The Wrath of the Lamb Part IV — The Plan

The FBI’s plan is terrible.

And that makes sense, when you consider that Will came up with it. Jack is incredulous. When Will explains that Dolarhyde will come after Hannibal, he says “You sound pretty sure.” Hannibal is even more incredulous: “That sounds weak to you. Even as you say it, it sounds weak.” So why does anyone go along with it? That I am not sure of. Alana, specifically, has every reason to stop it. She and her family would probably be safer with a hundred free Dragons than a single free Hannibal. That I genuinely have trouble digesting.

However, Will’s motives can be read pretty straightforwardly. He can’t go back to his family life, and he’s come to realize that he wants to be with Hannibal. So he establishes a crackpot plan that uses him as bait.

Bait was a big theme in season two — a lot of fishing metaphors were flying. In his memory palace, when Will teaches Abigail how to fish, he tells her to “name the bait on your hook after somebody you cherished.” Abigail asks if this is “to say goodbye,” but Will explains that “if the person you named it after cherished you, as the superstition goes, you will catch the fish.”

And here we have Will naming Hannibal as his bait. Is this a slam dunk? Not really. This is far from the only use of bait in this show. But it is the last. And, just to be clear, the Dragon does come. They catch their fish.

But are they saying goodbye? Let’s examine that in Part V.