Aperitivo: A New Kind of Persuasion in Hannibal

This is an analysis of Aperitivo, the fourth episode in the third season of Hannibal. I’ll be referencing my analyses of the first, second, and third episodes, so you may want to read them if you haven’t. I’ll also be spoiling a few things from later in the show, so you’ll definitely want to finish watching unless you’re feeling brave.

While Antipasto is probably the best example of Hannibal’s departure from the mainstream, Aperitivo isn’t far behind. “Aperitivo” is actually the first course in a traditional Italian meal, not the fourth. And, true to its name, this episode’s events are chronologically the earliest.

Would it have made more sense as the season opener? Not really, considering its title character appears for all of ten seconds. (Even not in the premier, this is a strong choice for a 13-episode season).

But while there’s a distinct lack of Hannibal, there is a wealth of everything else. Every other character’s fate is explained, and we get answers to all our burning questions. Even a few not-so-burning ones.

Like: Did Frederick Chilton survive getting shot in the head?

While his loss might not have been as definitive as, say, Beverly’s, Chilton seemed extremely dead by the end of season 2. His head was shot through, and he was barely spoken of again.

And yet here he is, arguably the star of the episode.

I genuinely thought, on my first watching, that Chilton wasn’t real. There’s a definite hitch in his voice when he mentions “the dead” to Mason — it takes him two tries to get the word out. Why should he have trouble with this? No one he’s close to has died. In fact, Chilton isn’t really close to anyone, apart from himself.

And when he sees Will in the hospital, he takes the place of Abigail, who’s already been established as a ghost. How many visitors does Will need to have before we start believing they’re really there?

Of course, Chilton has to be alive — he plays a big part in the Red Dragon arc, and he’s definitely physically present for that.

Stylistically, however, he fills the role of someone who isn’t quite real. This episode is the only time he appears in this arc, and during it he talks to each character exactly once. He visits everyone who’s been wronged by Hannibal, and he tries to fire them up. His motivations are clear — he wants Hannibal brought down. So why doesn’t he do it himself?

Because he doesn’t have any agency. All he can do is flit from one person to the next, whispering into their ears the things they need to hear in order to take action. He is the spirit of revenge.

The focus of this episode is the wreckage Hannibal has left in his wake, the people he’s broken. Chilton is the thread strung among them, the mirror of their reactions. And there’s only one thing Chilton wants: for Hannibal to be caught. How well he reflects that want on the people he talks to is what drives the episode.

So while Chilton is real later, for now he might as well not be. And I’m not sure I’d put it past this show to stretch reality like that — to give a ghost his body back because he fits well in the story. It’s a strange move, but a fun one.

Chilton and Mason

Chilton’s first meeting is with Mason Verger, with whom he has a wound-comparing session.

Are you wearing makeup? How long does it take you to put your face on in the morning?

Now that I’ve got the routine down, no time at all.

I tell you what. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

It’s a strangely sensual echo of Margot and Will’s season 2 conversation just before the famous Stag Man fivesome scene:

Are you scarred?

Probably more than I know.

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Just like with Will and Margot, it’s a baring and bonding of two people who’ve been wronged. And just like with Will and Margot, there’s more to it than just sensuality. This is the root of Chilton’s mission — to commiserate over Hannibal’s violence and encourage revenge. And he’s definitely found an eager participant.

You do not want a therapist. You want a profiler.

I want to understand Hannibal Lecter to better understand myself.

At first Mason pretends to align himself with Will, claiming that he’s on the same kind of self-discovery journey he took in Secondo. But that’s short-lived — very quickly he’ll switch to emulating Hannibal, cannibalism and all. Mason wants results, not understanding. And Chilton knows it.

How do you relieve the agony of waiting for Dr. Lecter’s capture? What do you fantasize about? I wonder what would happen if Hannibal Lecter was in your hands.

I worry we’re heading into territory not secured by your fee. I think I need to look elsewhere for somebody to attend to my emotional well-being. Goodbye, Doctor Chilton.

Happy hunting.

If Chilton is the spirit of revenge, there’s not much he can teach Mason. Mason is hell-bent on vengeance, and he sure doesn’t need any coaxing. And unfortunately for Chilton, coaxing is all he can do. Chilton has no agency in this episode — once the conversation drifts toward action, toward profiling and capturing Hannibal, he can go no further.

