Review: Hannibal “Trou Normand”

This week’s Hannibal, ‘Trou Normand’, sees a return to the story of Graham and Abigail, the girl whose father was killing and eating women that looked like his daughter.  The story follows the typical investigation into yet another serial killer (these people do seem to be rather prolific), this time a guy that turned all of his victims into a human totem pole.  While checking out the scene of the crime and doing his thing, Graham has another black out, this time awakening three hours later and standing in Hannibal’s office.

While the story of hunting the killer plays out, we get a reintroduction of Abigail.  The reporter lady, Freddie, has her eye on making some hefty cash by writing Abigail’s story.  Abigail, for her part, seems to want the world to know what happened.  Naturally, this concerns Hannibal since he helped Abigail dispose of a body recently and does not feel like having his secret exposed.

Graham, by using his keen perception, manages to uncover the secret, figuring out that Abigail did kill Nicholas and that Hannibal was most likely involved.  He confronts Hannibal on the subject, but the good doctor uses a bit of twisted logic to convince Graham that not only was the killing an accident, but to expose Abigail would be the worst thing he could do.  Abigail needs their protection and Graham, being already laden with guilt over killing her father, agrees to stay quiet.

But lurking in the background is Crawford, who still suspects Abigail is involved in the murder and that she was helping her father out with his own killings as well.  The stage is set for a showdown between the supporters of Abigail and those that want to see her in jail.  Where Graham will eventually come out in this struggle remains to be seen.  The episode is topped off with the revelation of what most of us have probably already been suspecting - that Abigail did indeed help her father.  She was the one that found out about the girls and led him to them.  She confides this information in Hannibal who, of course, already knew.

This episode takes a nice slow pace, no doubt setting the stage for some more hectic activity in the final few episodes.  Nothing huge is revealed, but Graham now knows more about Hannibal than both of them would like.  With Hannibal’s growing friendship, we have to wonder how far he will allow Graham to go before deciding that he’s better off as a victim.  We also have to wonder the same thing for Abigail, who is increasingly becoming both a threat to Hannibal and his potential ally/protégé.  Though it’s not the best episode of the season, it’s still a concise story that keeps Hannibal moving toward its inevitably unpleasant conclusion.  For a quick look at what next week has in store, check out this link.

People totem courtesy of collider.com