Hannibal Lecter Transcripts: Hannibal S2E8

Hannibal: Truite saumonée au bleu with vegetables and broth, served with a hollandaise sauce on the side. Beautiful fish, Will.

Will: It was my turn to provide the meat.

Hannibal: More flavorful and firm than farmed specimens. I find the trout to be a very Nietzscheian fish. Trials of his wild existence find their way into the flavor of the flesh. I hope providing the meat doesn't mean you still harbor doubts about what I serve at my table.

Jack: No doubts, Dr. Lecter. Only the wounds we dealt each other until we got to the truth.

Hannibal: Which is why we need to move past apologies and forgiveness. Chilton has many victims besides the dead. We will absorb this experience. It will change us. Well, we are all Nietzscheian fish in that regard.

Will: Makes us tastier.

Jack: None of our actions were personal.

Will: I tried to have Hannibal killed. Isn't that personal?

Hannibal: You thought I was a killer. The greatest crime now would be to walk away from what we've shared and suffered. In many ways, we need each other. We are the only ones who will know what this feels like.

Will: This fish is delicious.

Hannibal: Isn't it?

Hannibal: I agree with the pagans. The horse is divine. All beasts of burden are sacred animals.

Jimmy: This kind of mutilation usually presents as cult activity. When an animal is sacrificed, it's presumed the power of the beast will be psychically transported to whoever's offering up the goods.

Hannibal: Which is why sacrificial animals should be healthy, without any defects. This horse was sick.

Brian: The womb's more or less intact. The victim was deceased before she was enwombed. The ecchymosis of the subcutaneous tissue is consistent with...

Jimmy: She was strangled. That's a little wordy.

Brian: Yeah. She was scrappy. She put up a fight, Jack.

Hannibal: The horse is a chrysalis. A cocoon meant to hold the young woman until her death could be transformed.

Jack: Transformed into what?

Hannibal: Life. A new life. This is a birth. Or it was intended to be. This is every bit as much about giving life as it is taking it.

Jack: What's the thinking here, Doctor?

Hannibal: Conflicted. I see what he's done. I don't understand why he's done it. This killer doesn't think like anyone else, Jack. You'll have to find someone who doesn't think like anyone else to catch him.

Hannibal: You are no more at fault for what happened to you than if you had been bitten by a mad dog.

Margot: Mad dogs are put down.

Hannibal: Is that what you hoped to accomplish when you attacked your brother?

Margot: Well, apparently, I went about putting him down the wrong way. He's still alive.

Hannibal: Doing bad things to bad people makes us feel good. What's your relationship with him now? Has it changed?

Margot: I think he thinks I've calmed down.

Hannibal: Have you?

Margot: I'm calm.

Hannibal: Are you going to try again?

Margot: This is where therapy gets a little tricky.

Hannibal: It doesn't have to be tricky.

Margot: I could confess to a murder. You can't say a word. I could've murdered someone this morning and you can't say a word. But if I'm planning to commit a murder...

Hannibal: I am ethically obliged to take action to prevent that murder. But be that as it may, if there's no one else to protect you, Margot, you have to protect yourself. It would actually have been more therapeutic if you had killed him.

Alana: I'm not complaining, but part of me suspects we ended up here to avoid where our conversation was going.

Hannibal: As long as you're not complaining.

Alana: Too much has happened for us not to talk about this. However pleasant the distractions.

Hannibal: Well, I am recovering from all that has happened. So is Will. So are you. I would change many things, but not that we ended up here. Or that Will is back in therapy.

Alana: The only thing stranger than finding a woman inside a horse is seeing you back in therapy with Will Graham.

Hannibal: Is it really so strange?

Alana: He tried to murder you.

Hannibal: Do you know why Will tried to kill me? It wasn't to avenge Beverly Katz's death. It was to prevent yours. He was protecting you in the only way he felt he had left to him.

Alana: I'm afraid Will opened a door inside himself, and no one knows if it closed again. Especially not Will.

Hannibal: Then it's healthy he's back in therapy. With a good psychiatrist.

Hannibal: You were able to reconstruct this killer's fantasies. One dead creature giving birth to another. The bird, his victim's new beating heart. Her soul given wings.

Will: Rebirths can only ever be symbolic.

