During the botched drug raid, why do neither Clarice or her agents wear FBI body armour?
Why does Clarice get the blame by the FBI and the public for the botched drug raid when the one who causes the whole mess is Fulton? All of Clarice's agents witness how Fulton didn't follow orders, so why wasn't the failure pinned on him?
It's unfair but not entirely unrealistic; Clarice was in charge of the raid, so the success or failure of the operation, even if not really her fault, would still likely be something she would have to accept responsibility for, and one might argue that it was a failure of judgement on her part that she did not remove Fulton from participating in the raid after he demonstrated disrespect towards her during the briefing. Misogyny could also have easily played a part; historically women, especially in male dominated fields such as the FBI, face greater scrutiny for their performance on the job than their male counterparts might, and its easy to imagine that Clarice's superiors might blame the failure of the raid and Fulton's mistakes on Clarice lacking "leadership skills" and her failing to inspire the cooperation of the men under her, and it may have been reported to her superiors that Clarice was "antagonistic" to Fulton in the briefing, which would be counted against her as a woman more harshly than if she were a man (note the scene following the raid, where Clarice is interrogated by Krendler. He is clearly aggressive in his questing towards her, but when Clarice replies in an even tempered but frank manner, SHE is the one accused of being "combative". It's still a common stereotype that "assertiveness" is seen as more appropriate coming from a Man than a Woman).
Also, Krendler has a pre-existing bias against Starling and this is a perfect opportunity to bring her down. In the novel he has spent years using his influence to interfere with her career, and while that's not really something that the film details, he absolutely has it out for her. He is a powerful enemy, and is absolutely capable of manipulating the situation so that Starling is scapegoated. Which...isn't hard. She was lead on the taskforce, and was the one photographed shooting a woman carrying a baby. It's also a little clearer in the novel, where there's no rogue officer clearly to blame, the situation just goes south with no one clearly at fault.
Why does Pazzi hit a big warning message and need to enter a login just to see the FBI 10 most wanted list, of all things? It's hardly something that was ever kept anything near secret!
Doylist answer- the filmmakers wanted to emphasise that Pazzi is crossing lines and taking risks by getting too curious about Hannibal. Also, not 100% sure that you didn't need a login back in the 1990s, when the internet was in it's relative infancy and all.
The answer is yes and no: the public page, which Pazzi was viewing, never required a login, even back in the 1990s; it was, as the name implies, public. However, in its earliest Web 1.0 incarnation, there was a separate section for law enforcement officials which could be accessed from the main site, and which required a unique login. They might have been implying Pazzi was logging into this section of the site, but since all we see is him viewing the public site, which he could have done in complete anonymity anyway, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
After Lecter mortally wounds Gnocco, why does Pazzi leave Gnocco's body in the street? Shouldn't he still call an ambulance to retrieve the corpse? The civilians there could mistake him for Gnocco's killer and call the police...
Pazzi is selfish and not directly focused on the aims of justice, he's only out to retrieve the bounty at this point. He wants to quickly ensure that the print from the bracelet can be retrieved to verify that it is definitely Hannibal who touched it. He knows that wasting time calling an ambulance could delay his hunt for Lecter, and also pose uncomfortable questions about why Gnocco died in close proximity to him. And thus he gambles on the idea that the busy crowd won't notice a dead man at least as long as it takes for him to quietly slip away and further his goals.
Pazzi is Gnocco's killer. Lecter stabbed him, yes, but Pazzi forcibly pulled Gnocco's hand away from the wound so he would bleed out faster. Pazzi and Lecter both murdered him, something Lecter might even have counted on given he seemed to know what was going on and as a surgeon could have just insta-killed him instead.
When the wild boars devour Mason Verger's henchmen, why do none of them attack Hannibal or the unconscious Clarice? Not all the boars can get a bite of the two henchmen, so why don't they go for the nearest prey?
The book explains that because the pigs do not smell fear on Lecter, they don't recognise him as prey. Since Lecter reaches the unconscious Clarice before the pigs get to her, they don't have a chance to attack her, either.
At Lecter's request, Cordell ultimately turns against Verger and has him thrown into the pen where he gets devoured by the wild boars, and Lecter promises to take responsibility for this if Cordell is questioned. Why does Cordell follow Lecter's advice, though? Lecter is a serial cannibalistic killer, so he isn't a person whom Cordell should trust. What if Lecter ends up revealing to the authorities that Cordell got his employer killed? Cordell even mentions that he doesn't want to be blamed for shooting Lecter, so why doesn’t Cordell just run away? If Verger escapes and tries to have Cordell arrested, Cordell could just easily tell the authorities that Verger tried to have Lecter devoured by wild boars and committed manslaughter.
This could be an artifact of the original novel, in which Mason was murdered by his sister Margot. Lecter spares Margot because he recognizes her as arguably Mason's greatest victim and believes it would be therapeutic to give her the opportunity to murder her long-time tormenter. Lecter even offers to call the authorities and gloat about how much he enjoyed murdering Mason to give her an alibi; after all, what's one more murder charge to him?. The film retains the plot point of Hannibal offering to take the blame for Mason's murder at the hands of a long-suffering member of his entourage, but alters the emotional baggage behind the act. On a secondary level, Lecter likes to play mind games with people; he recognizes Cordell's misplaced devotion and buried resentment of Mason and wants to see what he will do when given the opportunity to murder his evil boss without consequences. From Lecter's perspective, it might have been as much about revealing to Cordell his own capacity for murderous rage as it was about killing Mason.
Maybe it was just Rule of Drama, but Hannibal had already proven himself quite handy at picking a handcuff lock. Why in the hell did he need to cut off his hand?
He was in an awful hurry with the authorities closing in. Yes he could have picked the lock, but doing that runs the risk of having further physical altercations with Clarice. He doesn't want to hurt her, physically, more than he already has. Faking-out a chop to her wrist with the meat cleaver leaves her shocked for a minute, enough time for him to run away and (however implausibly you might find it with how the film portrays it) melt into the darkness with the cops none the wiser.
That Lecter is a massive drama queen probably accounts for the fact that whatever could chop his own hand so easily would probably have gone through the chain on the cuffs just fine.
The TV Series
How can the FBI misidentify Dr. Frederick Chilton as the Chesapeake Ripper when it's abundantly established that he cannot handle eating meat due to a missing kidney?
