Hannibal Episode 2.11 Ko No Mono

It is important for young people to have mentors, whether as doctors or lawyers or athletes, to help them achieve success. Or, in the case of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, as cannibalistic serial killers. Now Will is finally becoming the murderer Hannibal has been trying to nurture - and a pretty good one. It is a strange definition of success.

In a dark forest, a black stag keels over on its side as the Wendigo approaches. A geyser of blood erupts from the animal's side, splattering across the snow. A new stagman claws his way out of the animal, tearing a membrane away from his face and screaming as he draws breath.

It is... the Willdigo!

Will and Hannibal are having dinner and are for once eating a bird instead of a person. The two talk about Will's evolution as a killer, how his heart didn't race when he killed Freddie Lounds. "A low heart rate is a true indicator of one's capacity for violence. One might say you're genetically predisposed to it," Hannibal says. Killing, he says, is changing the way Will thinks. This is the weirdest mentor-pupil relationship ever.

A security guard sits in his booth at the bottom of a parking garage ramp. He hears a strange squeaking sound. It is a wheelchair, a vaguely human-looking body seated in it, rolling down the ramp. The whole thing is on fire, burning like a candle. The chair stops when it bumps into a parking block with the name F. Lounds stenciled on it.

The charred body lies in the BAU lab, where Price and Zeller have positively identified it as Freddie Lounds. They are sure she was dead before her body was burned, which one supposes is a mercy, sort of. Her killer sliced off a couple of her muscles beforehand. A peculiar trophy, Hannibal muses. And one that was delicious when it went into his belly...

Will is there too, helping to build a profile of Freddie's killer, which must be awkward since he's the one who killed her. Besides, he has another problem. Margot Verger admitted that she seduced him in order to get pregnant, and good news, it worked! A Verger heir means her brother can't cut her off from the family fortune now.

Will is angry with Margot, who now wants nothing from him. Still, she says if he wants to participate in raising the kid, she's not opposed to a male influence in her child's life. So generous of her!

One can understand why she does not want that male influence to be her brother, who at that moment is terrifying a young boy on a tour of the Verger estate so the child will cry and Mason can swab up his tears to use as an ingredient in a martini. Usually we use gin if we're out of vodka, but when in a real pinch...

Will is awakened from another stag dream by a knock at his door. It's Alana Bloom, still wrestling with the possibility that Will is a killer, terrified that his relationship with Hannibal is harmful to him. Which is ironic, coming from her. Will is harsh, telling her she's right to be afraid. The friendship is still broken, probably forever.

Will does have a gift for her: a gun. He tells her to buy ammo, find a range, and practice. Everyone knows nine-millimeter pistols are a girl's best friend.

Mason Verger is now in therapy with Hannibal, which seems like closing the barn door after all the insane horses have left. Mason is whiny and self-absorbed, thoughtlessly tossing his jacket haphazardly on a daybed in the therapist's office. Careful Mason, Hannibal has killed and eaten people for less...

Mason is reveling in his power over his sister, whom he can cut off and make destitute at any moment, since their father's will makes him the sole Verger heir. Unless, Hannibal says, biology provides another heir.

Note to Margot: never trust Hannibal to keep your secrets.

After Freddie's funeral, it does not take someone long to desecrate her grave. Her body is dug up and posed, with extra arms from somewhere else, to look like Shiva, the god thought of as both the Creator and the Destroyer in Hinduism. Alana is at the crime scene as the BAU works it, offering her own profile of the killer. Having also seen someone recently mutilate and display Randall Tier's body, the FBI assumes there is a link between the two cases. And that link, Alana insists to Jack Crawford, is Will.

Alana later confides her fears about Will to Hannibal. She is confused, questioning everything. Hannibal kisses her hand and smells something.

"Have you been firing a gun?" he asks.

"I told you I was feeling paranoid," she says.

The one who could probably use a gun is Margot, whose brother is tormenting her, telling her he wants an heir. Margot has a bloom about her. How does she do it? "What is your secret?" her brother teases. Like he doesn't know. Margot plays dumb. Another generation of Vergers? She's just trying to survive this one.

Margot flees the Verger estate in the middle of the night, throwing suitcases into her car and tearing away in a near panic. On a lonely country road a truck crashes into her. Her car is totaled. Margot sits in the wreckage, stunned. The door of the truck opens and out steps... Carlo, her brother's henchman.

Margot's eyes flutter open. She's in a hospital - machines beep, a doctor in a surgical mask hovers above her. It's Mason. She's paralyzed, unable to move as her brother tells her the doctor is going to find something wrong with her "lady parts" and will be performing a hysterectomy. That loophole she found to stay out of destitution has just slammed shut.

Will drives to the Verger estate and finds Mason sitting next to his pen full of human-eating pigs, listening to classical music. He punches Mason, dangles him above the pigpen and puts a gun to Mason's head as he explains that Hannibal manipulated Margot into wanting an heir and seducing Will to get it, and Mason into taking it from her. A new alliance might be forming... crazy and possibly crazy taking on super-crazy.

In Jack's office, Alana declares she knows everyone is lying to each other - Will, Hannibal, him. She's a mess, in a panic. What's happened? She has no confidence she knows Hannibal, and she's sure whatever is going on, Jack is going to lose.

Jack studies her. "I want you to come with me," he says. They walk through the halls of Quantico into a conference room. Freddie Lounds is there, alive. "How was my funeral?" she asks Alana genially.

Oh, Alana. Always have some faith.