We all knew something bad was going to happen to Mason Verger. The entire show was arguably building to it. And boy, were they not shy about the payoff, in one of the most disturbing episodes of Hannibal we’ve ever seen.
This was largely a show about paying off the Mason arc. Will and Hannibal are seemingly in accord; they’re comparing notes, discussing strategies, and teasing each other, the way friends tend to do. But they’re also playing with fire. Mason is a spoiled monster who doesn’t like people playing with his toys, and both Hannibal and Will have upset him… so he’s going to feed them to his pigs.
Or, that’s the plan. The show’s not called “Mason Verger,” so, needless to say, it goes horribly awry.
But before we get to that, we get to the stunning reveal that Jack Crawford is, as he puts it, a good fisherman himself. He’s lured Bedelia Du Maurier to the FBI, where she confesses she’s yet another one of Hannibal’s “persuaded.” Bedelia raises the important question of just how clever and in control Hannibal is, best represented by a meal he serves Jack where the hunter and hunted chase each other in a circle frozen in aspic.
Yes, Hannibal serves a jello salad to Jack, and it looks amazing. He’s that good of a cook.
The most horrific part of the show, though, is Hannibal dosing Mason with psychedelics, in a truly disturbing hallucination sequence, seemingly done entirely in camera. Hannibal hands Mason a knife and, well, Mason proceeds to feed most of his face to Will’s dogs. We never see the full extent of the damage; Mason is hidden mostly in shadow. But we can hear it, and what little we do see… hoo boy.
Hannibal does break Mason’s neck, and leaves him to the tender mercies of his sister. We’re left with the disturbing implication that Mason, while now an invalid, is plotting what little revenge he has left.
The ending features Hannibal and Will agreeing that Jack needs closure. Hannibal will reveal himself. How that pays off… well, we’ll find out next week.
Some more thoughts:
- Mason’s mask is a nice shout-out to Michael Pitt’s last job.
- “I’m full of myself!” gets my vote for most disturbing line ever uttered on Hannibal.
- Mads Mikkelsen oddly gets the funniest lines this episode. Black comedy, admittedly, but observing a mafiosi shouldn’t have pulled out the scalpel before being knocked out is pretty damn funny.
- Anybody else think that Will’s going down with Hannibal? Even Jack admits he can’t protect him.
Any thoughts yourself? Let us know in the comments!