My Fears, Hopes, and Predictions for the Hannibal Finale

The following will contain spoilers based on previews and Red Dragon. There is no concrete information about how the finale is going to go, but based on established canon and the trailer, well, it’s not looking good…

It looks like our happy little Murder Family is breaking up. It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, but I’m still horribly depressed by it. This week’s cliffhanger featured Abigail figuring out that Hannibal is the copy cat (and much much more) with a not so definitive answer to the question “are you going to kill me?” I literally shouted “NO” at my screen when the credits rolled, but the preview that came afterwards had me even more frustrated.

In the teaser for next week Will is in jail and being questioned as the copycat killer. In his fragile state of mind he might even start to believe it, but there are also clips of will holding a gun at Hannibal and asking if he is a murderer, which means he must doubt the story being told to him at some point. In the already established canon, that revelation ends with Will being maimed and Hannibal getting caught.

One wonders how this show will continue with it’s title character behind bars and it’s protagonists horrifically injured? Will they progress immediately to Red Dragon? Will they skip ahead in time? Will they go through Will recovering from his injuries and see Hannibal get tried and sentenced? Will we get a year of Hannibal’s crazy antics while running from the law?  Or will this all be a big fake out and we get another season of Hannibal twisting Will around his finger? The season finale was planned as a series finale, so how much thought about season 2 did they actually have when writing it?

To be honest I’m not sure what I want. I know that I don’t want a drastic jump in time, but having Hannibal behind bars would also be kind of anticlimactic and difficult to keep the story flow going. That only leaves another season of Hannibal damaging our poor little Will and that’s not healthy and I should not want that. I should not be rooting for the cannibalistic serial killer to get away without punishment and yet deep down inside that’s kind of what I want. In other words, Hannibal Lecter is manipulating me through my computer monitor and I kind of like it. And I know I shouldn’t like it. But I do like it. Hannibal has me hypnotized and I feel terribly guilty about it. Really, I do.

My prediction is that they are going to end in ambiguously and we’ll have to wait until season 2 to find out if Will really knows or if Hannibal manages to convince him it’s another hallucination. If he does manage to confuse Will again, how is he going to get the FBI off their back?  At this point the attention is on Will and if Will turns the attention on him I don’t see a reasonable way out of it.  The only thing to do is to take that step, gut our poor protagonist (emotionally and physically), and then… who knows.  There are so many possibilities, but none of them are quite what I’m hoping for.  What I’m hoping for goes against established canon and makes me feel terribly guilty.  I want Hannibal’s secret to remain a secret and for him, Will, and Abigail to have a happy little family despite all the murder and cannibalism.  It was quite obvious from the cliffhanger that that’s already been destroyed and, knowing what I know about canon, that doesn’t really surprise me.  I was expecting it with great dread.

Will this make me stop watching the show?  No.  The fact that the creators have managed to make me root for a cannibalistic serial killer even though he has absolutely no sympathetic traits has me intrigued.  I want to see just how far they manage to push it.  I’m in this for the long haul.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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