Previously on Hannibal.

Abigail Hobbs killed Nick Boyle. We can tell no one.

I'm worried about you, Will.

You empathize so completely with the killers Jack Crawford has your mind wrapped around that you lose yourself to them.

Maybe I should get a brain scan.

Do you feel unstable?

Is there a problem, Will?

You lost time.

There's something wrong with me. I'm your friend, Will.

I don't care about the lives you save; I care about your life, and your life is separating from reality.

(Car alarm chirps.)

(wood creaking)

(She whistles.)

(Bird whistles.)

(She whistles.)

(Bird whistles.)

(thud)

(water dripping)

(She sighs.)

(water dripping)

(draft howling)

(She sighs.)

(water dripping)

(She gasps and screams.)

(stabbing) (screaming)

I can feel my nerves

clicking like, uh, roller coaster cogs, pulling up to the inevitable long plunge.

Quick sounds, quickly ended.

Abigail Hobbs ended Nicholas Boyle.

(Nicholas grunts.)

Like a burst balloon.

(Abigail gasping)

She took a life.

You've taken a life.

Yeah. Yeah, so have you.

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.

We lied for her.

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.

Isn't that what it is to be alive?

Do you feel alive, Will?

I...

I feel like I'm fading.

Have you experienced any further loss of time?

Or hallucinations?

I'd like you to draw a clock face.

Numbered.

Small hand indicating the hour, large hand the minute.

Why?

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.

Seven sixteen PM.

I'm in Baltimore, Maryland.

And my name is Will Graham.

A simple reminder.

The handle to reality for you to hold on to.

And know you're alive.

♪

(Will hyperventilating)

(Will panting)

What happened in there?

I got confused.

I've seen you confused and I've seen you upset, but I've never seen you afraid like this.

Well, I'm an old hand at fear. I can manage this one.

I just got disoriented. I can go back in.

I saw the look on your face when you came out of that room.

Now, what did you experience in there that's got you mute all of a sudden? I can see and hear better afraid. I-I just can't...

...speak as concisely. Will, you contaminated the crime scene. You've never done that before.

I thought I was responsible for it.

What are you saying? You thought that you killed that woman in there?

Sometimes with, uh, what I do...

What you do is you take all of the evidence available at a crime scene.

You extrapolate. You reconstruct the thinking of a killer.

You don't think of yourself as the killer.

I got lost in the reconstruction.

Just for a second. Just a blink.

I know you don't like to be the cause for concern, but I am officially concerned about you. Officially?

Yes, that's right.

Hm.

I thought the reason you had me seeing.

Dr. Lecter and not an FBI psychiatrist is so my mental well-being stays... unofficial.

I just want to be careful with you.

We don't want to break you here.

Is that what's happening? Have I broken you?

Do you have anyone that does this better unbroken than I do broken?

Fear makes you rude, Will.

(camera click)

She drowned on her own blood.

And what she didn't drown on is all over the floor and under the bed. She was trying to hide from him.

He dragged her there. He was waiting under the bed for her.

Fought to claw her way out.

He knew her. Someone who cared about her, or thought he did.

(Bev): He cared too much.

So, we're looking for boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, coworkers, the guy who bags her groceries. I've got a clean set of prints on the knife handle. I assume they're yours.

Sorry.

Mm.

There's other dermal tissue, presumably from the killer's, but the skin is so diseased or damaged it didn't leave any useful prints. The victim scratched her killer deep enough to pile tissue under the fingernails, but never drew blood.

Why didn't he bleed?

After he cut up the victim's face, it looks like he was trying to pull her skin back.

Like he was removing a mask?

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.

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

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

What do you know to be true?

I know I didn't kill her. I couldn't have.

But I remember cutting into her. I remember watching her die.

You must overcome these delusions that are disguising your reality.

What kind of savage delusions does this killer have?

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.

You have to honestly confront your limitations with what you do.

(Will sighs.)

And how it affects you. If by limitations you mean the difference between sanity and insanity, I don't accept that.

What do you accept?

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.

I can recommend a neurologist.

But if it isn't physiological, then you have to accept what you're struggling with is mental illness.

You're in very good hands.

Dr. Lecter here is one of the sanest men I know.

I would agree.

Dr. Sutcliffe and I were residents together at Hopkins.

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

I was always drawn to how the mind works.

I found it much more dynamic than how the brain works.

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?

Two to three months ago.

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

And the hallucinations?

I can't really say when they started.

Um...

I just slowly became aware that I might not be dreaming.

(Lecter): It's encephalitis.

That's your pre-diagnosis?

Yes.

Based on...?

I could smell it.

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

He started sleepwalking and I noticed a very specific scent.

And what exactly does encephalitis smell like?

It has heat.

A fevered sweetness.

If you suspected, why didn't you say something? Had to be sure.

Symptoms began slowly and gradually worsened. And yesterday, I asked him to draw a clock.

This is what he drew.

Oh. Spatial neglect.

Headaches, disorientation, hallucinations, altered consciousness.

It's all the telltale signs. Hm.

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

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

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.

(loud mechanical whirring)

(woman screaming)

The right side of his brain is completely inflamed.

It's anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

The symptoms are only going to get worse.

I know.

It's unfortunate for Will.

What do you smell on me?

Opportunity.

We didn't find anything abnormal.

No vascular malformations, no tumors, no swelling or bleeding, no evidence of stroke.

Nothing.

There's nothing wrong with you neurologically.