It was Will's assumption that the Ripper was eating people. For years prior to that, the Feds (somewhat improbably) never thought of this, and just assumed he was collecting trophies.
It's not entirely clear that the FBI DOES think Chilton is the Ripper. Certainly the arrest and process him and put on a display Lecter will see, but we never get to learn if they actually intended to go through with charging him, or if he would have been rushed off to Witness Protection like Freddie. Jack knows that Will was similarly absolutely soaked in 'hard' evidence that made him look guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt, it doesn't make sense he'd be entirely accepting of Chilton as suspect, even with Miriam's dramatic identification
After discovering Abel Gideon's corpse in a butcher shop set-up in his backroom, Price explicitly stated how Chilton's been carving steaks off of him for days. Crawford seemed pretty sure of his guilt using some other logic, despite the blatant reasons why it couldn't possibly be.
In "Buffet Froid", Dr. Sutcliffe claims that Hannibal could identify nurses' perfumes by scent alone back in medical school. Why on earth would a male have so much knowledge about all kinds of women's perfumes?
He knew enough about Men's Cologne to identify Will's by the smell of it. Why not women's perfume?
Serious answer: if you're going to study scents/the making of them at all, you're going to have to become familiar with combinations of notes that end up in women's perfumes, and a lot of older women's scents are more unisex than one might think, making them popular with male collectors. Hannibal clearly isn't shy about pursuing refined or luxurious hobbies that might in a more pedestrian view be read as less than ruggedly masculine — see his eye for interior design, dress, fine art and good food, etc. Silly answer: maybe the good doctorhas some other hobbies.
Plus, it would have made him very charming. Imagine him buying the perfect scent for a person he's courting (he has actually had relationships that didn't end with omnomnoming); very thoughtful, classy gesture! He comes across as kind of a dandy, too. Also, a lot of hospitals are scent-free — no perfume allowed. He "called out" a nurse's perfume; maybe that was why.
In "Buffet Froid", Hannibal is wearing a hazmat suit while murdering Dr. Sutcliffe so that he won't get blood on his clothes or leave physical evidence (fingerprints, clothing fibers) at the scene. However, Hannibal is not wearing a hazmat head covering. Why would he go through the trouble of donning a hazmat suit but leave his head bare? Not only would he be shedding hairs that could be used as forensic evidence, but anyone who caught him in the act would see his face. It's a stupid mistake for someone of Hannibal's intelligence.
Because Hannibal gets off on copying other murderers and the fact that he got to do it in front of the killer herself, and further, knowing she couldn't see his real face must have been one of the most satisfying things Lecter has gotten away with ~Troper Before Time
Or maybe it just makes a better visual not to have the Hazmat mask.
Plus it has been established that Hannibal has visited the office recently with Will so some evidence could be easily explained away.
In "Buffet Froid", we discover that Will has spatial neglect on the left side due to the swelling of his right brain. Said spatial neglect would prohibit him from turning in the direction he's neglecting (in this case, left), among other things (e.g. he would not be aware of stimuli on his left); however, it appears that the only manifestation of his spatial neglect is his clock drawing.
Dr. Sutcliffe lied to Will, telling him that his brain scan showed no organic cause for his symptoms (whereas the audience knows that Will has encephalitis). Why didn't Will seek a second opinion, or talk to doctors in other fields about other potential organic causes? Given the seriousness of his symptoms, it makes little sense that he wouldn't seek a second opinion.
I guess he trusted the diagnosis because Hannibal backed it up. That or he was holding the Idiot Ball.
Will's greatest fear is losing himself to insanity; Hannibal had been playing on that and explicitly convincing him that looking for biological causes was just grasping at straws. So when Will was told nothing was wrong with his brain, after he'd pinned his hopes to the scan revealing that he wasn't at long last doomed the way he and his colleagues had believed for years, he just gave up. He wasn't like Georgia's mother, looking for second opinions on a cause, because the scan was the second opinion: the first was that he gazed into the abyss and it ate him.
The plotline of "Relevés" doesn't work, for the exact same reason it didn't work in Sherlock: If Will Graham has been an evil serial killer all along, mocking you behind your back, etc, etc — why would he help you catch himself? It's like the police in these genius-solves-crimes shows just love to grab the Idiot Ball and run with it.
Except in this case Hannibal's convinced Jack that Will is suffering from a dissociative personality disorder and may not be fully aware himself if he's a killer.
That is, in fact, exactly what Hannibal convinced Jack of — he didn't make them think that Will is an evil serial killer manipulating and mocking them behind their backs (i.e. Hannibal himself), he convinced them that Will has a dissociative personality that committed the murders without him being aware of it. So no, as far as Jack has led to believe, Will helping them catch himself, because he isn't even aware that he's a killer in the first place.
"Why would he help you catch himself" could apply to Lecter, who actually is doing just that. For Graham and Sherlock, the Feds / police believe that they simply "slipped up" and made a mistake, which is how Hannibal himself is likely to be beaten, except with Hannibal it will be for real. And Word of God suggests that Jack Crawford isn't totally convinced and is going to dig deeper.
When Hannibal murdered Dr. Sutcliffe, he donned a plastic hazmat suit so that he wouldn't get blood on his clothes or leave forensic evidence. However, when he's about to murder Abigail, he isn't wearing a plastic suit. Given how bloody Abigail's murder was, how is it that Hannibal's bloody clothes never became a problem? Did he bury or burn them? How is it that he didn't leave forensic evidence such as bloody footprints in the kitchen?
Theory one: choke out victim (which he has done before). Produce plastic suit, don plastic suit. Commit murder. Arrange. Take great care, given this is your pièce de résistance and you're creating it for a friend. Then find Will and dress him for the occasion. Theory two: She's Just Hiding! I can dream.
How did The Angelmaker do that to himself? It would be one thing if he were standing on the ground, but he suspended himself 10 feet up!
It's only skin, he wouldn't die of his wounds. He would have some time before he died of shock, and if the ropes were rigged up ahead of time (note he's hanging from loose loops, the rope isn't pulled tight) he could done it, with difficulty.
That is not true, the wounds clearly go all the way to the bone, which means that the latissimus dorsi has been severed. Those muscles are absolutely necessary to produce a pulling motion, which the killer would have to do to hoist himself up. Add to that the fact that all the other major muscles of the back have been rendered useless, and the massive blood loss, shock and pain involved. It is simply physically impossible to do that to oneself.
