Marlana

Marlana is the femslash ship between Margot Verger and Alana Bloom from the Hannibal fandom.

Season 3
APERITIVO

Alana arrives at the Verger estate just as Margo is returning from a horseback ride. She spares a quick glance at Alana before going into the stables. Alana walks in and introduces herself to Margot, who realizes she's her brother's new psychiatrist. Alana admits to going the wrong way and ending up on the service road, and asks if this is the correct entrance. Margot says that it can be, and introduces herself to Alana. Alana compliments the beauty of the estate as the two begin to walk. Margot tells her it's better in the spring, and checks Alana out as they talk. She asks to let Mason know she's here, but Margot cryptically says that he already knows.

When they reach the main entrance, Margot tells Alana that people sometimes have trouble talking to Mason, and she'll answer any questions she has if it gets too bad. Alana thanks, her as Mason calls to let Margot know she can leave. Before she does, she warns Alana not to take anything offered by her brother.

DOLCE

As Mason's psychiatrist, Alana is tasked with helping him in his newest obsession, finding Hannibal overseas so that he can catch him and bring him back to Maryland to eat him, just as Hannibal would do with his victims. As a result, Alana spends most of her time at the Verger estate. One morning, Alana, Margot, Mason and Cornell watch the Italian news, seeing that Pazzi has been murdered by Hannibal, after Pazzi made an agreement with Mason and Alana that he would be Hannibal's bounty hunter for them to bring him back to the Verger estate. Alana stares at Margot from behind her and walks closer to her as she warns Mason that Pazzi's death could lead to the Italian polizia tracing Hannibal's bounty to him. He, however, is not worried. Margot then tells him that he should "buy another cop," or bribe someone else from the polizia to give them the inside scoop on Hannibal's whereabouts. Alana goes further, telling him that he should "buy the whole department." It is later revealed that Margot took Alana's advice, bribing a section of the polizia to bring them Hannibal.

Margot and Alana have sex. Afterwards, while they get dressed, Alana comments that Mason is ahead of the FBI with his inside knowledge of Hannibal's whereabouts in Italy. Margot tells her that Mason wouldn't want to share his information with the FBI, and Alana retorts that she does want to. She helps Margot tie up her dress as she adds that she will tell the FBI about Mason's information only after Hannibal is already in Mason's possession, so Mason can also go to prison for withholding information from the FBI. As Alana finishes tying the bow of Margot's dress, Margot asks Alana if she will help her collect some of Mason's sperm before he is caught by the FBI, so that she can have the child and heir she always wanted after Mason removed her uterus for becoming pregnant with Will's child.

DIGESTIVO

The polizia that Margot bribed on behalf of Mason successfully find Hannibal and Will and send them back to the Verger estate. After another of night sleeping together, Margot approaches Alana at the window in the morning. Alana tells her that it's time they finally get the sperm Margot wants since Mason has Hannibal. However, Margot informs Alana that Mason's men took Will, too. Alana calls Mason a sadist, correctly predicting that he plans to torture the two men and take his time with that torture. She tells Margot that him taking his time with Will and Hannibal will also give them time to enact their plan to call the FBI and then take Mason's sperm. They smile at each other.

Part of Mason's plan was to get Jack Crawford involved in his plan with capturing Will and Hannibal, since Jack went to Italy to meet with Will and find Hannibal. His plan was to capture Will and Hannibal and then have Jack killed, to make it look like Hannibal killed and ate him. Unfortunately for him, Jack was saved from Mason's men, and Margot tells Mason that Jack is still alive while he is in bed, claiming prematurely that Jack had died to Alana. Mason is disappointed by the news, and Alana warns Mason that if he leaves Hannibal alive too long to torture him, Hannibal will escape and take his revenge. Later, as Margot is strapping Mason into his mobility chair, he asks her upfront how long her and Alana have been seeing each other. Margot seems taken aback by the question, but she tells him that their connection has been somewhat recent. Mason says that Cordell can refute that fact, that they've been together for longer. She doesn't dispute that as Mason asks if Alana wants children, a continuation of their long-term discussion about procuring an heir to their family's fortunes. Margot tells him to get to his point, and he reveals that he saved her fetus from when he gave her a hysterectomy, and that he found a surrogate that has been holding the child in the meantime. She is shocked and demands to see the surrogate, but Mason only tells her that she's "on the farm." She demands again to see her, but he refuses, citing that he needs to find the right time because the surrogacy will be a psychological shock to her. She leaves. Meanwhile, Alana visits Will, who tells her that she has to kill someone to get the situation with Hannibal's impending arrest resolved.

