Hannibal Lecter Transcripts: Hannibal S1E10

Will: I can feel my nerves clicking like, uh, roller coaster cogs, pulling up to the inevitable long plunge.

Hannibal: Quick sounds, quickly ended.

Will: Abigail Hobbs ended Nicholas Boyle. Like a burst balloon. She took a life.

Hannibal: You've taken a life.

Will: Yeah. Yeah, so have you.

Hannibal: You're grieving, Will. Not for the life you have taken, but for the life that was taken from you. If Abigail could have started over, left the horror of her father behind, so could have you. You could untangle yourself from the madness and the murder.

Will: We lied for her.

Hannibal: We both know the unreality of taking a life. The people who die when we have no other choice, we know in those moments they are not flesh, but light, and air, and color.

Will: Isn't that what it is to be alive?

Hannibal: Do you feel alive, Will?

Will: I... I feel like I'm fading.

Hannibal: Have you experienced any further loss of time? Or hallucinations?

Will: Yeah.

Hannibal: I'd like you to draw a clock face. Numbered. Small hand indicating the hour, large hand the minute.

Will: Why?

Hannibal: An exercise. I want you to focus on the present moment. The now. Often as you can, think of where you are, and when. Think of who you are.

Will: Seven sixteen PM. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland. And my name is Will Graham.

Hannibal: A simple reminder. The handle to reality for you to hold on to. And know you're alive.

Will: I still have the coppery smell of blood on my hands. I can't remember seeing the crime scene before I saw myself killing her.

Hannibal: Those memories sank out of sight, yet you're aware of their absence.

Will: There's a grandiosity to the violence that I imagined that feels more real than what I know is true.

Hannibal: What do you know to be true?

Will: I know I didn't kill her. I couldn't have. But I remember cutting into her. I remember watching her die.

Hannibal: You must overcome these delusions that are disguising your reality. What kind of savage delusions does this killer have?

Will: It wasn't savage. It was lonely. It was desperate. Sad. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I looked right through me, past me, as if I was a... was just a stranger.

Hannibal: You have to honestly confront your limitations with what you do. And how it affects you.

Will: If by limitations you mean the difference between sanity and insanity, I don't accept that.

Hannibal: What do you accept?

Will: I know what kind of crazy I am, and this isn't that kind of crazy. This could be... seizures. This could be a tumor. A... a blood clot.

Hannibal: I can recommend a neurologist. But if it isn't physiological, then you have to accept what you're struggling with is mental illness.

Dr. Sutcliffe: You're in very good hands. Dr. Lecter here is one of the sanest men I know.

Hannibal: I would agree. Dr. Sutcliffe and I were residents together at Hopkins.

Dr. Sutcliffe: Another life ago, back when you weren't afraid to get your hands a little dirty.

Hannibal: I was always drawn to how the mind works. I found it much more dynamic than how the brain works.

Dr. Sutcliffe: The projected image is more interesting than the projector, until, of course, the projector breaks down. So, Will, these headaches. When did they begin in earnest?

Will: Two to three months ago.

Hannibal: About the time Will went back into the field, which is when I met him.

Dr. Sutcliffe: And the hallucinations?

Will: I can't really say when they started. Um... I just slowly became aware that I might not be dreaming.

Hannibal: It's encephalitis.

Dr. Sutcliffe: That's your pre-diagnosis?

Hannibal: Yes.

Dr. Sutcliffe: Based on...?

Hannibal: I could smell it.

Dr. Sutcliffe: So your sense of smell has gone from calling out a nurse's perfume to diagnosing autoimmune disease.

Hannibal: He started sleepwalking and I noticed a very specific scent.

Dr. Sutcliffe: And what exactly does encephalitis smell like?

Hannibal: It has heat. A fevered sweetness.

Dr. Sutcliffe: If you suspected, why didn't you say something?

Hannibal: Had to be sure. Symptoms began slowly and gradually worsened. And yesterday, I asked him to draw a clock. This is what he drew.

Dr. Sutcliffe: Oh. Spatial neglect. Headaches, disorientation, hallucinations, altered consciousness. It's all the telltale signs.

Hannibal: It is so rare to be able to study the psychological effect of this type of malady on a person's mind.

Dr. Sutcliffe: It's more rare still to be able to study the neurological effects.

Hannibal: A doctor has to weigh the ultimate benefit of scientific study. Even in these times, we know so little about the brain. There are great discoveries to be made.

Dr. Sutcliffe: The right side of his brain is completely inflamed. It's anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The symptoms are only going to get worse.

Hannibal: I know. It's unfortunate for Will.

Dr. Sutcliffe: What do you smell on me?

Hannibal: Opportunity.

Hannibal: You knew from the moment you walked into his classroom that you were putting him in a potentially destructive environment.

Jack: I had eight college girls dead in Minnesota. Will caught their killer for me.

