Hannibal “Rôti”

This series never fails to amaze me with what they get away with on network television.  From the first episode I was astounded at the images they got on the screen, and they have continued to push the boundaries in every episode becoming bolder.  “Rôti” doesn’t disappoint with the graphic nature or great story telling.  This episode is filled with twists and cringes that kept me on the edge of my seat.

As the season comes close the finale, Will Graham falls further into the rabbit hole, becoming consumed with the ghost of Garret Jacob Hobbs and the madness of the killers that he constantly chases.  Last episode Hannibal purposefully withheld Graham’s encephalitis from him in order to learn more about his condition.  This bit of unethical medical practice leads to Graham’s unraveling as he help Crawford chase down Dr. Gideon who has escaped from prison and is leaving a trail of dead bodies to draw out the real Chesapeake Ripper.  He begins having hallucinations of water drowning out everything, and had a spell where he imagined Jack Crawford surrounded by antlers.  His condition worsens when they find a prison transport truck empty and the guards killed. 

The truck was transporting Dr. Gideon who took organs from the bodies and strung them from the trees.  Graham suggests that he is leaving a calling card for the Ripper, the real one.  He surmises that Gideon is on the loose after learning that he isn’t the Ripper, which has left him without an identity.  Gideon is trying to lure the real Ripper out to meet him.  This leads him to hunt down all the psychologists that have meddled in his brain over the past few years that he’s been in jail.  He kills all of them gruesomely.  In his first kill he calls Freddie Lounds as a doctor and offers her an exclusive on his take on Dr. Gideon.  Drawn to the chance at a story, she goes to the doctor’s office to find Gideon has killed the doctor, draining his blood and giving him a “Columbian Necktie” (where you slit the throat and pull the tongue down through it, like a tie.  See what they did there?).  Gideon uses Freddie to write an article further confirming Gideon as the Ripper, then waits in a astronomy lab for the real Ripper (he picks this location because this is where the Ripper left the arm of Crawford’s trainee).  While waiting for the Ripper, Gideon takes Chilton’s guts while he’s still awake.  I haven’t cringed at a TV or movie in a long time, but this was graphic.  It was sick and twisted…and so freaking cool.

Graham helps Crawford hunt down Gideon at the astronomy lab, but before they break in he sees the feathered stag at the edge of the clearing and races into the woods to track it.  When Crawford gets into the lab he only finds Freddie barely keeping the gutless Chilton alive.  Meanwhile, Gideon watches from afar and gets into his truck where Graham is waiting, instructing him to drive.

Graham takes Gideon to Hannibal’s house.  Graham hasn’t seen Gideon at all in this time, he’s seen Garret Hobbs.  He asks Hannibal if he’s real.  Hannibal convinces Graham that he came alone and Graham begins having a seizure.  In a really cool twist, Hannibal sends Gideon after Alana Bloom and hatches a plan that blew my mind.  Graham awakes from his seizure after Gideon leaves and Hannibal pretends to be leaving, they think Gideon will be going after Alana.  He puts on his coat and rushes out leaving Graham’s gun on the table.  Graham, who is in love with Alana, grabs the gun and runs after him.  And then Hannibal comes back.  He sent Graham out to kill Gideon without getting his hands dirty.  Graham was right, the real Ripper would want Gideon dead, and Hannibal did it without calling attention to himself.  God, I love this show.

Hannibal still finds ways to amaze me and next week’s episode looks amazing as Will Graham slips further into his psychosis.  He might even kill somebody.  WHAT?!  I know.  I can’t wait.