Of course, it's entirely possible that he didn't and the Feds fingered the wrong man. In which case, the real killer is likely either Hannibal (he was playing with Will's fishhooks earlier; the killings are done in the style of the Chesapeake Ripper — who of course is Lecter — minus the "surgical trophies"; and it was suggested — I shot down — that the killer was mocking Christianity, which Lecter is apt to do); or even Francis Dolarhyde (he is "transforming" his victims, which is what Dolarhyde did / will do; the hallucination of the "Angel Maker" even says something like "receive my majesty" which is something Dolarhyde said; the killer is said to be religious, and Dolarhyde was abuse by his fundamentalist grandmother — and thinks he is turning into the Devil; also, Word of God is that we see some of Dolarhyde's "early work" in this season; also whoever did these murders, esp. the last two — counting the Angel Maker, if he is innocent — is likely very strong, as Dolarhyde is, to position them like that). At no point do we actually see the man commit any murders, and his ex-wife says he wasn't particularly religious and was surprised at being asked. We also see a homeless guy when the "Angel Maker" sees the security guard but he disappears when the body is discovered (though that is where the AM's...you know...is found, where the homeless guy was sitting) so it's possible that he was the murderer in disguise. The Angel Maker is probably involved in some way, but he might not be the killer.
The wife explains during her interview that her husband nearly died in a fire as a child. When rescued he was told he must have a Guardian Angel. The link between this and his crimes as an adult are fairly easy to make. That's not to say Dolarhyde, or somebody, didn't help him to die, but his inspirations for his crimes are built in.
Oh, and Dolarhyde's grandma threatened to castrate him because he kept shitting himself as a kid (nice lady), so yet more evidence that it might be Dolarhyde.
What happened to Miriam Lass? We see Hannibal choking her, presumably not to death because he made a recording which he later played to Jack on the phone. So he kept her somewhere and made a recording because he thought it will come in handy one day? And then killed her and kept her arm because he thought it will be useful as well? Or did he keep her locked somewhere for 2 years?
Lecter choked her unconscious (quite tenderly and regretfully), took her God-knows-where, recorded some material, killed her, hacked her to bits and froze them; almost certainly specifically so he could then use her remains to mess with Jack when the opportunity came, whenever that was. Hannibal plans for the long-term when inflicting torment. I think it's also deliberately left unclear what the specifics of her fate actually were after Hannibal choked her out, just to add another turn of the screw for the audience and Jack. What I don't think is that she's still alive.
Although, as it turns out... (she is).
Yeek... then just take off the last two steps and substitute "removed her arm". With the extra joy that Hannibal obviously likes to keep things around for later use, even when he doesn't know what it might be, as long as he can be sure they'll be safe. He seems especially fond of the smart ones. I cannot wait until he's imprisoned, they confiscate all his fancy suits and play dubstep and televangelist shows in his cell at him all day.
How will setting the series in the modern day affect Lecter's backstory? Bryan Fuller has mentioned that this Lecter is still Lithuanian, but has also said this series has a kind of "J.J. Abrams-style alternate universe storytelling" to justify the fact that the character of Count Robert Lecter, killed by the Nazis in the books, is alive and will factor into Season 2. My best guess would be the writers will update the invaders from the Nazis to the Soviets. As many Baltics have said, the countries just keep being "liberated" over and over again by hostile regimes.
While the confrontation between Hannibal and Tobias is undeniably a Moment of Awesome, when you think about the subsequent investigation it would seem to be as holey as the episode's namesake. This kicks in from the moment Lecter breaks Tobias' right arm on the ladder. His full statement to the police/FBI would be something like: "I was providing my weekly therapy session to Franklin. During the break I excused myself to get a glass of water. On my return I was horrified to find Tobias standing over Franklin's corpse, proudly proclaiming that he snapped his neck. He then attacked me with a set of steel strings as a whip, then a glass stool and subsequently stabbed me in the thigh with my pen opener. I did everything in my power to defend myself but he started to overpower me with punches, kicks and knee strikes. Fearing for my life I was forced to break his arm, at which point he yelled in agony, stumbling back against the table and knocking the statue onto his head. He died instantly, and I proceeded to contact the authorities.". Fair enough. But it doesn't really stand up.
Forensically, the police should see through this. There's a shot of Tobias kneeling over, stunned and gasping for breath after the larynx strike Lecter gave him. He gets brained by the statue, and lies contorted on his side, towards his front. How would this be possible if he fell back against the statue? Further, when Hannibal tips the table over, it seems a little too far for it to have fallen on him; Tobias is a few feet away from the wall.
To break Tobias' arm backwards, the police know Lecter would either have to have done martial arts, have used a weapon, or both, his surgical experience notwithstanding. It wasn't just a simple strike, and he knows that the investigation team will see this. Does he make up a story about Jujitsu? Has he actually studied an art, and can the police verify this? The self-defence argument is always wobbly, even in extreme circumstances such as this. More so if he confesses that he used the ladder for the rope-a-dope break. That has to look very suspicious and manipulative to the law, as he lured Tobias into punching through the ladder rungs.
We see Tobias use pathetic, desperate left handed punches as a final option after the break. Does Hannibal mention this? We don't know. If so, it weakens his statement further, because he should have known to restrain Tobias in some fashion and call the police. We know he didn't do a citizen's arrest because of his bloodlust. Let's just assume for his sake that he didn't bring that detail up.
More forensics: we see him snapping Franklin's neck bare handed. He'd have to dust down his prints on the head and the jaw and then use Tobias' dead hands for prints to take the blame. Difficult, considering they died at different parts of the room and what with having to move one of the bodies over to the other (and back?!). He had better not mention the termination of Franklin's therapy!
All of this presupposes one thing — that the police/FBI are going to be suspicious of his story. Remember, this is Dr. Lecter, who has helped them catch serial killers, and is helping their profiler with his mental problems. They have no suspicions that he's anything but a good guy — and they know Tobias was an extremely dangerous (and quite insane) serial killer who just murdered two policemen. Yes, if they did a careful forensic exam questions might be raised, but there's no reason they would even bother with anything other the minimum necessary, there isn't even the need to cover every detail, since there will be no trial involved.
Yes, but just by moving Tobias' body they will find his right arm broken, and that has to raise questions (namely, perhaps, the other ones I suggested). Crawford even looks somewhat doubtful of the self defence story, despite his usual blind trust in the man. Really, in a situation like this with two bodies, you have to assume that Franklin's head would be dusted for prints. The possibility that Tobias wasn't the culprit must be evaluated. And in that case Lecter's only recourse would be to dust the head down; that's fine, but it probably shouldn't be left to the audience to infer that. A cut from his shattered neck to Lecter's hidden handkerchief (half smile optional) would have helped here.
