“Will cared for Molly, he loved her and Wally—”
a sophisticated mind can predict many things.
maybe yours isn’t sophisticated enough to know that Will’s is. but Hannibal essentially told him his family was the next on the Dragon’s list and he :) let :) them :) die :)
Will and Molly’s marriage is essentially an allegory for a lavender marriage. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a gay man marrying into a straight relationship to hide his homosexuality. And for those of you who have never watched Fellow Travelers, I highly recommend watching it.
Although lavender marriages and their dynamics differ for each couple, the most important aspect of it can keep going isn’t about whether or not the spouse cheats or even the hidden lies. It’s if they have respect for each other and that’s something Will and Molly don’t have. Molly and Will avoid conflict of any kind and don’t bring up things that irk the other. Marriages like that are unhealthy in the long run, because it means the couple is unwilling or unable to deal with conflict if and when it occurs. While Molly is committed to lies to not upset Will, Will doesn’t bring up her dead husband and keeps mum about his own past. They have a mutual unspoken pact to ignore the worst in each other to keep enjoying the best.
Will specifically is adverse to any conflicts in this marriage that the second Molly made him upset with her “criminal minds” comment, the next dream he had about was killing her. That doesn’t necessarily mean he had the urge to kill her for that comment, but it means his violent nature wanted to destroy anything or anyone who was unacceptable to it. He also expected Molly and Wally to continue to play house with him after he planned to go home as if they weren’t traumatized by almost being killed even after he admitted to Bedelia that he had already lost them.
But all of this could have continued to keep going for a little bit longer if Will took Hannibal’s advice and turned Jack away. Or could it? He was already secretly reading TattleCrime articles about the Tooth Fairy before all that happened like a teenager hiding a porno magazine and don’t even get me started on the letter. Will was never fully committed to a life that didn’t include carnage or Hannibal. If he was, he would’ve turned Jack away at the door or even burned the letter from Hannibal before even reading it. He moved away and started a new life, but he himself was always there.
actually, on that avoiding conflict thing, a tiny moment that always stuck out to me was Molly showing a small sign of frustration in the hospital then quickly saying “woah I got mad there” like it was a sin like woah the super chill cool wife who is always okay and never complains suddenly made a tiny comment after she and her child were literally almost killed. like…?? lol that really shows a lot about her and their dynamic.
That too. Anger is a natural response to trauma. Plus notice how their language changes. Will calls Molly “Your mom” when he speaks to Wally and Molly says “My son” and not “our son” when she talks about how she and Wally almost died. A parent’s priority is first and foremost to their child and she has that instinct in danger. Will doesn’t. You saw what happened with Abigail.
It was also a red flag that she kept a secret about the dogs getting poisoned. Dogs are family. When they get sick or hurt, everyone should know and be informed. But instead, she kept committing to lying about it and even encouraged her son to lie. What’s the worst that can happen? An expensive vet bill? Some dogs having diarrhea for a few days? Or was she afraid of Will doing something else because of a supposed mistake. It’s like she was walking on egg shells.
NOT healthy.
actually, I think the worst thing about the dogs was that it really shows how little they were communicating because that was common knowledge, actually Will was the one to ask the authorities to send a warning to warn them if there was anything wrong with pets matter of fact, as Molly and Wally are walking out of the vet they literally close up on a paper on the mural of that vet clinic with that FBI warning lol
and you would think that as a normal couple, they were talking every single day at least to catch up, but they were not because he didn’t even mention that to her especially because they have dogs. It’s just very very unlikely that Will didn’t even consider that his family was a target when you think about the fact that Will is extremely perceptive and intelligent, and he can predict behavior and then you consider the obviousness of the situation such as Hannibal being involved.
I feel like it’s silly to even write this because it’s so obvious that his family was a potential target that it feels ridiculous to even make this argument. people who think that will genuinely didn’t know it’s just silly at this point 
Fr, Hannibal even said it. “I’m not letting them die, Will. You are.”
This is a man that deduced cannibalism from a removed and replaced liver. That figured out that several murders with vastly different MOs were all the work of the same person with his brain melting in his skull. Hannibal was literally dropping hints long before he sent Dolarhyde after them and Will was actively ignoring them.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it against, Will was tired of playing house with his ready made family and wanted to be rid of them in a way that absolved him of both responsibility and guilt.
Will loves to manipulate the situation so that others end up doing what he can’t do himself but wants to. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Will the main puppeteer of the show…Because he fools even the audience into thinking he’s innocent, or that Hannibal is a bigger manipulator.