Hannibal Lecter Transcripts: Hannibal S2E10

Will: I'd say this makes us even. I sent someone to kill you... you sent someone to kill me. Even Steven.

Hannibal: Consider it an act of reciprocity.

Will: Polite society normally places such a taboo on taking a life.

Hannibal: Without death, we'd be at a loss. It's the prospect of death that drives us to greatness. Did you kill him with your hands?

Will: It was... intimate.

Hannibal: It deserves intimacy. You were Randall Tier's final enemy. Don't go inside, Will. You'll want to retreat. You'll want it as the glint of the rail tempts us when we hear the approaching train. Stay with me.

Will: Where else would I go?

Hannibal: You have everywhere to go. You should be quite pleased. I am.

Will: Of course you are.

Hannibal: When you killed Randall, did you fantasize you were killing me? Most of what we do, most of what we believe, is motivated by death.

Will: I've never felt as alive as I did when I was killing him.

Hannibal: Then you owe Randall Tier a debt. How will you repay him?

Jack: The killer chose not to dispose of the body, but to display it.

Hannibal: A jarring reminder of the informality of death.

Jack: Randall Tier was denied the respectful end that he himself denied others.

Hannibal: This is a humiliation, a final indignity.

Will: He isn't mocking him. This isn't disdain. He's... commemorating him.

Hannibal: This killer has no fear for the consequences of what he's done.

Will: No guilt.

Will: He knew his killer. There's a... familiarity here. Someone who met him, understood him. Someone like him. Different pathology, same instinct.

Jack: His killer empathized with him?

Will: Don't mistake understanding for empathy, Jack. No, if there's anything, it's... it's envy.

Jack: Envy?

Will: Randall Tier came into his own much easier than whoever killed him.

Hannibal: This was a fledgling killer. He's never killed before, not like this.

Will: Not like this, no. This is the nightmare that followed him out of his dreams.

Hannibal: You know you will have to kill him, Margot. You've known it for years.

Margot: I may have missed my opportunity.

Hannibal: Do you know why you failed to murder him, Margot?

Margot: Poor planning.

Hannibal: You failed to murder your brother because you still love him. In love, you take leave of your senses, but in hatred, you must be present to calculate your actions. Allow yourself to hate him. Do you think Mason will just give you what you want? You'll be begging him for the rest of your life. Did begging help when he tore you? Same thing as taking his chocolate and letting him have his way.

Margot: I'm lucky I didn't kill him. Papa's will was very clear. Upon the passing of his beloved son Mason, in the absence of a legitimate male heir, the sole beneficiary shall be the Southern Baptist Convention.

Hannibal: Even in death, Mason would take everything from you. One of the most powerful forces that shapes us as human beings is the desire to leave a legacy. What legacy would you leave behind?

Margot: I don't get a legacy.

Hannibal: Unless you make one.

Alana: It sounds like I'm killing it.

Hannibal: You are killing it. Don't kill it. A theremin is an instrument that can create exquisite music without ever needing to be touched, but... it requires the rare gift of perfect pitch to play properly.

Hannibal: Feel the vibration moving through you. Feel it here. And here.

Alana: It's like composing in thin air.

Hannibal: Thin air is a musician's canvas.

Alana: It's a very psychological instrument.

Hannibal: Yes, we work with people the same way. Never touching... but guiding them from dissonance toward composition.

Alana: But people are not instruments. Whatever it is you're playing, Hannibal, you have to listen very carefully to what you're creating.

Hannibal: I am listening. I'm listening to you. You and I went so long in our friendship without ever touching, yet I always felt attuned to you.

Mason: Dr. Lecter. Mason Verger. So very nice to meet you. Thank you for accepting my invitation.

Hannibal: I'm prone to old-world politeness. Would have seemed rude to say no.

Mason: Since I'm paying for Margot's therapy, I thought I should at the very least meet her psychiatrist.

Hannibal: I enjoy putting a face to the name. Your swine are exceptional. Never seen pigs like these.

