Near the end of the first episode of season three, Hannibal asks Bedelia, his former therapist turned captive and accomplice: “Observe or participate?” Of course, Hannibal is in the middle of beating a man bloody and he wants to know if she is just watching or if she’s going to help. “Observing,” she says, with a little bit of blood smeared on her face. After he’s dispatched with the man, he asks Bedelia if she had figured out both of their motivations and what would subsequently happen. She says that she had. He says: “Then you were participating.”
This is the major revelation of the premiere, one that didn’t answer many questions about the bloody mess that Hannibal left behind in his kitchen at the end of season two. But it is also a question posed to the audience. We assume that we’re just at home watching all of this gruesome action unfold on screen passively. But if we’re trying to figure out what Hannibal is going to do and we know that the death toll is going to go up each episode, are we participating in his crimes as well? Are we implicated just by observing?
It’s not a question the show is looking to answer, but it sure is a fun and interesting one to think about. In fact, Hannibal (the show itself, not the cannibal) isn’t that concerned with answering fans’ questions this early in the season. Are Will, Jack and Alana dead or alive after getting stabbed, skewered and defenestrated (one of my favorite words) at the end of last season? Maybe we’ll find out in episode two.
Though we did get an answer to the most befuddling question at the end of last season: just why was Bedelia – Hannibal’s former therapist – on a plane with him after the massacre in his kitchen and just where were they headed?
It turns out they first flew to Paris, where Hannibal zipped around on a motorcycle and sautéed the organs of a Dr Fell, an ancient Italian scholar. He then applied as Dr Fell for a university position in Florence, which he won, and whisked Bedelia off to a second location where they could live in a strangely fraught and presumably sexless relationship for the rest of their days.
But just how did he get her there? It turns out Bedelia killed one of her patients and called Hannibal for help. She says that he attacked her, but Hannibal says the evidence is otherwise. What’s interesting about the dynamic is not that he’s kidnapped her physically, but that he’s kidnapped her psychologically. She is there of her own will, but he maintains his control over her by force. This is brilliantly demonstrated when she takes a bath and slowly settles under the dark water and envisions herself drowning (I was shocked to see so much breast on network television). Bedelia got into this knowingly, but now she’s in way over her head.
The man that Hannibal was killing when he asked Bedelia if she was observing or participating was a fellow scholar whom he met in Paris when dispatching with Dr Fell. This Mr Dimmond then shows up in Florence, and Hannibal invites him over to dinner with him and Bedelia where he realizes they are eating acorns, oysters and masala, which he says the ancient Romans fed their livestock to make the meat taste better. Hannibal says he is concerned with the way his wife tastes, a juicy double entendre. Dimmond asks if it is “that kind of party”, to which Hannibal says no, much to his guest’s disappointment.
Hannibal decides to spare his life, possibly because he desires connection with someone again, like he had with Will before he betrayed him. Later, Dimmond attends a lecture that Hannibal-as-Dr Fell is giving and realizes that the man has done away with his old colleague and has assumed his identity. He makes an offer of partnership, and that is when Hannibal decides to off him. He just can’t trust anyone with his secrets any more after Will. Well, no one but Bedelia, who was trying to flee when Hannibal showed up with Dimmond.
She is compelled to stay, however, after her implication in Hannibal’s crimes, left to an uncertain fate, unable to leave but also unable to stay. She’s at least putting up a front of reticence. Maybe she is just looking to get rid of her morality like she says Hannibal has, sinking into his world of purely aesthetic concerns and appetite for the flesh that seemed so alluring to her. What is going to happen to her? It’s entirely uncertain, but so is the fate of just about every other character whose name is in the opening credits. The premiere of Hannibal (again the show, not the person) seemed so darkly assured of itself, even though the audience has no idea where it’s going.