That's all supposing that they even care about taking a closer look. Sure, the broken arm and the death-by-stag make Lecter's self-defence statement look a bit wobbly. But who cares? Tobias has just killed two police officers, propped up a body in a particularly twisted manner, and likely killed dozens more for instrument building. Meanwhile, Hannibal is one of the FBI's top consultants, one of the best in a very respectable profession, and most of all a personal friend to the man leading the investigation. Yes, Jack might suspect something. And then would brush it off, because he (and likely most other officers on the scene) does not give a flying fuck if Tobias was killed by a little more force than would be acceptable. Even if he outright knew that Hannibal killed an incapacitated Tobias in cold blood, he would not have pushed the issue. As long as there is plausible deniability, there is not going to be an investigation. As for Franklin, an absence of fingerprints on his neck would raise a few red flags in normal circumstances, but they are even less likely to look into that. From their point of few, it would be incredibly far-fetched to assume that someone other than Tobias killed him — what reason could Hannibal possibly have?
I think we should always take crime show forensics with a pinch of salt but, the way I read it was Hannibal told it like this: Tobias came in startling them, Hannibal being a composed man and one not used to combat did not immediately engage, Franklyn appealed to Tobias, Tobias snapped his neck, he attacked Hannibal and there was a big scuffle (resulting in various injuries and scattered forensic evidence), the stag was knocked over and in a panic Hannibal grabbed it and smashed Tobias on the head with it, being a doctor he examined Franklyn (which probably involved touching his neck), and probably Tobias, and contacted the FBI. Add to that the fact that — as mentioned above — Tobias is obviously a killer, they probably wouldn't be looking too hard. Note also, Hannibal doesn't say Tobias fell against the statue, he admits to killing him (albeit in self-defense). Franklyn has been in that room plenty of times so his DNA could be anywhere. Hannibal breaks his neck in a way that probably wouldn't create as strong a print as say a strangulation. There are holes — specifically, the injury to Tobias' throat, but most of it could probably be hand-waved. And goodness knows what tools that murder wizard has in his office.
Fair enough. You guys have convincingly responded to most of my points. But can you explain the fact of Tobias' broken arm? It would be very clear during autopsy (or even casual inspection if you tell me he won't get an autopsy) that the arm was broken with both brute force and a certain degree of applied cunning.
You can't tell during an autopsy if an injury was inflicted using cunning. You might be able to surmise someone may have been struck by surprise, based on a lack of defensive wounds or other injuries, but given that Tobias was both badly beaten, and had badly beaten Lecter, there would be no way to guess which of his injuries could have bee inflicted in a direct assault or a sneak attack of any kind. Lecter could say Tobias arrived with the injury, or he could claim he was trying to use the ladder as a barrier between him and Tobias, and Tobias just reached through the space and grabbed him. So Lecter just grabbed his arm and pushed. 'It was instinct, I wasn't thinking about it, I didn't even hear it break!'. Lecter IS a large, strong, physically fit man, which he doesn't hide or keep concealed, if anything dresses to emphasise it, so it's not a mystery how this mild mannered doctor might be strong enough to break another mans arm.
Also in "Fromage", how does Tobias overcome two armed police officers in the space of about 30 seconds (while Will is outside) and murder them both? Yes he's a badass and a Smug Snake, but regardless. Of course Hannibal managed it in TSOTL but we actually saw how he pulled that off. To be fair, given Will's mental state it's possible he spent longer outside than the scene suggests investigating the audio hallucination, but still. The nature of their deaths is fairly elaborate.
Again in "Fromage", when Tobias confronts Franklyn and Hannibal at the office, Hannibal appears to offer Franklyn an exit so that he can deal with Tobias himself (Non-violently? Who knows) but Tobias conversely orders Franklyn to remain where he is. Was Hannibal being genuine here? Did he really want to try to get his patient out safely? Because moments before, he was trying to withdraw him from his therapy, so this could be an extension of that. Or was it a feint to prepare him to be killed?
I genuinely believe Hannibal was just being possessive of a future victim he really really wanted to murder. As you say when the scene opens Hannibal is firing Franklin as a patient (and is likely expecting Will to have killed or caught Tobias). In that moment he is almost certainly setting Franklin up as a future victim and meal, firing him now to create distance so that in years to come if he kills and eats him, the connection won't be as clear. When Tobias arrives and the plan changes, Hannibal could still, for a second, be hoping to retain a kill he thinks he's earned, and maybe thinking he'll kill Tobias, make it look like HE killed Franklin as his last victim, while getting them both out of his hair.
In "Kaiseki", after Jack's been stabbed in the neck, he takes refuge in Hannibal's wine cellar. Hannibal starts breaking down the door...but why would a wine cellar need a door that locked from the inside?
Maybe the original owner of the house created it as a safe-room, and Hannibal repurposed it as a wine cellar.
Is it possible that the door isn't locked and Jack is leaning against it from the other side?
It's not locked, as the above person guessed, Jack's leaning on it. When you watch the door from Jack's side it opens slightly every time Hannibal connects with it.
In "Sakizuki", why would Hannibal be so foolish as to plan to kill Bedelia? Wouldn't he be a prime suspect if he'd succeeded, given that she'd just severed their therapeutic relationship days before? Even if he left no evidence, wouldn't police find it suspicious that people in Hannibal's professional life (Franklyn, Abigail, and nearly Bedelia) keep dying?
From his perspective, it's better to kill her than to have her working against him. It's possible he was planning to kill her and stage it as a home invasion, or a robbery gone wrong. Or perhaps he planned to leave no evidence-she'd simply disappear. Given that that she DID abruptly disappear, it remains to be seen whether that will result in attention being paid to him. Then again, we don't see Bedelia have much contact with others, and we know Hannibal is her only patient. If she doesn't have much in the way of family or friends, it's entirely possible that her absence won't be noticed for some weeks, perhaps longer.
Hannibal might have had reason to believe it wouldn't be linked back to him because he sorta bullied his way into being Bedelia's patient so she likely wasn't keeping any records of his visits as she was retired. That she was retired, well-off, relatively young, unattached, living in a city where she had an experience so traumatic it led her to give up practicing altogether, and her colleague and former patient had seemingly just had an experience that would've made her own trauma all the more vivid, all make the idea that she'd just up and leave believable.
