Hannibal Recap: “Potage”

by Veronique Medrano:

Hannibal Recap: “Potage”
Original Air Date (NBC): Thursday April 18, 2013
Season 1 Episode 3

This episode of Hannibal encompasses the end of one killers reign and the germination of another. If you haven’t watched or read-up on the show go ahead and take a look at our recap of the PILOT episode here. Also, earlier this week Kimmie, Michele, and I (all writers here at DarkMedia) got together and rehearsed for our upcoming episode of Dark Coffee Chat. Check it out this Sunday 4:30pm (Pacific)/6:30pm (Central). The link can be found on DarkMedia’s FB page, so send us your questions/comments.

Please make sure to not read this if you haven’t watched the show.

Abigail Hobbs — Reawakening & What Comes After

Abigail is out in the wilderness shooting a doe that she sees in the distance, extremely near distance, as her dad watches. After shooting the doe, her father takes Abigail to the cabin and explains to her that in order to honor their kill they must use every part of it. The idea of ‘honoring’ the kill is one , but as the scene is transitioning to Abigail ‘dressing’ her first deer/kill it turns into a young woman and she flips out. This shock brings her out of her coma and struggles to get the tubes out, but her trouble don’t stop there because she is surrounded by attacks from those she used to know, strangers those who think she helped her father commit the crime, along with the delusion in her own mind that she could catch her father’s crazy.

This episode leaves Abigail in a weird limbo. She is dealing with two different mentalities on murder: Hannibal, a murderer, and Will Graham, the man who is sent to capture the murderers.  She tries to wrap his mind around his ‘mantra’ “use it all, or its murder,” on his actions and the fact that he killed strangers who looked like her. Her survivor’s guilt leaves her cold and snappy with everyone. But her wit seems to be used to guard her from the idea that she is just like her father.

The idea that she could possibly live a normal life after giving the FBI what they need is a light of hope at the end of the dark tunnel of death that surrounded her. Abigail accompanies Graham, Dr. Bloom and Hannibal to her father’s hunting cabin looking around for something to jar some clue/evidence from her memory. It only shakes her guilty conscious to the forefront as she feels that their blood is on her hands/shoulders, and when she declares the feelings abusing her thoughts, blood falls on her head. When they investigate the source of the bleeding upstairs, they see that the copycat has struck again, killing Marissa and impaling her on antlers.

Marissa, the friend who accepted her despite the local sentiment that she was a cannibal like her father, was now dead.  The copycat struck close, but compared to their first the victim, the second had the blood of her killer on her teeth, from where he hit her. Agent Crawford decides at this point that the need to cut their losses and get Abigail out of the state before things get worse.

Abigail is taken to her home to gather her things. She broods inside by herself and as she thinks again on her father’s words about “honoring” prey she finds his hunting knife nearby. She uses it to cut open  a nearby pillow and realizes, to her horror, that it’s stuffed with the hair of one of her father’s victims.

Nicholas Boyle, who has broken into the house to confront Abigail, came into the scene blaming her for his murders and was being blamed for the death of her friend. He comes up on her with hair in one hand and her dad’s knife in the other and grabs her. He pleads that he didn’t kill her friend Marissa, but Abigail in her fear just plunges her father’s knife into him. As Lecter and Bloom come back inside, Lecter catches Abigail walking up the stairs with blood covering her hands. Before Bloom sees anything, Lecter knocks her out from behind.

When he finds Abigail, he offers her two options: Claim self-defense, and still be suspected as his murderer; or hide the body and make up a cover story. Abigail chooses the latter, and her life/fate is tied to Lecter’s on the basis of a secret each holds against the other.

Red Headed Rabbit Running to Her Doom or Part of the Plot

Freddie Lounds (Lara Chorostecki) our nosey little investigative blogger is back and planting seeds in all those connected to the case. She eggs Nicholas Boyle on with the idea that Abigail was an accomplice to the murder of his sister. It leads Nicholas to go after Abigail in her home, one leads to his DNA being used to implicate him in the ‘copycat’ murders, and the second time leads to his untimely demise.

Throughout the episode I did feel that they (the writers) were trying to steer me in the direction of thinking she was the accomplice to her father’s murder.  I’m glad we wrapped up one murder and can now explore what else is hiding under Dr. Lecter’s sleeve.