It’s territory not secured by his fee.

Chilton is essentially a ghost, and all he can do is spread Mason’s news around. He ought to be able to find a profiler who’s willing and able to help Mason out. He knows a few good candidates, after all.

Will and Hannibal

One of those candidates is Will, whom he might assume to be the most wronged of anybody. Our introduction to Will suggests otherwise, though.

His scene opens with yet another repeat of Mizumono, but this time the perspective is from inside Will’s stomach, the same place we saw the antlers’ point of view in Primavera. And just like in Primavera, this is Will’s vision as he sleeps. It’s the perspective of the darkness inside him that Hannibal’s violence is bringing out.

As Will is being cut open, we hear just two lines of dialogue:

You were supposed to leave.

We couldn’t leave without you.

In Mizumono these lines are said before Hannibal stabs Will, but now they happen during the act. This is Mizumono at its most pure. There are no mentions of betrayal or time reversals — boiled down to its most basic substance, this scene is about how Will wanted to save Hannibal, and Hannibal wanted to take Will with him.

And, of course, how Hannibal stabbed him.

The following shot is a closeup of their abdomens as Will bleeds and it is, like Chilton and Mason’s unmasking, undeniably sensual. Finally we see Hannibal holding Will, silently stroking his hair while Will gasps in pain. There’s no more dialogue, and Abigail is nowhere to be found. In this iteration, Will is thinking only about Hannibal, and about the tenderness caught up in his violence.

Somehow this is more disturbing for Will that the complete replay he lived through in Primavera. Where before he calmly opened his eyes, this time he’s gasping and disoriented — he’s more freaked out by the memory of being in Hannibal’s arms than of dying on the floor.

That’s because this is his distilled impression of that night — he opens his eyes to a blinding light that is the full realization not just of what happened, but how he feels about it. This is what it’s like for him to wake up without Abigail as the protective surrogate for his feelings.

Chilton and Will

The same hospital scene from Primavera plays out, and despite waking up so differently, Will’s still thirsty — a sign of his desire for Hannibal’s influence. And just like last time, Will sees Abigail’s silhouette in the door. This time, however, she fades into Chilton holding a bouquet of flowers.

Hello Frederick.

You were expecting someone else?

I was hoping for someone else.

He knew exactly how to cut you. They said it was surgical. He wanted you to live.

This last line is an echo of Abigail’s — what she said about herself in Primavera is now being said about Will. Hannibal deliberately kept him alive, and Will knows it.

He left us to die.

Will’s response to both Abigail and Chilton is the same. And so is Abigail’s reply:

But we didn’t.

This line is still delivered by Abigail, but it might as well be a different person. The Abigail in Primavera was dressed in new clothes with a neat little bandage over her throat. She seemed knowing, maybe even happy. She was Will’s attraction to Hannibal, and she was a little smug about being alive in spite of Will.

This is not that Abigail. This Abigail is dressed in her clothes from Mizumono. She’s covered in blood. And when she says her line she is matter-of-fact, resigned.

This isn’t the Abigail of Will’s subconscious that talked him through his feelings. This is Will’s grief.

At this point the dialogue diverges, and Chilton takes over:

Couple of suckers we’ve been. He set us up and knocked us down. What bothers me the most is I think it was easy for him. Shooting monkeys in a barrel. You had Encephalitis. I do not know what my excuse was.

Compulsive imitation.

Chilton is demonstrating more compulsive imitation — he’s trying to commiserate with Will, to get him to see them as equals. But Will is having none of it and calls him out on it. And rightly so, because whether he knows it or not, Chilton is far from done with imitating Hannibal.

How dull! … But maybe. I am learning all sorts of new things about myself these days.

With this line Chilton gestures to the flowers he’s brought for Will. What could this mean? It can’t be that he’s learning, well into middle age, about hospital visit etiquette.

It’s not.

Thanks to the imagery in Primavera, flowers have taken on a new meaning. In the myth of Chloris and Zephyrus, flowers fall out of Chloris’ mouth as she’s ravished and transforms into the goddess Flora. It’s a concept that obsesses Hannibal, that he connects to his own seductive influence toward the divinity of violence.

And now Chilton is trying his hand at it. By bringing Will flowers, he’s attempting to influence Will himself. He’s continuing his imitation of Hannibal by becoming his own kind of Zephyrus.