Hannibal: You've been reborn.

Will: Wasn't that the goal of my therapy?

Hannibal: How does it feel consulting again with Jack Crawford and the FBl? Last time, it nearly destroyed you.

Will: Last time, you nearly destroyed me.

Hannibal: After everything that has happened, Will, you still believe...

Will: Stop right there. You may have to pretend, but I don't.

Hannibal: No, you don't. Not with me.

Will: I don't expect you to admit anything. You can't. But I prefer sins of omission to outright lies, Dr. Lecter. Don't lie to me.

Hannibal: Will you return the courtesy? Why have you resumed your therapy?

Will: Can't just talk to any psychiatrist about what's kicking around my head.

Hannibal: Do you fantasize about killing me?

Will: Yes.

Hannibal: Tell me. How would you do it?

Will: With my hands.

Hannibal: Then we haven't moved past apologies and forgiveness, have we?

Will: We've moved past a lot of things. I discovered a truth about myself when I tried to have you killed.

Hannibal: That doing bad things to bad people makes you feel good?

Will: Yes.

Hannibal: I need to know if you're going to try to kill me again, Will.

Will: I don't want to kill you anymore, Dr. Lecter. Not now that I finally find you interesting.

Hannibal: Every human being is capable of committing acts of great cruelty. Your brother dehumanized you, and your family unfortunately fosters that climate of disrespect.

Margot: They think I'm weird.

Hannibal: I'm much weirder than you will ever be, Margot. It's fine to be weird.

Margot: They've already forgiven him. Talk shows and self-help books, they thrive on this sort of thing. Everybody loves a sinner redeemed. The prodigal son set about repairing his ways. He may have made bad choices before, but now he can make new, better choices.

Hannibal: Do you believe that?

Margot: Do you believe me?

Hannibal: Well, it's not my role to believe you, Margot, it's my role to help you understand what you believe.

Margot: I believe my brother won't stop.

Hannibal: How does it make you feel?

Margot: Angry.

Hannibal: Anger is an energizing emotion, prompts action against threat. If you're angry, you're optimistic you can stop this from happening again.

Margot: I know how to stop it.

Hannibal: If you really want to kill your brother, Margot, wait until you can get away with it. Or find someone to do it for you.

Will: That's smart. She keeps pushing him on his feelings, not on the facts. She's trying to gauge how comfortable he is with emotion, if he has any. He couldn't bear being touched by her.

Hannibal: Yes, his responses are typical of psychopaths during interviews, but could also be resentment.

Will: No, his eyes are dead. He's a predator.

Hannibal: You look like a man who has suffered an irrevocable loss.

Will: I'm trying to prevent one.

Hannibal: Do you think if you save Peter Bernardone, you can save yourself?

Will: Save myself from what, Dr. Lecter?

Hannibal: From who you perceive me to be.

Will: I'm afraid I need to be saved from who you perceive me to be.

Hannibal: Many troublesome behaviors strike when you are uncertain of yourself. Peter Bernardone lies in the same darkness that holds you.

Will: No, I'm alone in that darkness.

Hannibal: You're not alone, Will. I'm standing right beside you.

Will: Peter... Is your social worker in that horse?

Peter: Yes. I used to have a horrible fear of... Of hurting anything. But... He helped me get over that. Feels so abnormal.

Hannibal: An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

Peter: I think he deserves to die.

Will: But... But you didn't deserve to kill him, Peter. I want you to come with me.

Hannibal: Mr. Ingram. Might want to crawl back in there if you know what's good for you.

Mr. Ingram: Officer... I'm the victim here.

Will: I'm not an officer. I'm Peter's friend.

Mr. Ingram: Peter's confused.

Will: I'm not. Pick up the hammer.

Hannibal: Will.

Will: Pick it up.

Hannibal: It won't feel the same, Will. It won't feel like killing me.

Will: It doesn't have to.

Hannibal: You did the best anyone could do for Peter, but don't do this for him. If you're going to do this, Will, you have to do it for yourself.

Mr. Ingram: Please don't.

Hannibal: You would be wise to remain silent, Mr. Ingram.

Hannibal: Will, this is not the reckoning you promised yourself. With all my knowledge and intrusion, I could never entirely predict you. I can feed the caterpillar, and I can whisper through the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me.