In "Hassun", how on earth does a serial killer murder a judge in his own chamber, dissect him, and artistically arrange his corpse in a courtroom without anyone noticing? Even for a surreal horror series, this pushes the bounds of plausibility.
This can be addressed with a couple of points in the episode. First of all, when the bailiff is murdered, Will remarks that he considered the murderer to be his 'friend'. This points to someone with connections and/or access within the courthouse. They could have had help, or at least made sure that nobody was around for the kill and subsequent staging of the scene. Also given the shot of the janitor doing the cleaning, I imagine that they were working throughout the night, during the court's off-hours.
In "Takiawase", why didn't Beverly take pictures and text them as soon as she took them just in case? She did take pictures (as far as I remember), and she didn't believe Will entirely, but she was in the house of a potential serial killer.
Even if Beverly didn't tell anyone where she was going or upload evidence, couldn't the FBI track her cell phone to Hannibal's house after she was found? Unless she didn't have it on her, which would be Plot Induced Stupidity to say the least.
I don't think Beverly was ever actually reported missing. Her murder and her tableau unveiling seemed to happen in a very short window, and no one had reason to believe she was in danger. After all, Jack didn't seem to know who they'd found until he was up there. I imagine her cell was long gone/destroyed by that time.
In "Mukōzuke", why do Jack and Alana start looking for Hannibal at his office? It's clearly nighttime, so why wouldn't they start searching at his house? This kind of loops back around to the plot another troper mentioned in the YMMV page: obviously they aren't going to search his house and conveniently find all of the organs and murder equipment for the sake of the story, but writing around that feels a little bit contrived.
Well, the true reason for that is probably that they didn't want to spend too much time on establishing where Crawford and Bloom were, and Lecter's office is instantly recognizable, his home not so much. For an in-story explanation: It might have been their second stop. It's not like they were going to conduct an in-depth search of his house, so they wouldn't find any of his victims or tools. Beverly found them easily because she was looking for human parts used in the preparation of food, so of course the freezer was her first stop (and the hidden basement was an accidental find anyway). Jack and Alana would have no reason to pay particularly close attention to the kitchen, they didn't suspect Hannibal of anything, they wanted to find him to protect him.
From the same episode: first Miriam Lass' arm, then Dr. Gideon's unnecessary surgery session and now Beverly. Will someone LOCK THE DAMN DOORS to this observatory already?
I can't imagine locked doors being much of an issue for Hannibal Lecter, particularly if he can take his time (assuming the observatory doesn't have a security guard or similar).
In "Mukōzuke", as in other episodes, Hannibal successfully engages in time-consuming actions in some sort of off-screen time warp killing, disassembling, and moving Beverly. I first questioned how he had enough time to do this, and still spend a large portion of the evening and the morning after with Jack. But I understand that Hannibal consistently exhibits the capacity for Traveling at the Speed of Plot. Then, I wondered, how could he possibly carry all the equipment to set up his mural in the observatory? Does he have a secret huge truck we don't know about, with a freezer? Because Beverly was frozen when she left his house, but she wouldn't stay that way long, and she was leaking blood all over the place when Freddie Lounds found her. Could this just be Fantastic Time Management?
In that episode, note that Lounds approaches the observatory wearily as she was probably anonymously informed about it by Hannibal or some third party. The time is not exactly clear, but judging that by the time Will arrives it's still bright, I'd say it was shortly before noon. Point is, Hannibal got to choose when to expose the body - he wasn't in a hurry. He could have easily kept the body for a day. Yet, given Hannibal's experience in such artwork, it is not very surprising he did it overnight. Freezing the body is done by itself; after it's frozen, he cuts it and puts it in these layer holders, which let's say takes 2 hours total for an experienced serial killer (probably less). That seems pretty reasonable: He showed Jack off at 7 or 8, started preparing everything, was done by 10, and by 11 the body was in the observatory. It also is perfectly possible to transport the mural to the observatory without leaking any of the melting ice / blood by wrapping it in a bunch of foil. Obviously, he needs a rather big car to accomplish that and the SUV he is driving might be suited, especially if the backseats are removed.
Miriam Lass believes that Chilton is the Chesapeake Ripper and has an extremely bad reaction to hearing his voice, causing her to grab Jack's gun and shoot him in the head through the window of the interrogation room. I found some problems with this A. isn't she going to have to deal with going through the legal system because she in fact killed someone (she couldn't pull the in 'self defense card') but I suppose she could prove she wasn't in her right mind when she did it.
Also, (I'm not an expert at these kinds of things) but wouldn't it make MUCH MORE sense for the windows of the interrogation room to be made of bullet-proof glass? The could protect the people outside the room on the slight chance someone being interrogated snuck in a weapon and people inside...
I definitely think she could get away with temporary insanity. I mean, I don't know how well that would hold up in reality but this is television and she's clearly traumatized. Also, Word of God implies that Chilton is still alive.
Do we know what happened to Miriam after she shot Chilton? Because I think it hasn't been brought up yet. I think it's safe to say that she is in some kind of confinement. Crawford is probably doing his best to shield her from harm, but it's hard to call it self-defense or an accident when a suspect chained to a table gets shot in the head (even if he survived) through a window from another room. But I suppose even that would be possible if all involved keep up a lie, since Jack has a lot of influence. Something along the lines of: "Chilton was not secured properly, freed his hands and attacked Bloom, Jack shot him through the window." But as I said, I think Miriam is kept in some monitored psychiatric ward, awaiting a trial to take place somewhere in the future. As for the properties of the glass, that shouldn't be too hard to explain. Bullet-proof glass is expensive, and even if someone manages to sneak in a firearm (and if that happens something did already go catastrophically wrong), you'd think they would mostly be a danger for the interrogator in the room, not that they would fire blindly through the glass. And last of all, not every bulletproof glass is two-ways. And surely no one expected that someone would shoot INTO the room.
