Hannibal is God: The False Prophet

By Zetetic

Introduction: In Episode 1 of Hannibal, Will was tested by a godly figure and had to unknowingly prove his worthiness towards Hannibal through trials of empathy and murder. Now in Episode 2, we witness an unexpected shift: Hannibal becomes warm and caring, but caring is a test of its own, especially for an intelligent psychopath like Hannibal, who kills people out of sheer curiosity and boredom.

The Aftermath: At the beginning of episode 2, we witness a gradual decline in Will’s mental well-being. He began to have nightmares after the brutal encounter with Garett Jacob Hobbs by his own hands. In a dream, he was practising his aim in a firing range, and the target board suddenly changed to Hobbs’ corpse. Jack, being a pragmatic FBI agent, ordered Will to visit Hannibal Lecter for a psychological evaluation — not for Will’s sake, but so that he could return to the field as quickly as possible.

In Hannibal’s own words, “You stood in the breathing silence of Garret Jacob Hobbs’ home, the very spaces he moved through. Tell me, Will… did they speak to you?”

The False Prophet: Eldon Stammets was a pharmacist who induced diabetic comas in unsuspecting customers and buried them underground with fertilisers, feeding them sugar water intravenously and allowing mushrooms to grow out of their bodies. He does it not because of cruelty but because of a desire to form connections; he believes that mushrooms can connect the consciousness of his victims into a hive mind. He thinks Will can understand him and his design, just like Hannibal, and desires a connection with him. However, unlike Hannibal, who observes Will and judges him while remaining calm and patient, Eldon desires immediate connection to Will without working for it. He was a false prophet, and false prophets, Hannibal believed, often end themselves thus. He didn’t interfere.

In Hannibal’s own words, “The structure of a fungus mirrors that of the human brain – an intricate web of connections. So maybe he admires their ability to connect the way human minds can’t."

The Serpent in the Garden: Jennifer Cornet, aka Freddie Lounds, is a tabloid journalist who runs TattleCrime.com. She is ruthless, unethical and utterly fearless — willing to infiltrate the sanctum of Dr. Hannibal Lecter by secretly recording the conversation between Hannibal and Will without their consent. Hannibal understood what Lounds was trying to do and forced her to delete what she recorded and let her live — not because she deserved mercy but because preserving Will’s mind was more important.

In Hannibal’s own words, “You’ve been terribly rude, Ms. Lounds. What’s to be done about that?"

Hannibal’s Growing Interest: Throughout the episode, Hannibal helps Will to come to terms with the incident at Hobbs’ not-so-humble abode and tries to understand him. He asks Will about the shooting and his nightmares about Garett Jacob Hobbs. Quietly, he asked Will whether killing Hobbs felt good. Will finally confessed that killing him felt good — that it felt just. His disciple tasted something forbidden, and it tasted like power. The darkness wasn’t planted. It was already there. Hannibal simply revealed it.

In Hannibal’s own words, “Then it’s not Hobbs’s ghost that’s haunting you, is it? It’s the inevitability of there being a man so bad that killing him felt good."

The Investigation: The FBI tracks down Stammets after the autopsies of his victims. They found out that all the victims died from diabetic ketoacidosis, in other words, death due to kidney failure from too much sugar in the circulatory system, and that his victims were induced into a diabetic coma by a sudden change in their medication. He was tracked down to the supermarket but managed to escape as he saw Freddie Lounds’ article about him and knew the FBI was after him. Will later finds a woman buried alive in the trunk of Stammet’s car, confirming they had the right man. Jack warned Freddie to stop writing articles about Will Graham and threatened to arrest her if she didn’t comply, but the damage was already done.

In Eldon Stammets’s own words, “We all evolved from mycelium. I’m simply reintroducing her to the concept."

The Attempt: Detective Pascal confronts Freddie outside her motel. He had been suspended from the police for giving information to Freddie Lounds about the murder without confirming her identity. As they were having a conversation, Stammets shot the detective in the head and asked Freddie about Will Graham. Terrified, Freddie told Stammets everything, including the location of the hospital Abigail Hobbs was admitted to. Stammets saw in her a way to connect with Will, believing he could forge the connection using fungus, but he was unsuccessful in kidnapping Abigail Hobbs, as Will shot him in the shoulder and told him, “I don’t understand you.”

In Stammets’s own words, “If you walk through a field of mycelium, they know you are there. They know you are there. The spores reach for you as you walk by. I know who you’re reaching for. I know. Abigail Hobbs. You should have let me plant her. You would have found her in a field, where she was finally able to reach back!"

Conclusion: Stammets wanted connection and was consumed. Hannibal wants something deeper. In Episode 3, he stops watching and starts building. A secret. A bond. A family. And Will has no idea he’s already part of it.

As Hannibal himself says, ”God is beyond measure in wanton malice… and matchless in his irony.”