Hannibal is God: The New Family

By Zetetic

Introduction: In Episode 3, Hannibal successfully managed to bind Abigail to him with a secret sealed in blood. But a god does not just bind his disciples; he creates a world for them. In Episode 4, Hannibal stops testing and manipulating and starts healing and nurturing Will’s fractured mind and Abigail’s wounded spirit, all while a parallel case unfolds in the background, a dark mirror of Hannibal’s own ambition: to create a family which is chosen rather than born and bound together by shared darkness, violence and secrets.

The Lost Boys: This parallel case centres on a woman who kidnaps kids from affluent families — boys who feel like impostors in their own families, “the second sons” who are always neglected and never quite fit in. She brainwashes and indoctrinates them with a simple philosophy: that the family they are born into isn’t really their family; they are just a bunch of people they didn’t choose, and true family must be chosen, built and made, and they will never feel left out if they make their own family. She even convinces them to murder their own family in cold blood to symbolise that they mean nothing to them, and it serves as a brutal initiation to sever all old bonds.

The Protector: Will was greatly disturbed and consumed by this case of children killing their own parents. He had a great relationship with his widowed dad, and he had a habit of collecting stray dogs with no family; thus, the case personally hit him. Hannibal decides to help Will and protect his fragile mind from bad influence through therapy and advice. He even fed Will’s dogs in his absence.

The Healer: He also tried to heal Abigail by convincing Jack to let her leave the hospital and argued that she needed to heal in the real world, not in a clinical one. He even escorted Abigail outside the hospital to his home, his sanctum, where he could act as a caretaker for Abigail. He gave her a hallucinogenic tea, not to torment her but to guide her hallucinations towards healing. He was successful in providing her with pleasing hallucinations about her own family, with Hannibal and Alana in place of her dead parents.

The Ill-Fitting Suit: Will admits to Hannibal in therapy that the concept of family was unfamiliar and strange for him, as he never knew his mother or his father, and he drifted around a lot from place to place; thus, he always felt like a stranger. Hannibal assured him by saying that he had already created a family not only with his dogs but also with Abigail. Will resisted the connection, as he didn’t want Abigail to become like him. Hannibal also opened up and shared his own wounds of being an orphan and having been adopted by his uncle at the age of sixteen. He suggested that he, Will and Abigail had a lot in common. He is laying the foundation of a family composed of three broken people with similar wounds who can become whole together.

The Demise: The false matriarch eventually fails when one of her chosen sons decides not to murder his family in cold blood. The matriarch responds to this by brutally killing and burning him, an ultimate act of disownment. She made her own family on the grounds of fear, control and ruthlessness, which eventually led to her demise. She and her entire “family” were apprehended by the FBI and crumbled.

The Mirror’s Reflection: The Lost Boys case acts as a dark mirror to Hannibal’s ambitions, as he also wants to create a family not based on blood but shared darkness, tragedy and violence, but Hannibal takes a different approach by offering understanding, safety and a sense of belonging. He doesn’t cultivate loyalty through fear; instead, he does it through shared secrets and genuine care. Thus, Abigail began to regard him as a father, and Will regarded him as an anchor.

Conclusion: In Episode 4, we witness Hannibal’s ambition of creating a family from shared darkness. Unlike the false family in the Lost Boys' case, he relies on nurture, healing, and instilling a sense of belonging in Will and Abigail – not fear – to create loyalty; he positions himself as a healer, a godly figure who has the capability to solve any problem. In the next episode, Hannibal will have to protect his family from the world that would tear them apart.