How did Gideon manage to kidnap Chilton? They figured out that Gideon was after all his ex-therapists, and later Alanna mentions that they've all been given an armed police escort. So what about Chilton? He'd be an even more obvious target than Alanna, it would make sense that he would have an escort too but it's never mentioned that Gideon killed a police officer during his kidnapping. So why didn't they give him one? It's later mentioned that Chilton hasn't been answering his phone all night and didn't show up to work the next day and that's when they figure out that he was taken, but wouldn't it have made sense to send a police car by his house after he didn't answer the phone a few times? The policemen would have at least noticed there was a sign of a break in or a struggle or something and alerted the FBI, Chilton was Gideon's most personal target after the escape and it would have been pretty obvious that he would come after him at some point. I mean I get that Alanna hates Chilton (and she seems to be the one responsible for contacting him) but it still seems out of character that Alanna would turn a blind eye towards a man being potentially killed just because she has a personal dislike of him. And Chilton seems to me indifferent to his fate, too — a murderous surgeon with a personal vendetta against me has just escape from my asylum and he's obviously planning on killing again, I guess I'll just sit at home alone and wait for something to happen' just doesn't seem like a logical train of thought. Why didn't Chilton just skip town for a few days, or if he really couldn't leave Baltimore why didn't he hire a security company or something to protect him? Or at the very least find somewhere else to spend the night? The entire situation always seemed very weird to me, both the FBI and Chilton himself don't seem overly interested in making sure Chilton is safe.
In "Entrée", Will does his empathy ability on Gideon. Then in "Roti", he does it again. Why did he need to analyze Gideon a second time if he already did so 5 episodes ago?
The first time, he was evaluating a kill where Gideon firmly believed he was the Chesapeake Ripper. The second time, he was having an internal struggle. As such, his motivations needed to be reevaluated.
We have never seen Will use his empathic ability on The Chesapeake Ripper's (Hannibal's) murders. Why not? Also maybe he should have used it on people who aren't killers like on a recent object someone used or a room they were in like Alana or Katz. Anyone who isn't a psychotic maniac really or does Will's ability only work on dead bodies? It could've helped balancing out his mind.
I think you may be misunderstanding Will's ability. It's not a super-power. What he does combines crime scene training, an active imagination, a knack for understanding another person's point-of-view (even an extremely sick POV) and Fuller and Co's visually dramatic flourishes. Will probably does do this all the time, but when a particularly twisted POV starts to actually make sense to him, it disturbs him deeply.
As to if we have gotten the "pendulum vision" version of Will's ability at work on the The Chesapeake Ripper's work... I can't recall if it was the same use of effects (I will rewatch and edit), but we have seen him apply his ability. Also, it was his reading of the Garrett Jacob Hobbs copycat that gave rise to Ravenstag (hardly an innocuous event, even if it is all just symbolic). It maybe that so many of the killings were copycats with flourishes that the effect is... muddled...
Beverly's gloves in Taikawase. Surely leather would have been a better use for what was essentially breaking and entering and burglary. Less chance of glove prints.
Did Hannibal know precisely how to break Mason's neck so as to not kill him but leave him as a paraplegic? Or did he mean to kill him? Either way, why? Why leave him alive? Because it amused him? Didn't he consider the possibility of Mason one day getting revenge, AGAIN?
As a favor to Margot. If Mason died and there were no direct male heirs, then the Verger fortune would be donated to some church. As a paraplegic, he's now unable to directly harm Margot, who's presently the one in charge of his care.
Two things about Hannibal and Jack's fight. One, while he was garroting Hannibal over his back with his tie, why didn't Jack keep doing so for oh I don't know five minutes after? Not just only knock out, but eliminate the disturbing mofo for good, make absolutely sure? Also, you should twist the tie further, to constrict the arteries and cause fatal damage to the neck and esophagus. By letting him down to the floor after he seems to go limp, you're only asking to get stabbed in the jugular. Two, when Hannibal is trying to force the door down, he should know better than to shoulder it (especially by running and leaping at it). That's a good way to dislocate the shoulder, which a) you don't want after the other injuries you've sustained in this fight and b) you definitely don't want when the door does cave in, whether your opponent is holding a grievous throat wound or not. Besides, what if Jack throws the door open as Hannibal is flying towards it? Could possibly lead to him getting the upper hand again. All in all, simply booting the door is a safer prospect and will transfer more blunt force than the shoulder.
To start with Jack; The show is about murderers, and Jack isn't one. We never actually see Jack or the Feds fatally shoot anyone, only Will and confirmed killers. Even Bev only wounds Molly Shannon. When Jack arrives at Lecter he's only suspended, and he knows there's no hard evidence to convict Lecter. He knows Lecter is preparing to leave, and has already framed Chilton, has destroyed his old notes and presumably any other evidence connecting him to the crimes. If Jack had just strangled him to death, Jack would definitely go to prison, Bella would die alone and he'd never even prove who Lecter was. By subduing him, he was being a very good Fed, doing the right thing legally and morally and ensuring he'd remain at Bella's side as she died. The only time we see anyone on the team fatally shoot a bad guy is Will's entirely justified shooting of Hobbs, and it's his personal moral event horizon. Jack can't just strangle a man he only thinks and can not prove is the Ripper. As to Hannibal and the door...you could argue that by that point he might have gone a bit beyond logic? Like it's the only really scary slip of his mask where we see the animal, who is so intent on murder it isn't thinking with Hannibal's usual ruthless rationality and logic.
I see what you're saying about Hannibal's animalism and the mask starting to slip. However I call "Objection!" on Jack's actions. So let me play his lawyer. There's a whole world of difference between murder and justified self defence. We can only logically infer that when Jack starts to draw his gun on Hannibal, it's not to summarily execute him (or even to attempt a wounding/disabling shot), but rather to hold it on him and aid the arrest. Hannibal is intelligent enough to know that Jack, as an upstanding man of the law, will not shoot him. And how does he respond? By throwing a knife into his hand, leaping the kitchen counter and rushing at him with further deadly attacks. And yeah, Jack responds first to that by pulling the blade out and knife fighting, but at that point all gloves are off. The man who threw the knife turned it into a life-or-death confrontation, and that was not the action of an innocent man. He only threw it because he knew the jig was up, and letting Jack draw the gun on him would lead to incarceration, so instead he decides to kill Jack. At that point, Jack is fighting for his life under duress and blood loss, which would be a more pressing concern than regular police procedure to arrest the suspect. And again, that does not make him a murderer. Even putting aside everything he can guess about Hannibal's cunning and danger from all the previous crimes, he can see how viciously and relentlessly this guy is trying to murder him. That alone would be an easy thing to justify to anyone questioning him about the encounter. He could argue that by garroting him to death, he stopped Hannibal from stabbing him in the neck... which does indeed happen. Or then that he stopped Hannibal from putting several other people's lies in mortal danger, which again, happens. Even a suspended Fed like he should be legally and morally vindicated for that course of action, in a way that would make sense within the realms of fiction or otherwise.