I’m learning new things about you, too.

Well, imitation allows us to better understand the behavior of others.

I have great empathy for you, Will. Both of us eviscerated and accused. I have literally felt your pain.

The best way to influence Will is to get him to see himself in you, and Chilton knows it. He lays it on a little thick, going so far as to use the word “empathy,” which has always been Will’s word.

We have matching scars.

And Will lays it on thick in response. This is an echo of Mason and Chilton’s scar comparison, but it’s all wrong. Because while their scars match in shape, they don’t match in substance. Gideon eviscerated Chilton as an act of agency, a claim of power over someone who’d once held power over him. It was a clean statement.

Hannibal’s evisceration of Will is a little muddier. It was a confrontation between two equals, a punishment for betrayal. Will’s scar doesn’t hold the same meaning as Chilton’s, and Will knows it. Will is laying it on thick in mockery.

But Chilton doesn’t give up.

There’s opportunity here. For both of us. We can catch the man who framed and maimed us.

This line is a strong echo of Hannibal’s conversation with Will in Tome-Wan, when he first suggests that they run away together:

There are extraordinary circumstances here, Will. And unusual opportunities.

For whom?

For both of us.

Chilton can’t know this is what Hannibal said, of course, but the sentiment is similar. Chilton wants Will as a partner, as an accomplice. He’s trying to cozy up to Will by assuring him that they’re the same, telling him that hunting Hannibal is a pleasure they can share. He’s the side of Will’s conscience that thinks Hannibal deserves to be brought down — he is the opposite of Primavera Abigail.

And we already know that Will is going to choose Abigail.

There’s no opportunity here, Frederick. Not for you.

Chilton is here to try to coax Will into taking revenge. But just like with Mason, coax is all he can do. And of all the moves for Chilton to make, trying to take Hannibal’s place is probably not the wisest. Will doesn’t want revenge, and another Hannibal is the last thing he needs. He’s having a hard enough time dealing with this one.

Chilton tries one more tack with Will before giving up:

The optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true. This is your best possible world, Will. You’re not getting a better one.

This is, of course, where the talk of all possible worlds with Primavera Abigail comes from. In that conversation Will didn’t believe he was in the best world — he believed he was in the world that had to happen. Separated from his feelings for Hannibal, he examined the concept a lot more calmly.

But now, without those feelings externalized, Will fantasizes about his best possible world. And good lord…

Will’s Best Possible World

In Will’s fantasy he, Hannibal, and Jack are all wearing the clothes they had on at the end of Mizumono. This is the dinner that never happened. The food, however, is what Hannibal served Will at their last supper — there’s that same broccoflower and that same lobster crawling out of a cantaloupe. And, of course, there’s the same Praying Hands Lamb.

The significance of the lamb is not lost on Hannibal and Will in Mizumono:

Then this would be our last supper.

Of this life… I served lamb.

Sacrificial.

I don’t need a sacrifice. Do you?

I need him to know.

In Mizumono, Hannibal insists that he doesn’t need a sacrifice. In asking Will if he does, however, Hannibal is setting him up to be his own sacrifice. By insisting that they follow through with their dinner with Jack, Will confirms his betrayal to Hannibal and effectively sacrifices himself. Now, in retrospect, Will knows what the lamb meant, knows that Hannibal was offering him an out.

But in Will’s best possible world, he doesn’t accept the out. He and Hannibal don’t run away together the night before. The best possible world for Will isn’t the one in which nobody has to die.

Because it turns out Will really did want a sacrifice. He really did want Jack to know what he had become. Or at least a part of him did. Even in his fantasy he’s still torn, and the two halves of himself split apart and make eye contact with their respective confidants. And yet, just like every other time he’s been forced into a moment of decision, Will waits until the last minute and picks Hannibal. He holds Jack down while Hannibal cuts his throat.

Importantly, Will’s never found out how Hannibal knew about his betrayal. As far as he knows, there’s nothing he could have done to prevent it. He also couldn’t have prevented Jack from going to dinner early. Everything about how the evening played out was beyond his control.

This means Will’s fantasy isn’t about how he could have behaved differently to reach a different ending — it’s about what he wishes would have happened, his best possible world. It is, as he calls his fantasized shooting of Ingram the social worker in Su-Zakana, “a missed opportunity.”

