Hannibal Lecter Transcripts: Hannibal S1E2

Will: What’s that?

Hannibal: Your psychological evaluation. You are totally functional and more or less sane. Well done.

Will: Did you just rubber stamp me?

Hannibal: Yes. Jack Crawford may lay his weary head to rest knowing he didn’t break you and our conversation can proceed unobstructed by paperwork.

Will: Jack thinks that I need therapy.

Hannibal: What you need is a way out of dark places when Jack sends you there.

Will: Last time he sent me into a dark place, I brought something back.

Hannibal: A surrogate daughter? You saved Abigail Hobbs’ life. You also orphaned her. That comes with certain emotional obligations, regardless of empathy disorders.

Will: You were there. You saved her life too. Do you feel obligated?

Hannibal: Yes. I feel a staggering amount of obligation. I feel responsibility. I’ve fantasized about scenarios where my actions may have allowed a different fate for Abigail Hobbs.

Will: Jack thinks Abigail Hobbs helped her dad kill those girls.

Hannibal: How does that make you feel?

Will: How does it make you feel?

Hannibal: I find it vulgar.

Will: Me too.

Hannibal: And entirely possible.

Will: It’s not what happened.

Hannibal: Jack will ask her when she wakes up, or he’ll have one of us ask her.

Will: Is this therapy, or a support group?

Hannibal: It’s whatever you need it to be. And, Will, the mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself, not the worst of someone else.

Will: This may have been premature.

Hannibal: What did you see? Out in the field.

Will: Hobbs.

Hannibal: An association?

Will: A hallucination. I saw him lying there in someone else’s grave.

Hannibal: Did you tell Jack what you saw?

Will: No!

Hannibal: It’s stress. Not worth reporting. You displaced the victim of another killer’s crime with what could arguably be considered your victim.

Will: I don’t consider Hobbs my victim.

Hannibal: What do you consider him?

Will: Dead.

Hannibal: Is it harder imagining the thrill somebody else feels killing, now that you’ve done it yourself? The arms. Why did he leave them exposed? To hold their hands? To feel the life leaving their bodies?

Will: No, that’s too esoteric for someone who took the time to bury his victims in a straight line. He’s more practical.

Hannibal: He was cultivating them.

Will: He was keeping them alive. He was feeding them intravenously.

Hannibal: But your farmer let his crops die. Save for the one that didn’t.

Will: Well, and the one that didn’t died on the way to the hospital, though they weren’t crops; They were the fertilizer. The bodies were covered in fungus.

Hannibal: The structure of a fungus mirrors that of the human brain an intricate web of connections.

Will: So maybe he admires their ability to connect the way human minds can’t.

Hannibal: Yours can.

Will: (laugh) Yep. Um yeah, not physically.

Hannibal: Is that what your farmer is looking for? Some sort of connection?

Hannibal: Have a good evening, Will.

Hannibal: Miss Kimball?

Freddie: Yes.

Hannibal: Good evening. Please come in.

Freddie: I’ve, uh, never seen a psychiatrist before. And I am unfortunately thorough, so you’re one of three doctors I’m interviewing. It’s more or less a bake-off.

Hannibal: I’m very supportive of bake-offs. It’s important you find someone you’re comfortable with.

Freddie: I can imagine you as my therapist, which is good. If I can’t visualize opening up emotionally, I know it would be a problem.

Hannibal: May I ask why now?

Freddie: Do you mind if I ask you a few questions first?

Hannibal: Of course not.

Freddie: I love that you’ve written so much on social exclusion. Since that’s why I’m here, I was wondering–

Hannibal: Are you Freddie Lounds?

Freddie: Ah…

Hannibal: This is unethical, even for a tabloid journalist.

Freddie: I am, uh, I am so embarrassed.

Hannibal: I’m afraid I must ask for your bag.

Freddie: What?

Hannibal: Your bag. Please hand it over. I’d rather not take it from you. Thank you.

Freddie: I was recording our conversation.

Hannibal: Our conversation? Yours and mine?

Freddie: Yes.

Hannibal: No other conversation?

Freddie: No.

Hannibal: You were very persistent about your appointment time. How did you know when Will Graham would be here?

Freddie: I may have also recorded your session with Will Graham.

Hannibal: You didn’t answer the question. How did you know?

Freddie: I can’t answer that question.

Hannibal: Come. Sit by me. Delete the conversations you recorded. Doctor-patient confidentiality works both ways. Delete it, please. You’ve been terribly rude, Miss Lounds. What’s to be done about that?

Hannibal: Loin, served with a Cumberland sauce of red fruits.

Jack: Um, loin. What kind?

Hannibal: Pork.

Jack: Wonderful. I don’t get many opportunities to, uh, eat home-cooked meals. My wife and I both work, and, uh, as hard as I tried not to, I did wind up marrying my mother.

Hannibal: Your mother didn’t cook?

Jack: She did, she did. I only wish she didn’t. There was this meal she used to prepare. She liked to call it “oriental noodles”. Spaghetti, soy sauce, bouillon cubes, and spam. I was raised thin as a youngster.

Hannibal: Well, next time, bring your wife. I’d love to have you both for dinner.

Jack: Thank you. Mmm. Lovely. So, why do you think Will Graham came back to see you?

Hannibal: I’m sure he recognizes the necessity of his own support structure if he is to go on supporting you in the field.

Jack: Well, I believe that a guy like Will Graham knows exactly what’s going on inside of his head, which is why he doesn’t want anyone else up there.

Hannibal: Are you not accustomed to broken ponies in your stable?

Jack: You think Will Graham’s a broken pony?

Hannibal: I think you think Will is a broken pony. Have you ever lost a pony, Jack?

Jack: If you’re asking me whether or not I’ve ever lost someone in the field, the answer is yes. Why?

Hannibal: I want to understand why you’re so delicate with Will. Because you don’t trust him, or because you’re afraid of losing another pony?

Jack: I’ve already had my psych eval.

Hannibal: Not by me. You’ve already told me about your mother. Why stop there?

Jack: (laughing) Oh, great. All right.

Hannibal: When you shot Eldon Stammets, who was it that you saw?

Will: I didn’t see Hobbs.

Hannibal: Then it’s not Hobbs’ ghost that’s haunting you, is it? It’s the inevitability of there being a man so bad that killing him felt good.

Will: Killing Hobbs felt just.

Hannibal: Which is why you’re here to prove that sprig of zest you feel is from saving Abigail, not from killing her dad.

Will: I didn’t feel a sprig of zest when I shot Eldon Stammets.

Hannibal: You didn’t kill Eldon Stammets.

Will: I thought about it. I’m still not entirely sure that wasn’t my intention pulling the trigger.

Hannibal: If your intention was to kill him, it’s because you understand why he did the things he did. It’s beautiful in its own way giving voice to the unmentionable.

Will: I should’ve stuck to fixing boat motors in Louisiana.

Hannibal: A boat engine is a machine, a predictable problem, easy to solve. You fail, there’s a paddle. Where was your paddle with Hobbs?

Will: You’re supposed to be my paddle.

Hannibal: I am. It wasn’t the act of killing Hobbs that got you down, was it? Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good?

Will: I liked killing Hobbs.

Hannibal: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?

Will: That depends who you ask.

Hannibal: God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.

Will: And did God feel good about that?

Hannibal: He felt powerful.