Hannibal “Coquilles”

Even though I admitted to liking Hannibal last week I wasn’t one hundred percent sure.  I found the show generally good, but I wasn’t quite ready to fully accept the show into the universe of the movies.  After spending the last few days thing about Hannibal and where the show would take us next then intensely enjoying this episode I have to admit, I’m invested.  I accept the show into cannon.  Maybe the character’s draw me in or possibly the mysteries, my fascination with the macabre could even be the culprit, but whatever the reason (or mixture of reasons) is, I’m in.  I want more.

“Coquilles” opens with a tortured Will Graham sleepwalking down a country road.  Lecter surmises that Will is sleepwalking because he feels a loss of control.  His recent cases have opened a dark part of himself, he’s even seeing himself as Hobbs in his dreams.  He feels trapped by Crawford into entering the minds of psychopaths.  I’m still unsure about the symbolism of the crow-feathered stag, but I’m starting to believe he has something to do with his feeling of helplessness or the darkness of being in criminal’s minds.  I’m not sure yet.  I could be totally wrong.

Anyway, Will is further challenged when a new killer emerges.  This killer displays his victims as angels with the skin of their backs pulled up to act s their wings.  The killers in this series don’t take the spotlight though, which I really like.  Graham and Crawford work on cases that act to reinforce the themes that occur in their personal life.

The fourth, or fifth, episode (depending on where you live) keeps up the high standards set forth in the prior episodes.  The writing is superb, with absorbing character arcs and an intriguing villain, and the visuals are stunning, the praying angels in this episode are breathtaking in their gruesome beauty and terrifying in their brutality.  I’m excited for next week, the teaser promises Hannibal is going to be brutal; I can’t wait to see Mads Mikkelson finally get violent.

ON TO SPOILERS

Earlier, I said that the serial killers enhance the themes of the episode.  In “Coquilles” is losing control.  The serial killer is suffering from a brain tumor that will kill him.  He’s lost control over his life.  The tumor causes him to see flames around peoples’ heads who he believes are evil so he kills them and turns them into angels (his tumor is surprisingly accurate at finding bad people which I find highly unlikely, but anyway).  In the end, he takes his own life, turning himself into an angel; taking control of his death.

At the beginning of the episode Will Graham is sleepwalking (which Lecter says is because he feels he’s lost control).  Then Will has trouble sleeping because he’s afraid of sleepwalking, he’s afraid of losing control.  All of this is the reaction to him entering evil people’s minds in order to catch them.  At the end of the episode, he goes against his normal anti-social behavior and offers to listen to Crawford as a friend, essentially entering the mind of someone who isn’t evil counter-balancing the darkness of his job.   He’s taking control.

Crawford’s wife is dying of lung cancer, which scares her because she doesn’t control her fate (much like the serial killer), and she’s afraid to talk to her husband because she doesn’t believe he has the time for her.  Crawford senses that something is wrong and feels his wife emotionally distancing herself (losing control).  At the end of the episode he confronts her and offers to stand by her through her illness, taking control of his situation the best he can.