In part of his plan to torture Hannibal before eating him, Mason has Cornell string Hannibal up in the pig pens, surrounded by other pigs in their own individual pens. Margot comes to visit him, easily passing the guard sitting watch over him, and he asks if she's come back for therapy. She tells Hannibal about the surrogate, and he tells her that Mason will always deny her, like he always has in the past, and that the only solution to that is for her to kill him. The two discuss killing Mason, and Hannibal tells her that he will be willing to take the fall for her if she kills Mason herself, as he has told her in the past that he recommends the therapeutic feeling of her killing him herself. As he says this, Alana comes to the pens, and greets the guard before shooting him with his tranquilizer gun. Hannibal tells Alana to take the guard's pocketknife as she joins Margot at his pen. Alana asks Hannibal to promise to save Will, and he agrees. He tells her to cut one of his ropes and then leave him the pocketknife she stole so that he can free himself the rest of the way. Before she frees Hannibal, she asks if he plans on killing Mason. Hannibal catches Alana up to speed that Margot will kill Mason and then frame him for it. He asks her to rip out some of his hair and place it in Mason's hand after death so that it looks like he struggled with Hannibal. She obliges, taking some of his hair before cutting him free.

Margot and Alana somehow find the surrogate room, and find that Mason has put her baby in a pig, who is unconscious and hooked up to medical equipment to monitor the baby's health. There is an ultrasound image shown of the baby, and Margot asks Alana to check if the child is alive. Alana confirms that there is no heartbeat. Horrified, Margot demands that Alana take the body out from the pig. Alana does, and places the almost fully-developed stillborn into Margot's arms. They look at it together in silence.

Free, Hannibal saves Will from Mason's plan to take off his face and wear it, instead killing Cornell and putting his face over Mason's. When Mason wakes up and grabs his gun, he finds Alana coming into his room. Alana informs him that Hannibal got out and killed everyone Mason employed, including Cornell. Margot then walks in, her face streaked with mascara from crying, and she tells him that they found his "surrogate." She tells him that they've gotten everything from him that they need. Mason claims that she can't kill him because she doesn't have an heir, since he killed her baby. She then reveals with Alana that, while he was still unconscious from his planned facial surgery, the pair got Hannibal to help them milk him for his sperm, so now they have enough to create a child of their own without needing him alive to maintain the family legacy. When Alana presents the vial of his sperm, Mason attempts to shoot her. Margot dives over to him and tackles him, chair and all, into his eel's water tank below them, redirecting his shot into the water. Alana helps pull Margot out as they then both hold Mason's head down in the water. As he tries to gasp for air, his eel swims down his throat, suffocating him. Hannibal later takes the fall, following through on his promise to the couple that he would tell authorities that he killed Mason instead of them.

AND THE WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN...

After Jack convinces Will to join a new case of a new serial killer after Hannibal is put in prison, Will says that he needs to speak to Hannibal to help him with the case. After his initial visit, Will goes to Alana's office to speak to her about the encounter. Will sits next to her on her office's couch and asks if she is still with Margot. She says that she is with a smile, and adds that they have a baby, one presumably made with Mason's sperm that they collected. She clarifies that the child is a boy, so there is still an heir to the Verger legacy. Will says "good for Margot," and Alana clarifies that it was good for her, since she carried and gave birth to their son. She proclaims him the Verger heir. Will nods to himself before asking Alana why she's still at Baltimore State Hospital if she has her family. She tells him that she has all of the "keys" to the "five doors between Hannibal and the outside."

The next day, Alana comes with nurses and guards to inspect Hannibal's room. As she looks through his drawings and pages on his desk, Hannibal asks if she's come to "wag [her] finger," or to scold him for some behavior of his. She replies that she "loves a good finger-wagging." Hannibal agrees, asking how Margot is doing, presumably using the term "finger-wagging" as a euphemism about her sexuality. She doesn't respond to his question, instead telling him that she can practically hear his thoughts, that she knows he's planning something involving Will.

