Hannibal Recap: “Trou Normand”

by Veronique Medrano:

Hannibal Recap: “Trou Normand”
Original Air Date (NBC): Thursday May 23, 2013
Season 1 Episode 9

Separating from Reality

Another murder and the theatrics have elevated to all new heights.

Will and Jack are at the beach, where a totem pole of human bodies rises into the sky. When Graham dissects the crime-scene he deduces that every piece put on the totem pole was done with a particular intent in mind and that the most recent death, the head of the totem pole, watched the murderer put the demented thing together. It is all a body of work/ resume for everyone to see. Graham awakes from his vision and finds himself at Dr. Lecter’s office. He doesn’t remember how he got there. Will knows he had to have driven, but the loss of time scares him. He speaks with Dr. Lecter about possible testing, but he dissuades him from the idea. Lecter feels that the problem isn’t physical, but psychological.

Will meets with Jack and apologizes for the whatever way he may have seemed the day before. Crawford doesn’t understand what he’s talking about and it makes him suspicious. Will shrugs it off and tells Jack not to worry about it. Will walks into the medical examining room where bodies are piled all over the room. Every single victim is either someone who died of natural causes who was robbed from their grave or suicides. Graham believes that it isn’t coincidence that an of those people are part of the totem pole. Graham is in his classroom talking to those in his classroom about the killer and the fact that, after being in the shadows for long, he finds a reason to show his face to the world. As soon as he finishes his line, Alana Bloom enters the room concerned that she ma have interrupted him practicing his speech. This snaps Graham back to reality as he notices that he is in the room by himself.

Alana and Will discuss their rendezvous in the episode prior and Bloom admits to having feelings for Graham. But in the end, she cannot be with him until he can become more stable because his current mental state puts the psycho-analyst in her on overdrive. This visibly breaks his heart. Its almost as if he realizes that his mental grip on reality and how he sees the world have cost him the woman he loves.

I didn’t quite follow, but long story short Lawrence Wells is the killer. He admits to his crimes and killed his last victim so that they’d find him and also to kill the progeny of his former lover. Will drops a bomb on the all-knowing Mr. Wells when he tells him that he killed his own son and not that of his former lover and her husband, at the time. The man who thought he was leaving a legacy behind only destroyed it by killing his own son.

Graham stands in front of Nicholas Boyle’s body and as he plays back the possible scenario of his death it dawns on him, like he’s psychic or something, that it was Abigal who killed him. He confronts Lecter about it and he does acknowledge a portion of the truth, but says that the only reason he even did that was to protect her from the fate of being a shadow of her father. Graham stares out the window silently brooding and agrees with Hannibal, that in order to protect her   he must lie about the end of what occurred

Hannibal is tempted to pick up a sharp object, but then decides against it  and it worked out best that way. Hannibal, Will, Freddie and Abigal have dinner together. They discuss the book and that they, Will & Hannibal, only want to do what is in Abigal’s best interest.

The Darkness Inside

Abigal Hobbs sits in what appears to be a group therapy session. She confesses that she is plagued daily by the guilt of knowing he killed other girls because he didn’t want to kill her. Abigal expresses that she wishes he was alive so that she could ask her father what about her was so wrong that he felt the urge to kill. At this point though, the people around her aren’t those in the facility with her, but the girls killed by her father. The girls begin to chant over and over ‘So he wouldn’t have killed me!’ and at its climax everything gets quiet and Nicholas Boyle is sitting alone with her.He puts the final nail in the coffin and says ‘So YOU wouldn’t have killed me.’ It scares her awake.

Freddie Lounds drops by to see Abigal and talk with her.They discuss the fact that, since the victims of her father’s killings have filed wrongful death suits. This leads Lounds and Abigal to the topic of a book. Freddie lets Abigal know that it would fetch a lot of money
and that it could be the thing to change her image. Abigal would no longer be the accomplice to a murder, but the unkowing victim of a serial killer. Abigal talks about this opportunity with Dr. Lecter and Will Graham, who try to dissuade her from doing the book because it will open up parts of herself that she may not want to truly delve into and her life will never be private.

After the discovery of Nicholas Boyle’s body, Abigal is brought in to view it because Jack Crawford believes she is hiding something from the FBI. Jack Crawford keeps the body uncovered even after Abigal Hobbs reveals that the body belongs to Nicholas, her supposed attacker. Crawford continues to push Abigal’s buttons, but she doesn’t budge for any information. Hannibal meets with Abigal later chastises her for uncovering the body. Hannibal is angry with her for breaking his trust and putting both of them in danger by uncovering the body from the snow. He asks how he can trust her now that she’s done this.

Abigal is aware, due to Will’s reaction at dinner, that he knows she killed Nicholas Boyle. The thought that more people know about it starts to gnaw at her. Hannibal tells her that she can’t bur the truth from herself forever and that is when she comes undone. Abigal tells Hannibal her dark secret. She was involved in what her father did. She knew what he was, what he did and helped him pick out the girls.  The only reason she did it was because it was either he killed those girls, strangers to herself, or her father killed her instead.  To survive she had to let those girls die in her place.