Mason: They're a special breed. Product of many years, many litters.

Hannibal: What's your ground note?

Mason: We started with Giant Forest pigs, 6 teats, 38 chromosomes, a resourceful feeder, and an opportunistic omnivore.

Hannibal: Just like man.

Mason: You must know pigs as well as you know people.

Hannibal: I do know pigs.

Mason: Papa would've loved you. He could feel the face of a hog and tell by the bone structure its genetic makeup. Breeding was very important to my father. Margot really pissed him off with all her... button stitching. No breeding there. Do you have a sister, Dr. Lecter?

Hannibal: I had a sister.

Mason: Then you understand my need to protect Margot - mostly from herself. She's pathological. I'm sure she's told you horrible things that I've done.

Hannibal: I can't tell you what Margot's confessed to me. Fortunately for you, I can't tell anyone.

Mason: Got me.

Hannibal: Even the worst of us need someone to talk to, Mason. Have you ever considered therapy for yourself?

Mason: Maybe I should. Can I have Carlo slaughter you a hog? A token of my appreciation for all that you do for Margot. Please.

Hannibal: But I must insist on selecting my own pig. Always do.

Hannibal: Brined and roasted whole suckling pig. A gift from a friend.

Will: A friend of yours, not a friend of the pig's.

Hannibal: There are those who raise livestock and have a genuine affection for them. The farmer who hand rears lambs loves them and sends them to slaughter.

Alana: They love and kill what they love.

Hannibal: And eat what they love. It's a paradox.

Alana: Freddie Lounds thinks the two of you are a paradox. She sees something no one else sees.

Will: What's that?

Alana: That neither of you is the killer she's writing about, but together, you might be.

Hannibal: Freddie Lounds must consider you a bland interview subject if she's already resorted to fiction.

Alana: She won't be fenced in by something as malleable as the truth. Freddie has no boundaries.

Will: Someone with no boundaries is a psychopath. Or a journalist.

Alana: Freddie isn't the only one without boundaries. Your relationship doesn't seem to know many. Patient and therapist, friend and enemy.

Hannibal: Crossing boundaries is different than violating them.

Alana: Boundaries will always be subject to negotiation. It's just hard to know where you are with each other.

Will: We know where we are with each other. Shouldn't that be enough?

Hannibal: Better the devil you know.

Jack: Freddie Lounds left me that message three hours ago. Her cell signal is dead now. Last call was traced to the nearest phone tower in, uh, Wolf Trap, Virginia. We have her on security cameras at a gas station, filling up her car six miles from your farm.

Will: Freddie was supposed to interview me. She never showed up.

Jack: Why are you granting interviews to Freddie Lounds?

Will: I owed her one.

Hannibal: Surely, Freddie Lounds has more enemies than Will.

Jack: Not in Wolf Trap, Virginia.

Will: I live in the middle of nowhere, Jack; if someone wanted to take her, it's... not a bad place to do it.

Will: And I provide the ingredients. You tell me what we should do with them.

Hannibal: What's the meat?

Will: What do you think?

Hannibal: Veal? Pork, perhaps?

Will: She was a slim and delicate pig.

Hannibal: I'll make you lomo saltado. We will make it together. You slice the ginger.

Hannibal: The meat has an interesting flavour. It's brazing. Notes of citrus.

Will: My palate isn't as refined as yours.

Hannibal: Apart from humane considerations, it's more flavourful for animals to be stress-free prior to slaughter. This animal tastes frightened.

Will: What does "frightened" taste like?

Hannibal: It's acidic.

Will: The meat is bitter about being dead.

Hannibal: This meat is not pork.

Will: It's long pig. You can't reduce me to... a set of influences. I'm not the product of anything. I've given up good and evil for behaviourism.

Hannibal: Then you can't say that I'm evil.

Will: You're destructive. Same thing.

Hannibal: Evil is just destructive? Storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and then there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under "Acts of God". Is this meat an act of God, Will?