This episode lets you know up front where all of our main players in the show are at. Jack is once again in charge of the old FBI division and he seems to be even more cold-hearted than before. Hannibal is caught and placed in a rather nice psychiatric hospital which is now run by his ex-lover Alana rather than Dr. Chilton. Dr. Chilton and his slimy self is doing just fine as always. In fact, he’s now a world famous author who has written his own book on “Hannibal The Cannibal.” Oh, but Alana has a little surprise for him. Hannibal is now writing his own book and it’s sure to tear Chilton’s book of lies to shreds. This episode picks up where the book The Red Dragon does, but unlike the book we have an entirely new history and context to understand the characters in. Will and Hannibal are by far closer in the show then they are in the book or movie moving way past a simple working relationship.
Anyway, Jack plays a really evil card by showing the photos of the two families The Tooth Fairy have slaughtered. Now that Will has a family of his own, how can he resist helping another family? His own wife tells him that it be OK if he went and helped catch this vicious killer in order to save another family’s life. Will surprisingly pulls out a letter he’s been keeping for a long time begging him not to take this case that will throw him back in to the game. I doubt Hannibal was earnest with his plea. It feels like he’s trying a bit of reverse psychology on Will that’s just not fair.
When Will does go to the house of the latest family slaughter it is clear that Will is shaken by the crime scene. At this point he had officially recovered from the nightmares and murders haunting his ever waking moments. Now, he must go back to his old ways of seeing things like the killer in order to work on catching him. He struggles so much to get in to that mind set because what he ends up seeing is truly disturbing. An entire family is slaughtered and then badly mutilated by having glass shoved in to their orifices. Yes, it’s as horrible as it sounds. The show, as usual, did not slack off on the blood and gore. We later see Will downing a big bottle of some large liquid to forget about the things he had to visualize and he’s sad when he calls his wife and she doesn’t pick up. Presumably, she doesn’t pick up because she’s busy as she loves Will very much and wanted him to take this mission. Will had such a difficult time dealing with seeing inside of the mind of a killer again that he goes to Jack and asks for something unimaginable. He says in order to do his job like he used to, he must think like he used to. In order to do that, he must see Hannibal.
