason’s death bringing them together too, as they both held him under the water until he died. Will the future Verger baby also bring them together? Everyone’s future in general is somewhat hazy, given what they’ve all been through and experienced.