In other words, Will is a heck of a lot darker than we ever thought.

Jack and Will

The fantasy fades into welding sparks as Will works on a motor. It is, presumably, for the boat behind him — the boat that he’ll take across the ocean at the end of the episode. Even now, Will is planning to follow Hannibal.

And even before Jack comes, he’s thinking about Hannibal as he works. He remembers being dropped to the floor, and he remembers Hannibal’s face close to his. Again, he’s focusing on moments that could almost be described as tender. There’s no sign of Abigail — Will is focused exclusively on Hannibal.

It’s important to remember, of course, that this scene takes place sometime inside the chronology of Primavera — after the hospital but before Italy. This is still the same timeline in which Will struggles with his externalized attraction to Hannibal. We’re just seeing the scenes in which it’s not externalized.

And when it’s not, apparently, it’s extremely intense.

Jack approaches and starts an understandably delicate conversation about what happened in Miuzumono.

I had hoped you would come look for me. But I understand why you didn’t.

What can I do for you, Jack?

Well I’m here to, uh, make sure that you don’t contradict the official narrative.

Oh?

Well we’re… officers of the FBI, wounded in the course of heroic duty.

Well that’s not true for either of us.

Of course, this isn’t really why he’s here, and they both know it. Jack wants an explanation for what happened at the end of Mizumono, specifically for why Will called Hannibal to warn him.

Well, we were supposed to go together. That’s… that’s on me. That’s my foul, my bad.

Not all our choices are consciously calculated.

Jack is being downright passive-aggressive. He owns up freely to his misstep because he knows Will has a doozy of a misstep of his own, and he’d like to hear him try to explain himself. And Will does, in a way. He ostensibly gives Jack an out for his own mistake by suggesting that people don’t always calculate their choices. Jack didn’t consciously choose to go to Hannibal’s early, just like certain other people didn’t consciously choose to make certain phone calls…

But Jack doesn’t want to hear it. He wants answers.

No. But our decisions are. You remember when you decided to call Hannibal?

I wasn’t decided when I called him. I just called him. I deliberated while the phone rang. I decided… when I heard his voice.

You told him we knew.

I told him to leave. Cuz I … wanted him to run.

It’s worth noting that Jack is right — Will did tell Hannibal that the FBI knew. But Will insists with Jack (and, importantly, with Hannibal during their Mizumono confrontation) that he told him to leave. Where does this disconnect come from?

As far as Will knew at the time, Hannibal trusted him completely — it would only make sense for him to take his warning seriously. And since their plan was to run immediately after Jack’s death, not much would have to be changed to run away sooner with the advent of real danger. It was a natural conclusion for Will to make.

But deeper than that is the subtext in Will’s mind. Will must have assumed, with all their talk of it, that his choosing Hannibal would seamlessly flow into their running away together. His warning was his final decision — in it he signed on to join Hannibal, and all that that entailed.

Will got caught up in his decision and assumed everything would follow it.

How much of this subtext is Jack aware of? At least some — Will may have been deep under cover, but no cover is so deep that it warrants giving away the FBI’s plans.

Why?

Um. Because… because he… he was my friend. And because I wanted to run away with him.

Poor Jack. As he said in Mizumono, he was willing to go to dinner at Hannibal’s house because he was confident Will was his man in the room. Now Jack, Will, and we all know that that wasn’t really the case. As in all things, Will would have waited until the last minute and chosen Hannibal.

Jack might as well have seen Will’s best possible world fantasy, too.

Chilton and Alana

Next we finally get confirmation about Alana’s fate. For anyone who’s counting, this is fifteen minutes into episode 4, or exactly one third of the way through the entire season.

Alana is alive, it turns out, and well enough to be paid a visit by Chilton.

I do not mean to kick you while you are down. I’m just reminding you how you got down.

And who I’m down with.

We could all use a little group therapy while we’re down here.

This is perhaps the most outright acknowledgement of Chilton’s role in this episode. He is the instigator of group therapy, the link attempting to bring together everyone who’s been wronged by Hannibal.

There’s only one “we” you’re really interested in, Frederick, and that “we” isn’t really interested in you.

And Alana’s point is just as blatant — Chilton is most interested in Will, and Will is the only one who won’t respond to him. Chilton’s goal is very clear: to bring Hannibal down. And Will simply won’t have it. Alana knows she’s not Chilton’s first choice, but Chilton tries to convince her anyway. He needs to convince someone.

