Early on in the episode Clarice and Esquivel continue to investigate the river murders, despite that Paul Krendler had put a cap on it. They follow a lead on a new suicide case, in which it appears that miss Savage jumped off a bridge onto a frozen river and died on impact.
As for Paul Krendler, he's trying to get out from underneath the thumb of his new divorce attorney Joe Hudlin, the one also linked to the river murders and attacked Clarice at the mental hospital. At first it becomes a bit of retread, trying to talk Joe out of being his lawyer, but really, as Paul too soon realizes is that his meeting with Hudlin was sort of a trap, one to get Paul drinking again. But Paul resists the micro-brew and instead swipes Hudlin's pen for DNA evidence, which of course matched DNA left at the hospital crime scene.
The episode tries to make us think that Krendler is going to play his own long game to get out from underneath Hudlin, as there are various scenes of Agent Clarke confronting Krendler and noting his weird behavior to Clarice and Esquivel, but very quickly towards the end of the episode, Paul summons his team (say for Tripath) in a discrete location to confer the DNA match and asks Clarice if she wants to press charges now or see how the whole thing plays out, --if they can tie him to everything, but warns they could all go down for this! Clarice of course wants to play the long game!
As for Adrelia Mapp, she truly believes her success on the missing boys case is going to promote her in the way she deserves, as she finds herself in front of Agent Tony Herman (I knew he would resurface again!) asking for a new DNA task force. Herman praises Mapp and thinks a DNA task force is exactly what the bureau needs, but before the episode ends, it's clear that Mapp isn't going to be running it, but a couple of white guys who don't really know what their doing, and Mapp is asked to give them...a summery!! In the past few episodes Adrelian has been reluctant to join "The Coalition", but she finally caves when she runs across agent Haynes in the parking lot.
As for the Carolina Savage lead, the episode only gets so far in linking her to the other victims. As it turns out she was form a war torn Yugoslavia apart of GHH (Global Health Horizons) a program that gave people from poor countries in the filed experience in another country, so they could bring home what they learned to theirs. We the leader of the organization, a young man named Tyson Conway who Clarice immediately connects with.
Somehow his words hang on Clarice in way that prompts her to think about her own jewelry, her necklace her dad gave her, and noticed that despite that Carolina was seemingly happily married, her ring was missing. She realizes that after her dad died, there was a part of her that thought about leaving her necklace behind, --a way to keep herself alive in another way. This prompts Clarice to go back to bridge and find the wedding ring. They also find Carolina's safety deposit box, which shows pictures of a sonogram--leading them back to go back to re-examine her body. Carolina was pregnant, but her baby had deformations like all of the other female victims children. How could this be, when the trials happened years ago? Could the drug already be on the market? Also, whose the father, Ty or someone within Pharmaceutical conspiracy like Hudlin? These are the questions left for the viewers and team to think about.
Overall I really enjoyed this episode, but not so much for the plot or story, which IMO didn't really go very far, but more over the imagery, the atmosphere, the characters dynamics and it's deeper thematic ties to Thomas Harris-esque reality was near perfect. And I felt there was a lot going on in between the lines!
As mentioned in quite a few previous reviews, Hannibal tends to be this figurative ghost that heavily looms over this story and this episode made that abundantly clear by bringing up the food-consuming dear cannibal early on in one of Clarice's new sessions with Dr. Renee Li. I was hoping so much when they introduced Li, that she would take on "the therapist" mantel for the show and that perhaps some unconventional things would begin to occur for Clarice.
But beyond a direct shout out to Hannibal by bringing him up in therapy, everything else about this episode oozed of him and his book backstory. For starters there was food in almost every shot--but most noticebly things Hannibal himself probably wouldn't eat--everything say for the duck, could be considered junk food (But boy, duck is greasy!). Burgers, fries, M&Ms, brownies, untouched beer ---nothing full of nutrition or deep culinary calculation. In that sense, the food almost acts as an antithesis to Hannibla himself, but perhaps also a metaphor for being starved in some way...
But this also countered with Clarice's connection to Tyson Conway. Why their encounter was brief, it's clear from Clarice's sessions with Dr. Li, that she could immediately relate to him -- that they both had pain and knew where it could easily land. While Dr, Li almost seems to worry about this connection and uses it to get Clarice to talk more about her siblings and how her mother essentially left her behind, the audience might be left wondering if this connection was on the verge of being psychic or at least a connection with sense of deep transference?
When one goes back to Thomas Harris Hannibal and Hannibal Rising novels, it becomes clear what Hannibal had all lost as child and what it is he wants from Clarice. Hannibal grew up in Lithuania during WWII, and while his country is being ripped apart by both Russian tanks and Nazi planes, it is neither that comes to do the unspeakable to his younger 3 year sister Mischa. Local Lithuanians decide to make a profit by looting off the dead and posing as medical personnel, but these five men get stuck in a snow storm with Hannibal and his little sister in their family's cabin, just shortly after their parents have died. There isn't much to eat and Mischa is sick. They kill, cook, and eat Mischa right in front of Hannibal with the prospect that he would be next!
Hannibal is able to escape his captors and is found by Russians and taken back to his family's Castle, except that it is now it's converted into an orphanage in which he mist reside until his Uncle and Aunt come to get him and take him Paris. Later Hannibal tracks them all down one by one and kills them--oh, and did I mention one of them kept Mischa's bracelet and gave it to their daughter?!?!
His comradery with Clarice is evident by their shared backstory of loss family, farm animals, and being left orphaned for a time (and now, siblings). But this gets pushed further when Clarice has to fight against misogynists in her own agency (Paul Krendler) at the beginning of the Hannibal novel. Everyone seems to have it out for her, but after seven years, Hannibal comes to her aid, survives the traps laid by others, but wants something in return...his sister.
It's never explained how or why Hannibal believes that Clarice can be a vessel to house Mischa's consciousness, but the books, with Hannibal's abilities at large, push for something near metaphysical--and something Faustian and one has wonder if Clarice herself could of been clairvoyant or had some kind of psychic connection with an uncanny ability to read some people, including Hannibal?
But everything about this episode from it's junk food extravaganza to beautifully Gothic winter and blood-laden imagery to uncomfortable therapy sessions, the power of jewelry, Hebrew messages (Hannibal was taught everything by a Jewish teacher), unspoken connections between Clarice and Tyson or the fact that Carolina Savage has a backstory about leaving behind a husband and war-torn Eastern European country feels so incredibly Hannibal, but why?
It's pretty clear that (if the series is even lucky enough to make it to another season) Hannibal will not appear or can never be called by name. And sure, having things that take some viewers to the source materials or other adaptations can be welcoming experience, making everything feel like it genuinely goes together, but this feels too deep, too intentional, and too much on the rise to simply be an fun easter egg. Could it be that Clarice is the new the Hannibal? Is she not worried about him coming back, because it's not simply that she understood him, but because she is becoming him or something like him? Is she going to b more like Bryan Fuller's Will Graham and have something of six sense or near super ability that brings her closer into the inner circle of hell than most people could ever go? Or is Hannibal like a dark passenger along side for the ride--a ghost that speaks truths to her that she can use, but also must be careful not loose herself in???
And what about Tyson? Is there more there than meets the eye? Will we ever meet Clarice's siblings? Is one of them behind this conspiracy?? Could they Ty tie into this missing sibling plot somehow or just a part of Clarice's six sense? There are a lot more questions to be had now and I can't wait to find out how they will get answered!
What did you think? Like the episode? Have any theories on anything? Why do think Tripath was excluded? What do you think will happen with The Coalition side story? Sound off in the comments below!
