Hannibal Lecter Transcripts: Hannibal S2E9

Hannibal: Which answer is it you want to hear, Will?

Will: What's happening now and about to happen is an answer. I want an admission. I want you to admit what you are.

Hannibal: Must I denounce myself as a monster while you still refuse to see the one growing inside you? Why not appeal to my better nature?

Will: I wasn't aware you had one.

Hannibal: No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true.

Will: I promised you a reckoning. Here it is.

Jack: Mmm, that smells wonderful.

Hannibal: Sacromonte omelet with liver and sweetbreads. Sacromonte was the gypsy hood of Granada. I visited Granada when I was a young man.

Jack: I've never been.

Hannibal: No? I fell in love with many things, in particular, this dish. I remember my time there so vividly, like I frescoed the walls of my mind.

Jack: I used to be afraid of losing my memory. What I wouldn't give to forget a thing or two now. Mmm... My compliments to the gypsy hood of Granada.

Hannibal: Memory gives moments immortality, but forgetfulness promotes a healthy mind. It's good to forget. What are you trying to forget, Jack?

Jack: Doubt. I let doubt in.

Hannibal: About me?

Jack: About Will.

Hannibal: I can no longer discuss Will's state of mind with you or anyone else without his consent. Will's officially my patient. He employs me now, not the FBI.

Jack: Well, let's hope your therapy works.

Hannibal: Therapy only works when we have a genuine desire to know ourselves as we are, not as we would like to be.

Will: Do you have any regrets?

Hannibal: With every choice lies the possibility of regret. However, if I choose not to do something, it's usually for a good reason.

Will: I'm... riddled with regrets.

Hannibal: A life without regret would be no life at all.

Will: I regret what I did in the stable.

Hannibal: Then, you were lucky I was there.

Will: Oh, no, no, no. Being lucky isn't the same as making a mistake. The mistake was allowing you to stop me.

Hannibal: So, it's not pulling the trigger that you regret... it's not pulling it effectively.

Will: That would be more accurate.

Hannibal: You must adapt your behaviour to avoid feeling the same way again, Will.

Will: Adapt. Evolve. Become.

Hannibal: Yes. I want you to close your eyes. Imagine a version of events you wouldn't have regretted. What did you see?

Will: A missed opportunity to feel like I felt when I killed Garret Jacob Hobbs. To feel like... like I felt when I thought I'd killed you.

Hannibal: And what does that feel like?

Will: I felt... a quiet sense... of... power.

Hannibal: Good. Remember that feeling.

Hannibal: We all have a gauge for humanity that twitches when we see other people. Tell me, Margot, what twitches when you see your brother?

Margot: Not my gauge for humanity.

Hannibal: You don't recognize in your brother basic human traits. You dehumanize him as much as he dehumanizes you.

Margot: At least, I'll never be the worst person I know.

Hannibal: The tendency to see others as less human than ourselves is universal.

Margot: My brother is less human.

Hannibal: And you are less human for it.

Margot: Did you just dehumanize me?

Hannibal: Psychiatrists who dehumanize patients are more comfortable with painful but effective treatments.

Margot: I met a patient of yours. Will Graham. Wonder what sort of painful but effective treatment you prescribed him?

Hannibal: What do you imagine?

Margot: You're very supportive of me killing my brother. And I appreciate that support, I really do. But I can only imagine what you'd be supportive of Will Graham doing. What kind of psychiatrist are you?

Hannibal: You already had my reputation and bona fides verified. You know what kind of psychiatrist I am.

Margot: I'm beginning to.

Hannibal: No beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his own rage.

Will: It's not rage. Rage is an emotional response to being provoked. This is something else.

Hannibal: What is it?

Will: Instinct. It's the way he thinks.

Hannibal: The way any animal thinks depends on limitations of mind and body. If we learn our limitations too soon, we never learn our power.

Will: His victims are torn apart; I'd say he learned his power.

Hannibal: He claimed his power. Can you imagine tearing someone apart? Or would you prefer to use a gun?

Will: Guns lack intimacy.

Hannibal: You set an event in motion with a gun; you don't complete it. You fantasized about killing me with your hands. Wouldn't that be more satisfying than pulling a trigger?