Of course, there’s no discernible reason why Alana would be a better profiler than Chilton, apart from the fact that Chilton has no agency. He needs someone to fill the role he can’t fill with Mason, to perform the task he can’t get Will to perform.

Will Graham could use a breakthrough.

Being broken was his breakthrough.

Being broken was yours. Will has not had his breakthrough yet. He is saving that for Dr. Lecter.

It would be the best thing for his therapy, really.

When did Chilton get so perceptive? When he stopped being a real person, that’s when. Alana pushes back against him, assuming Will must hold a grudge against Hannibal, but Chilton understands that Will is still undergoing his becoming. He knows that Will’s breakthrough will come when he and Hannibal meet, when he has to choose once and for all.

It’s only a matter of time before they are back in each other’s orbit. Shame not to have the good seats, if only to support poor Will.

That would require some manipulation.

Some English on the ball, as it were.

Chilton convinces Alana, and it doesn’t take much.

Importantly, Chilton is wearing a tie in this scene, something that was missing during his meetings with Mason and Will. Why the change?

Compulsive imitation.

The tie is a key element to Hannibal’s person suit — if we ever see him in a collared shirt without it, we can be sure that his true nature is showing a bit more than usual. It’s missing in the very first episode when he calls Garret Jacob Hobbs, and in the season 1 finale when Will confronts him in Minnesota. Of course it’s missing at the end of Mizumono.

Chilton is imitating Hannibal’s role as influencer, and he’s learning as he goes. During his first two meetings, Chilton goes tie-less, imitating Hannibal’s darker nature. And both times, he strikes out. He can’t help Mason because Mason is way ahead of him, and he can’t help Will because Will is beyond help.

Maybe both of these meetings were doomed from the beginning. But in any event, Chilton makes a marked change in dress code when he sees Alana, and again when he sees Jack. He’s wearing a tie, and he’s much more pulled together. Just like Hannibal, he’s discovered that you can get a lot further influencing people if you’re wrapped up in a nice package. And it’s true — where his attempts with Mason and Will failed, Chilton makes real progress with Alana.

Alana and Will

Next Alana visits Hannibal’s old home. She remembers seeing him bashing down the pantry door, and she hears his voice from a conversation they’ve never had:

You were so afraid of me.

That last time I saw you. Before that last time I saw you.

On the second line, Hannibal’s voice is doubled with Will’s. It has the strange effect of bringing out Hugh Dancy’s real accent, but more to the point it demonstrates Alana’s new confusion about Will. She spent so much of season 2 afraid of him. For a while, she was afraid of both of them. And in remembering her fear of Hannibal, she just as readily remembers her fear of Will — she doesn’t know where he stands anymore.

And in visiting this place where she was so afraid, she finds Will. He’s sitting on the ground in the exact spot that “died.”

What are you doing here?

Visiting old friends.

You’re not tempted to forget?

I don’t wanna forget. I’m building rooms in my memory palace for all my friends.

Friendship with Hannibal is blackmail elevated to the level of love.

This is not a bad definition of Will and Hannibal’s friendship in the second half of season 2. Each has damning information on the other that could be revealed at any time. Will dives back into their friendship with the goal of revealing Hannibal’s secret, but in the process he realizes he likes it right where he is. He comes for the blackmail, but he stays for the love.

The mutually unspoken pact to ignore the worst in one another in order to continue enjoying the best.

Will doesn’t argue with Alana’s definition of friendship. Instead he adds to it. But what’s the worst he and Hannibal have to ignore in each other? It’s not the murder, that’s for sure. The murder is what draws them together, what helps Will to understand himself. That’s the best.

What Will and Hannibal have to ignore in each other is their betrayals. This is Will’s present struggle — the need to forgive.

After everything he’s done, can you still ignore the worst in him?

This is, of course, a repeat of the line Will uses on Abigail in Primavera. That part of himself already knows the answer. But right now, Will is with another part of himself — his grief. He won’t even answer the question, presumably because the answer is too painful.

I came here to be alone, Alana. If you wouldn’t mind.

Alana leaves, and Will turns back to Abigail, covered in blood. Just like in Primavera, Will needs to sort through his feelings by himself — being with Abigail is being alone.

