The first killer of the week that intrigues us also leads to the most implausible and hacky ending we've yet seen, but an entirely metaphorical killer plot introduces so many new and interesting threads.
Hannibal S01E05 – Coquilles – Eat The Rudecast
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Re: ethical butchering; I’m sure I’ve said this in another comment but there’s no way Hannibal kills his victims kindly, cf. the hunter who became the wound man (who was still alive when Hannibal inflicted those wounds on him; Cassie Boyle whose lungs were taken when she was alive, various victims as the Ripper). His signature is inflicting torture and humiliation on his free-range rude; and the free-range rude are the ones he eats–he doesn’t just randomly kill inoffensive people because he feels like a snack. The exceptions to his cruelty are the people he kills to save his skin, bc he has no other choice, and respects in some weird way, or when he has no choice but to dispatch someone quickly, like Franklyn & Tobias. I think the ethical butchering comment is either a joke he has with himself, or that he does, in fact, employ an ethical butcher, bc the irony amuses him (the non-human meat on his table was treated more ethically than the human meat).
Sorry, I know I should wait to finish the podcast before commenting but then I’d forget what I was thinking–but I laughed and *laughed* at ‘you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that Hannibal Lecter is a monster’ bc there are a lot of very *young* fans of the show, some born after the big Hannibal 90s phenomenon, and no, some of them did NOT know. In fact there was an infamous tumblr post which said ‘Aw, they’re making him into a villain, I though he was going to be an antihero :(‘ followed by the tart response ‘HE EATS PEOPLE’, and much cackling in the tags.
Part the 3rd: I don’t understand the surprise at Will a) noticing Jack’s distress and b) taking over from him so smoothly–it’s obvious to us that something’s wrong, letalone someone with Will’s abilities. It’s not that Will has difficulty empathising with or understanding people (even mundane non-serial-killing people); he’s very intuitive, that’s his entire schtick. His problem, and the reason *on the surface* he can’t seem ‘to people’ is that 1, he can’t switch it off, and 2, he’s often repulsed by what other people (killers) make him feel; so he’s rude and prickly and evasive and palms human interaction off onto other people (Jack, Alana) where convenient. I disagree that’s it’s artifical and he doesn’t actually understand the emotions he empaths (for want of a better term) or why would he always be so profoundly affected by it? He’d just be able to cast it off if it were only a shallow act of mimicry; instead he feels other’s emotion so deeply he’s in danger of losing himself–which is the big attraction for Hannibal.