Does the Hannibal world not have any cameras? Anywhere? In the examination of any crime scenes there has only ever been camera footage for the ambulance leaving the crime scene in "Sorbet."
Situations where it would've been logical to have checked:
The trombonist's death; the opera might've simply been old-fashioned and therefore lacked cameras, but it's still hard to believe
Dr. Sutcliffe's death; this guy was a respected neurologist from Johns Hopkins University with a high-tech office... and no cameras?
Georgia Madchen's incineration; someone had to have put the comb in the oxygen-high chamber AND take out the grounding bracelet. Will says it's the Ripper so Hannibal it was, but no cameras to prove it
Hannibal kidnapping Gideon; he goes to the hospital to retrieve Gideon soon after his back is broken in some way and kills the guard. There couldn't have been any cameras at the hospital, right? You know, to perhaps see who it was that took him? Simply showing Hannibal in some way turning them off would've been much more plausible.
Mentioned earlier, the judge's public display; I'm not sure if courts have cameras (might break a law or something?), but at least some of the rooms and or hallways nearby must, especially considering how the team said he was dragged out from somewhere nearby to expose him as he was
How in the world would anyone, let alone a man in at least his 60's, be able to set up something like the totem pole in "Trou Normand" without any help? At first, I just thought... how did no one not notice him dig out all of the bodies, but reasonably, and luckily for him, the beach is just that lonely. How he managed to set up that pole is nevertheless beyond reason.
It really doesn't make sense how Georgia Madchen managed to do all that she did in "Buffet Froid." She managed to follow Hannibal to Dr. Sutcliffe's office and then made it to Will's House? She can only really walk or can she in her state of mind be able to drive? Even then, how can Hannibal, one who notices practically every detail in a lot of things, not notice he's being followed? It's very unlikely that she was driving so it just brings the question of how she got to each place.
You'd also think that any bystanders who saw her may have called emergency services due to how messed up she looks. Bystander Effect?
How come Hannibal (or any of his guests) isn't sick with gout and kuru from eating all those human organs?
Kuru is a prion disease, and as such Hannibal either needs to generate his own prions or ingest them in some way. In fact, unless he's very unlucky and chooses one of the few people in the United States (or, presumably, all the places in Europe he's been nomming people), his chances of catching a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of any sort is pretty low, especially since he tends to avoid most of the other possible vectors, ie. animal meats. As for gout, I'm not sure. Maybe he eats his vegetables off screen?
I agree. Since it's well-established that Hannibal can actually smell disease on people, he won't have any problems avoiding 'spoiled meat', thus avoiding any illness. As for gout, he was a doctor: he could be already taking the proper medication or treat to avoid the whole 'swelling of extremities' and other symptoms.
Kuru is a very specific disease. It doesn't just pop up when someone eats of human flesh, only if they chew on a carrier. And nowadays, that's possibly a few dozen people, all of whom live in Papua New Guinea, not exactly where Hannibal gets his ingredients from.
Gout: He is not any more at risk than if he were to eat animal meat in a similar quantity, and even then gout is not caused by diet alone. And while he eats mostly meat, he does eat vegetables and dairy as well (accompanying the meat).
In Dolce, Hannibal was absolutely ready to kill Will. In Digestivo, he is visibly hurt when Will rejects him and even turns himself in because of it. Why did he go from having to eat Will to wanting to be his friend?
It's more that Hannibal wanted to be his friend AND eat him. He saw it as a game, with both he and Will trying to find ways to kill each other. Hannibal believed that Will enjoyed the "Game" too, and that they'd continue to chase and hurt each other. Will's rejection was a denial of the concept that they both enjoyed it, and it also denied Hannibal a further context for hurting or manipulating Will in a way he'd find emotionally satisfying.
In Dolce, keep in mind that Hannibal was also freshly pissed from Will's latest "betrayal" (attempting to stab him) and he's been shown to be impulsive. By "Digestivo," he's had time to cool off during their shared kidnapping experience. Not to mention, Hannibal seemed visibly impressed/pleased when Will bit a piece off Cordell's face, so he must have felt newly endeared to his frenemy.
I read some potential Fridge Brilliance pertaining to Hannibal "changing his mind" in "Digestivo." Namely, it was Bedelia who initially planted the idea that Hannibal "had to eat him" - it wasn't a desire Hannibal felt himself. While he openly admitted to loving Will by this point, it's possible he still really didn't understand what that "meant" - he's not used to loving people, and does usually kill people he gets close to. So it's possible that he never really wanted to kill Will, but didn't fully understand that until "Digestivo", when he realized what he actually wanted was for him and Will to basically be "murder husbands" together. Connected to all this, Hannibal had been obsessed with Will's attention for ages by then - it was okay for Will to hate him, even try to kill him, because that meant Will was still fixated on him. Will essentially saying he intended to "forget" Hannibal would indeed probably be more hurtful in Hannibal's mind than if one of them killed the other.
In Naka-Choko, Will brings Hannibal meat which he claims is from a terrified Freddie Lounds. Hannibal has very finely attuned senses and he believes this. Will's later shown using a corpse in murder tableaus, and the meat seems to have come from it, but did the FBI sign off on him using a corpse this way? How did he know if it died in a suitably frightened state to convince Hannibal? The person would have had to have died recently and received no medication as they were dying, and also have the same body type as Freddie.
It's possible and even probable that the meat comes from Randall Tier, who died violently at the hands of Will Graham, and whose corpse was then made into a museum installation by that same Will Graham. When Freddie Lounds breaks into Will Graham's barn, she finds pieces of human flesh (a fragment of jaw, I believe?), so he presumably kept all the ... meat... he scrapped off Randall Tier's skeleton for later cannibal-hooking purposes.
That still begs the question; was the FBI okay just okay with Will not only desecrating a corpse of a man he killed (under circumstances that could still be challenged) but then the...basically destroying of evidence of his own 'crime'? Did will knowingly eat Randall? And the FBI made peace with this later on? And...presumably...the world, and media?
The FBI wouldn't be if they knew which is why it's likely they didn't know aside from Jack, and even he likely didn't ask many questions and trusted Will to do only what was necessary. Will's reason for making the installation, aside from endearing himself even more to Hannibal, may have been that it would deter the FBI from looking for the rest of the remains. They show up to the scene, see the killer made an art piece, and assume that the rest of the remains were scrapped or kept as trophies by the killer.