This is the Abigail who represents his grief, not his ambivalence. This is Will grappling with his forgiveness. Now, at least, he and Abigail are smiling. Forgiveness might not be far behind.

Alana and Mason

By the next scene Alana’s out of her wheelchair and sporting a snappy new cane — she’s completely taken over what would have been Chilton’s role if he’d had any agency of his own.

She and Margot meet for the first time and deliver maybe the sexiest gay subtext since Hannibal told Tobias he needed new strings for his harpsichord, and then Margot leads her to Mason.

Mason is, he says, happy that dogs ate his face. It’s brought him closer to Jesus and led to his salvation.

I want you to understand, Dr. Bloom, that this is not a revenge thing. I’ve forgiven Dr. Lecter as our Savior forgave the Roman soldiers.

Mason is referring, presumably, to Jesus’ line on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Of course Hannibal knew exactly what he was doing, and Mason isn’t really in the forgiving mood. He’s found religion, but he’s more interested in the smiting than anything else. It’s a perversion of Hannibal’s own obsession with divinity, and it will come up again later.

Forgiveness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Mr. Verger. I don’t need religion to appreciate the idea of old testament revenge.

Alana has no illusions about her own motivation — she and Mason make a good team.

Jack and Chilton

Next We see Jack survive his Mizumono evening and wake up next to Bella. Some amount of time later he’s good as new and packing up his desk at the FBI, talking to Chilton.

Every useful hoop our mind can jump through begins with a certain degree of attention. Focus is the most important thing any of us can do. You… you are losing focus, Jack.

I have re-focused.

Forced retirement at the FBI. You fall in love with the bureau, but it does not fall in love with you.

Behavioral science doesn’t have the resources. Homeland security’s the priority now. Terrorists are more frightening than psychopaths.

Not to me.

Chilton is desperate to see Hannibal caught, but he can’t take the action for himself. Jack is in forced retirement — they ought to be on similar footing when it comes to hunting Hannibal. But again, Chilton is reduced to persuasion alone. He is Jack’s conscience, telling him not to give up.

You are alive because you did not pull that glass from your neck. Will Graham is alive because Hannibal Lecter likes him that way.

Maybe it’s one of those friendships that ends after the disemboweling.

Just like Alana earlier, Jack won’t accept that Will and Hannibal are drawn to each other. Even though Jack’s heard it from Will himself, life is easier if he believes it’s not true.

I would argue with these two that’s tantamount to flirtation. Will is going to lead you right to him.

Oh no, he’s not. Not to me. I’ve let them both go. I’ve let it all go.

You dangle Will Graham and now you cut bait? You’re letting Hannibal have him hook line and sinker.

Chilton knows how to change tack to best get to Jack. This is his fourth attempt at influencing, and he’s getting better at it. If Jack isn’t interested as an FBI agent, then surely he’s interested as Will’s friend.

If Will’s being seduced by darkness, it’s Jack’s fault. Jack has pushed Will again and again, often when he knew he was pushing too far. His grief over this fact nearly destroyed him in the first half of season 2. And now here he is, finally aware of how close Will and Hannibal have become — all because of his plan to use Will as bait.

Jack walks out on Chilton, but it clearly strikes a nerve, because that very evening, Jack decides to let Bella go.

Jack and Bella

Is this the direct result of Chilton’s urgings? Jack is wearing the same clothes, so we can be pretty sure it’s the same day. If Chilton were a regular colleague, this would feel like a rash move. But if he’s a persuasive force, more like Will’s manifestation of Abigail in his head, it’s fitting.

Bella’s death is a beautiful compromise between what they both wanted — she gets to slip away, not knowing she’s inconvenienced Jack, and Jack gets to be with her as she dies. They don’t get to say goodbye, but they’ve been saying goodbye in a way for months now, and this is the purest, best way this could happen for either of them. It’s an action born entirely out of love.

It’s also reminiscent of Hannibal’s own action with Will at the end of Mizumono, when he gives him the option to let himself slip away peacefully:

You can make it all go away. Put your head back, close your eyes, wade into the quiet of the stream.

As Hannibal speaks, his face inches from Will’s, a single tear slides down his face. Hannibal takes away Bella’s peaceful death on a coin toss, but with Will he offers it. Because of love, his cavalier treatment of death becomes something deeper. And here it is again, echoed in Jack’s own offering and his own single tear.