Will: Yes.

Hannibal: When you sent the man to kill me, were you imagining killing me yourself? Living vicariously through him as if... your hands tightened the noose around my neck? Or were you simply hiding?

Will: I wasn't hiding from anything the first time I tried to kill you.

Hannibal: You were hiding... behind the gun. You must allow yourself to be intimate with your instincts, Will.

Jack: Pretty sophisticated ingenuity for any kind of animal, man or beast.

Hannibal: Animals are far more like humans than we ever realized. And humans are far more like animals. One thin barrier between us.

Jack: And for some, that barrier is way too thin. Hello, Dr. Lecter. How does something like this present?

Hannibal: Someone affected by this kind of species dysphoria typically has other conditions. Mood disorders, clinical depression, schizophrenia.

Jack: Typically?

Hannibal: They may not present at all. Your killer could have built a bridge between who he appears to be and what he now knows he's become.

Jack: He didn't build a bridge, Doctor... he built a suit.

Hannibal: What he seeks is transformation.

Jack: Have you ever seen anything like this before?

Hannibal: This threatens to be a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, so I will thread carefully.

Jack: You've seen something like this?

Hannibal: Years ago, I treated a patient who fits the profile. A teenage boy who suffered from what I would describe as an identity disorder.

Jack: This boy fancied himself a beast?

Hannibal: During our therapy, he reported a moment of clarity. He understood in that moment, he was an animal born in the body of a man. He kept a solitary life. He would hide and behave in ways resembling animal behaviour.

Jack: He was delusional.

Hannibal: Not necessarily. He didn't believe metamorphosis could physically take place, but that wouldn't stop him from trying to achieve it.

Jack: He'd be a grown man now?

Hannibal: And as he grew in wisdom and confidence, he would no longer feel he had to meet his needs in hiding.

Jack: What are his needs, Dr. Lecter?

Hannibal: Savagery.

Randall: Museum's closed.

Hannibal: Hello, Randall.

Randall: Dr. Lecter.

Hannibal: You will always be ruled by your fascination with teeth.

Randall: That's what you said to me when they brought in your office the very first time.

Hannibal: Is that what I said?

Randall: Yeah. I was crying. I was dreading telling you what was wrong with me and... you made it easier. Other visits too.

Hannibal: A therapist's life is equal parts counsel and curiosity. We set a patient on a path, but are left to wonder where that path will take them. You've come so very far, Randall.

Randall: A long time since you treated me.

Hannibal: Which is why I wanted to talk to you about your wonderful progress, just for a moment, privately. I've seen what you've done.

Randall: What have I done?

Hannibal: You bore screams... like a sculptor bears dust from the beaten stone. That crying boy doesn't cling to you anymore. What clings to you now? What clings to your teeth?

Randall: Ragged bits of scalp... trailing their tails of hair like comets.

Hannibal: Beautiful. They are looking for you.

Randall: I don't think I can stop.

Hannibal: I don't want you to. But they will find you, Randall. When they do, it's important you do exactly what I say.

Will: I'm curious what would happen if your patients started comparing notes, Dr. Lecter. What would Randall Tier have to say to me?

Hannibal: What did Randall Tier say to you?

Will: He said he was much better now, that mental illness was treatable. Randall Tier is a success story.

Hannibal: You believe he's innocent?

Will: I believe... your therapy was successful. You can be persuasive. How many have there been? Like Randall Tier? Like me?

Hannibal: Every patient is unique.

Will: Your psychiatrist came to visit me at the hospital before my trial.

Hannibal: Dr. Du Maurier.

Will: She told me she believed me. She knew there were others like me.

Hannibal: Fascinating.

Will: Did you kill her?

Hannibal: No.

Will: What do you think about when you think about killing?

Hannibal: I think about God.

Will: Good and evil?

Hannibal: Good and evil has nothing to do with God. I collect church collapses. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? The facade fell on 65 grandmothers during a special mass. Was that evil? Was that God? If he's up there, he just loves it. Typhoid and swans, it all comes from the same place.

Will: Does Randall Tier believe in God?

Hannibal: Perhaps you should have a more personal conversation with Mr. Tier and ask him what he believes.

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