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“Hannibal” recap (2.12): Tome-wan

Margot may have survived the gruesome abortion procedure that her brother Mason carried out in order to rid Margot of birthing a new heir to the Verger family, but as we inch closer to the Hannibal finale next Friday, the question remains: Who will end up dead? At the start of “Tome-Wan,” there’s a very blunt bit of foreshadowing taking place, and if we’ve learned anything from Season Two, we know by the end of the episode, all of the little anecdotes in which the men kick each other off the platform to remain in power, will come to fruition. Mason tells Dr. Lecter he sees this “game of chicken” Dr. Lecter is playing with Will Graham and wants in (only, we all know that Mason much prefers a game of squealing pigs, hardly chicken.) Faced with more scars at that hand of her evil brother and armed with the flanking duo that is Will and Dr. Lecter, Margot has been instructed to “survive Mason” and show him how strong she is. One thing’s for sure: Someone is on the verge of getting blood on their hands, but who?

It would all be so easy-to end Dr. Lecter. Will fantasizes about cutting Dr. Lecter’s throat and sending him down into Mason’s man-eating pig maze, an ironic, role-reversing act. Mason is showing off his power trips to Dr. Lecter in their therapy session with his late father’s knife, shining it close to Dr. Lecter’s neck. But, at the moment, Dr. Lecter is being spared. Will goes to Jack at the FBI and tells him he still has nothing on Dr. Lecter but fears the diabolic psychologist who has everyone wrapped around his tight grasp is either going to kill Mason or have Will commit the act. Jack warns Will to keep his empathetic killer instinct in check.

A surprise guest is back for a moment to stir the pot – Bedelia, also known as Scully (Gillian Anderson). She’s been granted full immunity and is spared prosecution for the murder of her patient in return for information about Dr. Lecter. Totally stone cold with little change in expression and dressed in red, Bedelia tells Will how to catch Dr. Lecter. But the game of chicken remains-where in Jack accuses Will of deception by way of Dr. Lecter, and Will confides in Dr. Lecter that Jack is onto him. And the wheel keeps spinnin’ round and round, and the painted pigs go up and down.

Everyone’s heads are cut off, as they seek out all the ways to outsmart and control one another, feeding off this game as it climaxes into something else, sort of like the Ukrainian gelatin fish mold Dr. Lecter prepares for dinner with Jack, pairing it so with one of his vivid stories (and the vodka) in an attempt to depict the very game all three men are playing with each other. Who exactly is in pursuit of whom? Have we lost track and have they, too? The pursuit has become completely blotched and saturated, that is until someone makes the next move.

Mason arrives at Will’s home and without exchanging words they head over to Dr. Lecter’s office where Carlo, Mateo and other mafia cronies who work for Mason pick up Dr. Lecter against his will. To no one’s surprise, Will’s fantasy of killing Dr. Lecter has been conjured now, but it’s hard to say if he implanted the idea in Mason or if some greater devilish force beyond man is at work here. He now finds himself face to face with Dr. Lecter in a straight jacket, ready to be sent down into Mason’s pig maze. Instead of carrying this out, he saves Dr. Lecter and wakes up in a pool of blood to find Carlo was fed to the pigs and Mason and Dr. Lecter are MIA.

Dr. Lecter now has Mason in his control and has fed him psychedelic compounds. Naturally, Mason loves it too much and really wants a ‘scrip filled in his name because he’s “enchanted and terrified” by what he’s seeing. Essentially, Mason is his most lucid and likable in this state. Will arrives back home, notices one of his dogs sitting strangely outside, and upon entering sees Mason wildly talking to himself and feeding his dogs something bloody and flesh-looking. “What are you feeding my dogs?” Will asks. “Oh, just myself,” Mason laughs, uncovering his face from behind the dark shadows in Will’s house, his face half mutilated and completely ghastly. You know, he really should have taken this psychedelic experience as a chance to explore Will’s house for trippy floral wallpaper or to explore the lines in the wooden floors, not FEED HIMSELF to Will’s dogs. Alas, Dr. Lecter emerges from behind Will, staring on at this debauchery he’s instigated. Didn’t someone say something about a rebuke earlier on in this episode?

Dr. Lecter snaps Mason’s neck, but he isn’t dead. He’s disfigured and even scarier looking now (like maybe the scariest looking character on television, ever) in a weird mask covering his whole face and only leaving the slit of his eyes unobstructed. I can’t imagine he’s laughing about being full of himself anymore, literally or figuratively speaking. Margot has arrived to tell him she plans to help him – in the same way he helped her. Uh oh, this ought to be good. Will and Dr. Lecter meet later on and Will persuades Dr. Lecter to reveal his true identity to Jack-to “give him the Chesapeake River.”

Somehow, I can’t imagine this will end well for Jack. Will has formed himself around Dr. Lecter’s perspective, having taken in the many accounts of godly wars waged in history that Dr. Lecter cryptically ignites in his therapy discussions with his patients, his discussions about death, his frankness about Will’s appetite for murder, and his own appetite, too. It’s true – Hannibal Lecter has hardly coerced anyone, but his power of persuasion, as Bedelia put it, is so masterful, I nearly felt empathy for him as he was hanging over the pig maze about to be eaten.

What do you expect to happen in the finale? Do you think someone will end up dead? Do you think Hannibal will reveal his true self to Jack? How will Will play into this? Have we seen the last of Freddie, or Dr. Bloom, or Bedelia? Sound off in the comments and stay tuned next week for my finale recap. It’s been quite a season of cannibalistic gore, my friends.

Follow me on Twitter for #Hannibal updates @the_hoff

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