In the next scene this mirroring of Hannibal and Will’s relationship is brought out in full force.

Hannibal has delivered flowers and a note to Bella’s funeral. The note contains a stanza from the poem A Fever by John Donne:

O wrangling schools, that search what fire
Shall burn this world, had none the wit
Unto this knowledge to aspire,
That this her fever might be it?

This is actually the fourth stanza of seven in the poem. You can read it in full here, but for the sake of brevity, this is my tiny interpretation.

The poem is addressed to the speaker’s beloved, who’s dying of a fever. He begins by saying that he’ll hate the world when she’s gone, then says that since she is the world, the world itself will die without her in it.

Next is the stanza Hannibal’s written, saying all the theologies that have speculated on how the world will end were not smart enough to find the real cause — the death of the speaker’s beloved.

He goes on to say that, since she is the whole world, a mere fever is too small to kill her. He ends apologizing for getting carried away, even though he knows she can’t die, because he can’t stand the thought of losing her.

Of course this last stanza is wishful thinking. His beloved isn’t actually the whole world, and this fever will have no trouble killing her. It’s a beautiful poem about love and loss, and perfectly appropriate for the situation.

Except it’s not entirely about Bella. This episode is chronologically the first — this may even be the earliest glimpse we get of Hannibal. And as we learn in Antipasto, he spends his first eight months in Europe treating Will’s betrayal as a death. He’s attempting to live his new life and Will, who was his whole world, is dead to him.

But while Bella has actually been killed by her fever, Will hasn’t. His death is hypothetical, just like that of the speaker’s beloved. And in thinking about it, about the possibility of losing him for good, Hannibal is overcome. He’s probably dwelling on the poem’s final lines as he considers the emptiness of the new life he’s made:

For I had rather owner be
Of thee one hour, than all else ever.

Importantly, we see both Jack and Hannibal holding the note. When it’s in Jack’s hand, it’s facing to the left of the screen. When it’s in Hannibal’s it’s facing to the right. This effect is demonstrated perfectly by this cross-fade.

After Jack reads the note, we see a single tear fall onto it. I’ll give you one guess which direction it’s facing.

Hannibal actually cries as he writes. We’ve seen that he’s alone at his desk — this isn’t a performance of emotions. He’s crying over Will’s loss and, probably, over the realization that this loss doesn’t have to be permanent. It’s an echo of the single tear he shed during Mizumono, and a clue to his eventual reaching out to Will in Antipasto.

And Jack seems to understand the implication. When Will arrives, he gives him the note — he knows it’s meant just as much for him.

Importantly, Will is wearing his glasses, the symbol of his need to hide his true self. He’s already admitted to Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal (and, by extension, betray and kill Jack). He and Jack are on awkward footing at the moment, but he can’t skip Bella’s funeral. So he wears his glasses to be the normal, supportive friend he wants to be.

Jack understands Will’s attraction to Hannibal now, and with this letter he understands Hannibal’s attraction to Will. He passes it on to him, but with a warning. After everything, Jack really does care about Will.

She had to die on me. I knew it was coming, but it still smarts… I know what’s coming for you, Will. You don’t have to die on me, too.

Does Jack believe Hannibal wants to kill Will? It seems unlikely. As Chilton has just told him, Hannibal chose to keep Will alive. And now he’s passing on Hannibal’s letter of grief to him. Jack is talking about death much the same way Pazzi talks about it in Primavera, and the way I believe Will and Hannibal talk about it in The Wrath of the Lamb.

Death, for Will, is the loss of his soul. It’s his final becoming.

Mason and Cordell

Next we see Cordell massaging Mason’s face and discussing divine transformation with him.

At communions around the Earth, the devout believe that through the miracle of transubstantiation, they eat the flesh and blood of Christ.

It is an impressive ceremony.

I need to prepare an even more impressive ceremony with no transubstantiation necessary.

This is reminiscent of Hannibal’s (and now Will’s) understanding of the divinity in both violence and transformation. Just like La Primavera and fireflies, transubstantiation has both a bodily violence and a holiness to it. It fits right in.

But Mason, as in all things religious, has blown past the spirituality to get straight to the gratification. He wants the ceremony without the miracle, the act without the substance. He doesn’t want divinity — he wants revenge.