THE WRATH OF THE LAMB

Alana visits a charred Chilton in his oxygen tank, telling him that she is visiting him only to remind herself of what Hannibal is capable of. Chilton corrects her, that in reality, her and Will were responsible for leaving Chilton on the verge of death with The Red Dragon after setting Chilton up as bait to be captured by him. He asks Alana who she plans on using as bait next, and she only vaguely reveals the plan she concocted with Will and Jack to use Hannibal as bait to catch The Red Dragon. As Chilton's skin has almost completely been burned off in his attack by the Dragon, he mentions that he would want skin grafts of Hannibal's skin after he is used as bait. Alana tells Chilton that he was never comfortable in his own skin, so Hannibal's wouldn't be any better. Chilton asks if she's comfortable in Hannibal's skin, perhaps referring to the fact that she got away with Mason Verger's murder by allowing Hannibal to take the blame so that she could start her family with Margot.

After this visit, Alana visits Hannibal at his cell to ask him about the Dragon bait plan. She explains the plan to him, that she will pretend to put him into police custody with Will and they will drive until they can catch The Red Dragon trying to intercept the custody transfer on the road. Hannibal asks if the plan was Will's idea, which Alana confirms. He asks if she trusts Will with Hannibal, and she replies that she trusts him as much as she trusts Hannibal with Will. He then asks if she trusts him with her well-being. He says that her plan could fail, and he could genuinely escape and then come to kill her, as he previously promised years before, during the finale of the second season. He claims that she has been living on borrowed time since that day, even going so far as to say, "Your wife. Your child. They all belong to me." She does not openly react to his threat.

Since Alana was not able to adequately convince Hannibal to go along with the plan, Will does. And, as the plan originally intended, the custody transfer drive does attract the Dragon. However, he arrives undercover in a police car and kills the officers escorting Hannibal and Will, unable to give the FBI space or time to find and kill him. The van Hannibal and Will were riding in is crashed as a result and the Dragon allows them to escape, driving away without speaking to them because he wants their chase to continue. That night, the FBI arrive to the scene and document the massacre, noting Hannibal and Will missing. Because Hannibal followed through on his hypothetical that he would escape during the trap and go free, the last shots of Alana and Margot are them leaving the massive Verger estate with their son and packed bags, leaving on a helicopter to relocate to avoid being found and murdered.

Children
Morgan Verger

Margot and Alana's son, and also the heir to the Verger family legacy. Morgan was created with Mason's sperm and presumably Alana's egg, and he was carried to term by Alana, making Morgan both Margot and Alana's biological child.

Fanon
Shipping between the two began after they first met and viewers noticed chemistry between the two. Despite this, many were still shocked when it ended up becoming canon. Even with the shock, many queer fans were happy to see the two become canon, and quickly started to create fan content for them. Fans of the ship often take note of the smaller moments, such as Alana helping Margot dress after the two had sex.

The two gained the ship name "Murder Wives," similar to Hannigram's "Murder Husbands" due to their shared murder of Margot's brother Mason. They are typically shipped alongside Hannigram, since most fans who watch Hannibal are Hannigram fans. Despite this, Marlana still tends to be a background pairing in fan fiction that involve both pairs. On AO3, Marlana is the most popular ship for both characters. It is also the third most popular ship in the Hannibal (TV) tag.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Alana/Margot on FanFiction.Net
 * Alana/Margot on FanFiction.Net

TUMBLR

WIKIS

Trivia

 * Katharine Isabelle, the actress for Margot, posted a picture of herself flying a scarf with Marlana fanart on it.
 * In the show's small side-series covering behind-the-scenes interviews with the actors, Post Mortem, it is revealed by Katharine Isabelle that Margot is intended to be a lesbian, following the thread that her character is canonically lesbian in the books.
 * On the other hand in the same interview, Caroline Dhavernas, the actress for Alana, explains that she had a conversation with the show's creator Bryan Fuller about Alana's sexuality, and they both agreed that Alana is canonically bisexual and knowingly so, prior to meeting Margot.