Hannibal: Ko No Mono, Review
Hannibal uses the Theremin for foreplay.
Last week’s Hannibal episode was a busy one for wackadoodles everywhere. Mason Verger was finally introduced to the collective viewing delight of Boardwalk Empire fans who recognized Michael Pitt (Jimmy Darmody). His take on Verger is delightfully eccentric and madcap. In that, I like to stuff meat into my sister’s suit and then feed it to my specially bred piggies so it looks like they are eating people, sort of way. Tee hee!
Then Graham caught Freddie Lounds snooping around his farm and dragged her off, kicking and screaming, before showing up for dinner at Hannibal’s house with a suspiciously sourced cut of meat. Which he implied was lady meat. Human lady. Which they then cooked and ate.
Well, you know what they say, the couple that slays together stays together.
But the weirdest scene for this viewer, hands down, was when Hannibal taught Bloom how to play the Theremin as a prelude to sex. A sexy time Theremin session? I know when I think foreplay, I think obscure electronic instruments.
Anywho. This week finds Graham and Hannibal continuing to make sexy eyes at one another during dinner (of small, drowned birds). The burning corpse of Freddie Lounds is tied to a wheelchair and pushed down the ramp of a parking garage (a familiar image to all fans of the franchise), after the funeral the body gets dug up and posed as a grim sort of Shiva (additional arms sourced from nearby graves; boy Graham’s new hobby seems labor intensive). Bloom suspects Graham of killing her, Margot is pregnant, and Mason annoys Hannibal during his therapy sessions.
All of this is lovely and fine, but the episode really gets interesting during a casual conversation between Hannibal and Graham about family and the nature of entropy. For the first time Hannibal opens up about himself, mentioning his sister Mischa and speaking of her with real affection. He talks about waiting to see if a smashed tea cup will suddenly reverse itself and reassemble (according to Stephen Hawking he’ll have one helluva wait). Perhaps the reason he kills is to make a place in the world for Mischa, should time run in reverse and bring his sister back to him.
The implication is that a place has opened in Graham’s life since he is expecting a child with Margot. Unfortunately, neither Margot nor Graham can catch a break (SPOILERS AHEAD). Mason, alerted to Margot’s plan, arranges for his sister to get both an abortion and a complete hysterectomy. Graham, who had come to terms with his impending fatherhood, attacks Mason but stops short of killing him.
And there we see the heart of the entire situation. Graham is not really a killer. Sure, he beat that one weirdo to death, but to be fair it was in self-defense. He did not kill Lounds. It was all part of the setup, the lure that Graham and Crawford have cast in an effort to catch Hannibal (how cannibalism fits into that ploy beats the hell out of me – lets be real here, you know Graham showed up to Hannibal’s house with actual people meat; the good doctor would have known the difference).
There is not much time left in the season, and events appear to be snowballing fast. It feels as though Graham should have enough to convict Hannibal with now. But it looks like he and Crawford are holding out for hard evidence. Maybe even a straight up confession?
Body parts eaten this episode: None, but they did swallow some wee birds whole.
Written by
Gerri Mahn wisely invested her money in a B.A. in English Lit and an M.S. in Library Science. She has since used these degrees to speak…