Hannibal would not approve.

Alana and Mason

Mason and Alana talk some more about revenge and about Hannibal’s capacity for feeling.

Tell me, Dr. Bloom. Does he favor you?

I think I amused him. Things either amuse him or they don’t, and if they don’t… well, you didn’t.

You feel he ever genuinely cared for you?

I have no idea how Dr. Lecter genuinely feels about me. Last time we spoke, he promised he’d kill me.

Alana believes Hannibal sees a dichotomy of amusing and unamusing people — she genuinely doesn’t know if he’s capable of anything else. This is an interesting echo of Will’s conversation with Abigail in the chapel in Primavera. When Abigail suggests that Hannibal misses him, Will insists that he’s just playing with him:

Hannibal follows several trains of thought at once, without distraction from any. One of the trains is always for his own amusement.

While a part of Will believes Hannibal is showing real emotion, another part just can’t reconcile the fact. This part is now echoed in Alana.

And it’s not the only part of Will Alana is echoing.

Huh. Tell me, how does it feel to use understanding as a predator’s tool?

I’m using it as I’ve always used it. A psychiatric tool.

Why not take this to Jack Crawford?

Jack’s done at the FBI. A footnote in his own Evil Minds Museum.

Alana is playing a game very similar to Will’s in the second half of season 2. As we’ll learn in Dolce, she will take this to Jack Crawford — she’s planning on feeding information to the FBI. Just like Will, she’s playing a dangerous game between Jack and a killer. And just like Will, she’s using her understanding to achieve her goal.

Will tried to use his understanding as a predator’s tool in season 2, but his understanding got ahead of him. Alana’s doomed to have some trouble of her own.

Jack and Alana

At the end of the day (and it’s the only scene filmed at night, as if the entire episode has taken a single day) Jack comes to Will’s house to find Alana feeding his dogs.

He’s already gone, Jack. Will knows what he has to do. Do you?

The question is: Does Will know what he has to do? That’s very much up for debate. He’s spent this whole episode dwelling on Hannibal with what really seems like fondness, but we know that he’s carrying that fondness at arm’s length in the shape of Abigail’s ghost.

So if Will doesn’t know what he has to do, how does Alana? Most likely she doesn’t. Alana succumbed to Chilton’s coaxing more easily than anybody, and she’s now playing through Will’s season 2 undercover operation. The difference is that she believes in what she’s doing and isn’t in much danger of being seduced to the dark side by Mason. (Who would be?)

In short, Alana understands revenge and she understands ends justifying means. She likely believes Will has the same motivations. She, at least, is confident in Will’s goal.

Even if Jack isn’t.

Jack has seen Will in a way Alana hasn’t. He knows what Will’s intentions were the night of Mizumono. He’s read Hannibal’s letter of grief. In Secondo he tells Pazzi that he’s not here for il Mostro — he’s here for Will Graham.

Alana and Jack are at odds here — their understandings of Will reflect his own opposing understandings of himself.

Will Alone

The final scene is of Will sailing all the damn way to Italy. It would make a lot more sense to fly, so why doesn’t he?

Because it wouldn’t be intimate.

Will has built his means of following Hannibal with his own hands. Just as he couldn’t kill him with an impersonal gun, he can’t chase after him on an impersonal plane.

And what’s more, getting this boat seaworthy has taken time. Eight months, to be precise. It’s given him a chance to reflect upon his course of action. And, as we see during the motor repair scene, he’s been doing a lot of reflecting.

Setting sail isn’t a moment of decision, but it’s one step closer. It’s picking up the phone and letting it ring. Will can decide when he hears Hannibal’s voice.

It’s hard to argue that Aperitivo doesn’t feel a little out of place. This is partly because it’s chronologically out of order, but it’s also because the number of characters suddenly expands. For three episodes we’ve scarcely had a scene that didn’t feature Hannibal or Will — now a whole cast of secondary characters have taken center stage.

But it’s still the Hannibal and Will show. Every character is a mirror held up to them, every scene an echo of their relationship. The main character isn’t really even a person. Aperitivo is jarring but necessary — it answers old questions and it further sets the stage for a showdown.

But just like the secondary characters are support for Hannibal and Will’s relationship, the episode is support for what’s to come. Just like Will, we’re all looking forward to getting to Italy, even though we’ve chosen to take the long way.