A/N: I wrote this before episode four aired, but even in light of this week's trailer, I'm still convinced Hannibal was pulling strings to get the bailiff's and the judge's murders to happen. He manipulates everybody, killers included (e.g. Gideon) and I'm still pretty sure this is all part of his master plan.
Updated A/N: Huh. Well, episode five had a lot of twists didn't it? Consider the last couple paragraphs of this obsolete, if you will. Turns out I was fooled, which is what I love so much about this show.
Prism
"I wanted to dispel your doubts once and for all."
"My doubts about what?"
"Me."
The words linger in the air between Hannibal and Will and fill the space across which their eyes meet. It's a blatant confession masked in subtlety. Will knows as surely as he can feel the blood rushing beneath his skin, running cold at their meaning, that the photographs he's staring at are Hannibal's work. If there had indeed been any echoes of doubt remaining in the corners of his mind, those words were enough to purge them.
He doesn't vocalise a response, letting the silence stretch on until Hannibal continues, maintaining the impression that he's still prepared to believe in Hannibal's innocence.
"I want you to believe in the best of me. Just as I believe in the best of you."
Sincerity is plain on Hannibal's face, and in some warped way Will believes that he means what he says, yet the truest form of that meaning is buried under so many layers of lies and deception that it's a fight to discern it. What in Hannibal's twisted worldview constitutes the best of a person? It scares Will how readily he feels able to understand. Hannibal believes himself above others; that his ability to kill without remorse elevates him to the level of a god. To him, murder is an art form, and Will's ability to empathise with murderers is a gift. A profound appreciation for that art could only be bettered by a person's ability to create it, and for a time he had made Will believe he was such a killer himself.
Scraping away at the surface of his words, Will tastes the bitter truth of them in pointed contrast to their apparent meaning. Hannibal still wants Will to believe the image that he paints, but no longer is he fooled by the wool being dragged across his eyes, fading to threadbare transparency. Will continues to meet Hannibal's gaze – an act that he finds so difficult with so many, yet with Hannibal feels unsettlingly easy – and again tries to see.
Looking at Hannibal is like looking through a prism. Will's perception is bent and distorted as Hannibal tries to manipulate the image that he sees, crafting the glass to fit the mask that has fooled everybody else. Now he attempts to spin the image of a friend, but it's one more mutilation of reality that Will has to fight to see beyond, coming up against tricks and misdirection that Hannibal uses to cloak the truth. Sometimes Will finds that he's looking at himself, as Hannibal tries to reflect his own mind back onto him and invert everything that Will believes and knows to be true. But distortions through the glass can be viewed from both sides.
The tides have turned. Hannibal's schemes and manipulations – played less like a game and more like an instrument – are beating at a different shore; one more resilient, that stands stronger and will not crumble. Will's own mask is in place, letting Hannibal see what he wishes to see, but as he spins his own deception he's prying at the edges of the veil that hide the monster from sight.
"It would be a lie."
Will's response to the suggestion that they use this new evidence holds a peculiar irony. He can feel in his bones the weight of its truth: that the killer is in fact the same, that at this instant he is looking at Will across this very table. Yet the same lens Hannibal uses to make his manipulations appear as friendship bend the appearance of the evidence, averting its direction to point to a different culprit. It would be a lie to be a lie. An abhorrent truth hiding in plain sight, just like Hannibal Lecter has always been. But also a lie that Will knows can help him.
Will continues down the line that Hannibal is taking, agreeing to the use of the evidence, but the light is shining in a new direction, and the shadows that once hid Hannibal's true nature now obscure the clarity in Will's mind. He lets none see, but his focus is sharpening, honing in on Hannibal as he keeps the illusion of fragility in place. The prism turned too much, and now the lies shine back on their creator. Will resumes the rhythm of their game, this time looking from the other side of the board.
The distortions have cleared; the fog Hannibal cast over him has paled to transparency, and on the horizon Will can see a reckoning.