How does Will pay for anything? He kept blacking out or having Jack interrupt his classes to have him consult on cases when he was teaching, and then he was in a mental institution. When he got out he wasn't consulting on cases in an official capacity, so he wasn't getting paid. Come season 3 he has the money to get on a boat (that he seems to own) and go to Italy after an extended hospital stay and months of implied unemployed recuperation. Even if he was living off his savings, you'd think it would have come up at some point.
If you nearly die in the line of duty (multiple times), and you know EVERYTHING they screwed up while investigating murderers, I'm pretty sure the FBI has a retirement package for you, and it would be a fairly hefty one, even after they cover your screwups. Graham lives a simple life and canon (Red Dragon) tells us that he fixes boats for a living after he retires. That's not addressed in the series, but at the end of the film version of Red Dragon, he's on a boat. It's not outside the realm of possibility that he took an old rustbucket boat and fixed it up.
Will lives a very humble life, his cabin is small, he has no TV, no internet at his place, his water and power are probably self sufficient, keeping costs low, and he has absolutely no social life. He doesn't even seem to listen to that much music. He was a professor and probably an incredibly well paid one for years before Jack and Lecter and everything that happened so it's entirely possible he is just quietly very wealthy, has fantastic insurance (or gets it through the FBI) and/or has made good investments that mean he doesn't rely on his work to survive (which fits his persona anyway). After the events of season 1 and 2, it's safe to assume that some settlements may have been reached in Will's favour. Everything that happened to him was the fault of somebody or some institution who failed him or was actively complicit in the abuse he suffered. The FBI exposed him to trauma and introduced him to Lecter, Sutcliffe conspired with Hannibal to hide his illness, the FBI nerds could be argued as not doing sufficient forensic testing to confirm if he'd eaten human flesh when he was arrested, Chilton knew Lecter used unorthodox therapy methods but never raised the concern to Alana or anyone until Will was already arrested (and damaged by its effects) Chilton or the hospital or the State of Baltimore allowed Matthew to get work there and then Cynthia Nixon falsely accused Will once, was proven wrong, misread his intentions a second time and as a direct result of her decision, caused Alana, Jack and Will's near fatal injuries, and Abigail's death. If Will didn't get SOME money from somewhere, his lawyer isn't doing his job.
How does Chilton suddenly regain the ability to walk without the cane? He still ran with a noticeable limp when running from arrest in season 2, but season 3 he's suddenly recovered?
The time between season 2 and season 3 was likely at least several months, and at some point in season 3 there's a 3 year time skip so it's possible he healed well enough to walk without a noticeable limp or use of an aide. Improbable healing seems to be a given on the show anyway.
Why doesn't Will suffer any legal repercussions for sending Matthew Brown to kill Hannibal? The only person who seems to have any kind of problem with it is Alana. Shouldn't he have at least be charged with attempted murder even if Hannibal himself didn't want to press any charges? Will admits that he did it right in front of Jack a few episodes later and Jack doesn't seem to care!
Well, if memory serves, by the time Will admits this to Jack, Jack has come round to the idea that Lecter is the Ripper he's been hunting all along and the guy who killed / abducted and mutilated his agent Miriam Lass, and otherwise has been screwing with him, his friends and his family. In other words, Jack truly doesn't care, or at least he's willing to overlook it given what Will personally was going through at the time and the particular situation he was in. As to the rest...yes, what Will did was conspiracy murder and could get him a prison sentence, but to be fair, the series runs on Hollywood Law throughout so it isn't that much of an issue.
Is it true that humans run the risk of turning insane through engaging in cannibalism (or is that just specifically for eating human brains?). If so, does being aware that you're doing it have an effect on the sanity-loss? Would the risk to sanity only come when/if the various characters found out that Hannibal/Garrett/whoever else tricked them into eating human meat disguised as animal?
You're probably thinking of Kuru (basically, human "mad cow" disease, which was mentioned above). This is a prion disease - when important proteins get "misfolded" they cause the problem. They're also contagious, in that ingesting those prions will "teach" your proteins that bad fold. So, yes, you get kuru by eating people, but only by eating the brain of someone who already has it, which is ...checks notes...almost no one. So, no, the act of cannibalism won't drive you insane, typically, but it's probably going to be traumatic for most people who find out what Hannibal served them.
In "Dolce," Will and Hannibal have their long-awaited reunion and then stroll outside into a public street. Will attempts to pull a knife on Hannibal and is stopped (via sniper rifle) by Chiyoh. But what exactly was his plan? They were in public. Was he going to gut Hannibal right there in front of everyone?
Since the show is updated to the modern day, it is a bit of a stretch that Lecter was able to fly out of the country by a commercial plane, enter Europe and remain hidden for months, completely above suspicion, while making ZERO effort whatsoever to conceal he or Bedelia's identity, especially given not just the scale of his crimes, but the incredibly violent scene he left behind, with a dead body and three mortally wounded people in his house. Will had called EMT before he went indoors, so help was moments behind. The alarm about Lecter would have been raised incredibly quickly. His passports frozen, his identity plastered across the news, his image sent to airports, docks, the borders, anywhere he could leave the country. International airports, especially European ones would be alerted he may be travelling to them, Interpol would be made aware. Once Hannibal was named as a suspect and the chance he returned to Europe raised, background checks would have been done that revealed he was suspected for the Il Monstro cases and contact would have been made between the US and European authorities. Even if Hannibal could escape the US and into Europe, perhaps by roundabout means (but not so roundabout he avoided business class), Florence isn't detached from the modern world. People would have heard about the Hannibal Lecter case. He still moves in the same circles of academic and socialites, surely some of them heard the story of a European Socialite in the US who murdered dozens? The first half of season 3 really only make sense if you believe Florence to be completely shielded from any form of modern technology, from computers, cell phones, even just televisions.
Is it possible he could charter the plane privately, perhaps with an amoral friend in the aviation industry, and rapidly enough to beat the alert? And have it land in an airstrip not under the auspices of the international airport community? Yeah that's a big stretch, but Hannibal as a character in general is known to stretch plausibility in several ways. Then, him hiding in Italy is open to debate, but not so hard to justify either. Not everyone follows America-based serial killers, and dopplegangers do exist.