Hannibal: He also caught their killer's disease. He can't stop thinking about what it is to take a life.

Jack: I'd rather he go a little mad than other innocents lose their lives, and I think he would feel the same way.

Hannibal: Will is an innocent.

Jack: Yes. He is. I mean, Will is genuine. He'll survive anything I could put him through. He will always fight his way back to himself.

Hannibal: Not always. So far. He saw a neurologist today. They found nothing wrong with him. He was very upset by that.

Jack: You're saying he wanted something to be wrong?

Hannibal: I think he wanted an answer that wasn't mental illness.

Jack: You think he's mentally ill.

Hannibal: The problem Will has is too many mirror neurons. Our heads are filled with them when we are children... supposed to help us socialize and then melt away. But Will held on to his, which makes knowing who he is a challenge. When you take him to a crime scene, Jack, the very air has screams smeared on it. In those places, he doesn't just reflect; He absorbs.

Will: It's 7:05 PM. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland. My name is Will Graham.

Hannibal: Thank you for humoring me.

Will: I feel like I'm seeing a ghost.

Hannibal: Regarding this killer, or yourself?

Will: Both.

Hannibal: Well, she's real. You know she's real. There's evidence. When you found her, your sanity did not leave you.

Will: Time did.

Hannibal: You lost time again? I spoke to Dr. Sutcliffe. We briefly discussed the particulars of your visit. Would you like to discuss them with me?

Will: There are no particulars. He didn't find anything wrong.

Hannibal: Then we keep looking for answers. Perhaps you would permit me to run some tests of my own.

Will: You wouldn't publish anything about me, would you, Dr. Lecter?

Hannibal: If there were ever anything that might be of therapeutic value to others, I'd abstract it in a form that would be totally unrecognizable.

Will: Just do me a favor and publish it posthumously.

Hannibal: After your death or mine?

Will: Whichever comes first.

Hannibal: Have you considered Cotard's Syndrome? It's a rare delusional disorder in which a person believes he or she is dead.

Will: Are you talking about the killer or me?

Hannibal: The killer, of course.

Will: Well, of course. Um, she couldn't see the victim's face. Or she was trying to uncover it.

Hannibal: The inability to identify others is associated with Cotard. It's a misfiring in the areas of the brain which recognize faces, and also in the amygdala, which adds emotion to those recognitions. Even those closest to her would seem like imposters.

Will: So she... she reached out to someone she loved, someone she trusted. She felt betrayed, became violent.

Hannibal: She can't trust anything or anyone she once knew to be trustworthy. Her mental illness won't let her.

Hannibal: The Jamon Ibérico.

Dr. Sutcliffe: Still love your little rare treats, don't you, Hannibal? The more expensive and difficult they are to obtain, the better.

Hannibal: It's a distinction that adds an expectation of quality.

Dr. Sutcliffe: Not always.

Hannibal: Well, for Ibérico, only a few thousand are selected each year. But is the pig, once fattened and slaughtered and air-cured, really superior to any other pig? Or is it simply a matter of reputation preceding product?

Dr. Sutcliffe: It's irrelevant. If the meat-eater thinks it's superior, then belief determines value.

Hannibal: A case of psychology overriding neurology.

Dr. Sutcliffe: So, we know how Ibérico gets his pigs. How did you get yours?

Hannibal: Are you referring to Will Graham?

Dr. Sutcliffe: We know you're fond of the rarified. What makes him so rare?

Hannibal: Will has a remarkably vivid imagination. Beautiful. Pure empathy. Nothing he can't understand, and that terrifies him.

Dr. Sutcliffe: So you set his mind on fire.

Hannibal: Imagination is an interesting accelerant for a fever.

Dr. Sutcliffe: So... how far does this go? Do you put out the fire, or do you let him burn?

Hannibal: Will is my friend. We will put out the fire when it's necessary.

Dr. Sutcliffe: He has asked for more tests.

Hannibal: Now that we have confirmed what it is, it'll be easier to hide from him.

Jack: She'll recover?

Hannibal: Risk of infection is high. She's lost most of her vital fluids. Even some bone mass. She's being treated like a burn victim.

Jack: But she'll recover mentally?

Hannibal: She has Cotard's Syndrome. Almost all sufferers of this delusion recover with treatment... in extreme cases like this one, electroconvulsive therapy. I'm more concerned about Will.

Jack: I thought you'd be more concerned about your colleague, Dr. Sutcliffe.

Hannibal: I am grieving Dr. Sutcliffe, but Will is very much alive. He's still desperate for an explanation that can make everything right again.

Jack: I'm, uh, pretty desperate for some explanations myself. I really want to talk to this young woman when she comes to. How much do you think she'll remember?

Hannibal: Well, I sincerely hope, for her sake, she doesn't remember much.