So what I'm experiencing is psychological.

Well... brain scans can't diagnose, uh, mental disorders.

They can only rule out medical illnesses like a tumor, which can have similar symptoms.

Look, we'll run some more tests.

We'll take some more blood samples, but I imagine they'll prove to be just as inconclusive.

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

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

He also caught their killer's disease.

He can't stop thinking about what it is to take a life.

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

Will is an innocent.

(Jack sighs.)

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.

Not always. So far.

He saw a neurologist today. They found nothing wrong with him.

He was very upset by that.

You're saying he wanted something to be wrong?

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

You think he's mentally ill.

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.

It's 10:36.

I'm in Greenwood, Delaware.

My name is Will Graham.

(flesh tearing)

(woman crying out)

(Will panting)

It's 1:17 AM.

W-We're in Greenwood, Delaware.

And my name is Will Graham.

And you're alive.

If you can hear me, you're alive!

Why did you call me?

Why not Jack? Why not the police?

I called you because...

I'm not entirely sure what I saw was real.

Then let's prove it.

I grabbed her arm...

(flesh tearing)

And an entire layer of dead skin separated from the underlying tissue, like she was wearing a glove.

That's why she doesn't bleed.

Right. There's no circulation.

And there's nothing alive in the tissue to bind it. What did you do with it?

I don't know.

Could be a staphylococcal infection.

That, or leprosy. Her eyes were discolored.

She was, uh, malnourished, jaundiced.

Her liver was shutting down. She was... deranged.

So she mutilated a woman's face because she thought it was a mask.

She can't see faces.

If she did kill Beth LeBeau, she might not even know she did it.

Then why did she come back?

To convince herself she didn't.

Is that why you came back?

If I wasn't clear on that issue, I know I didn't kill Beth LeBeau.

I just want to know who did.

Me too.

Yeah.

You're the subject of a lot of speculation at the bureau.

Oh, yeah? What are they speculating?

That Jack pushed you right up to the edge, and now you're pushing yourself over.

This killer... can't accept her reality.

I can occasionally identify with that.

That said, I feel... relatively sane.

It's 7:05 PM.

I'm in Baltimore, Maryland.

My name is Will Graham.

Thank you for humoring me.

I feel like I'm seeing a ghost.

Regarding this killer, or yourself?

Both.

Well, she's real. You know she's real. There's evidence.

When you found her, your sanity did not leave you.

Time did.

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?

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

Then we keep looking for answers.

Perhaps you would permit me to run some tests of my own.

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

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.

Just do me a favor and publish it posthumously.

After your death or mine?

Whichever comes first.

Have you considered Cotard's Syndrome?

It's a rare delusional disorder in which a person believes he or she is dead.

Are you talking about the killer or me?

The killer, of course.

Well, of course. Um, she couldn't see the victim's face.

Or she was trying to uncover it.

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.

So she... she reached out to someone she loved, someone she trusted.

She felt betrayed, became violent.

She can't trust anything or anyone she once knew to be trustworthy.

Her mental illness won't let her.

(breathing unsteadily)

(breathing unsteadily)

(breathing unsteadily)

(breathing unsteadily)

We matched the tissue samples from the crime scene to your daughter's medical records.

I was almost relieved when I got that phone call.

I thought that you had found her and she was, um... would be at peace.

You thought she might be dead?

(She giggles.)

Well, that makes me sound like a horrible mother.

I tried to be a good mom.

I tried to do everything that I could.

I just don't want her to be in pain. No one's doubting your dedication to your daughter, Mrs. Madchen.

How well did she know Beth LeBeau?

They were best friends. They went to school together, um, until it was unsafe for Georgia to go to school.

When did you first recognize that your daughter was struggling with mental illness?

When she was nine and she told me that she was thinking about killing me and said that she was already dead.

What sort of symptoms did she have?

She had seizures, hallucinations, psychotic depression.

I was grateful when she was catatonic.

(awkward laugh)

(Jack): Was she ever violent?

Sometimes.

What did her doctor say?

Not much.

She spent months at a time in the hospital.

Blood tests and brain scans, and all of them inconclusive. They could never tell me what was wrong.

And you still don't know?

They would just say it was this or it was that.

You know, they were just...

...they were just always guessing.

And I did my own research.

I wrote down every word that the doctors said, the different terminology. Learned a lot.

But mostly what I learned is, um, how little is actually known about mental illness.

All they know, it's rarely about finding solutions.

It's just more about managing expectations.

Managing your expectations?

Changing my expectations.

You know, when Miriam Lass died, I had to come back here to this office to pack up, but... that got to be too overwhelming. I thought I should just leave, seeing as how I had gotten a trainee killed.

That lack of leadership on my part, that was my responsibility.

You didn't kill Miriam Lass; The Chesapeake Ripper did.

It didn't feel that way to me. I pulled her out of a classroom, like I pulled you out of a classroom.

She was a student; I am a teacher.

I'm still just as responsible for you as I was for her.

I'll take my own responsibility.

Well, not from me you won't.

We can do it together. I broke the rules with Miriam. I encouraged her to break the rules.

I am breaking the rules with you now. By letting an unstable agent do field work? Special agent. Oh.

That means you represent the FBI. You still represent me.

Have I misrepresented you, Jack?

No, no. But you have me curious.

Why are you still here when the both of us know that this is bad for you?

Do you want me to quit?

No.

No, you had an opportunity to quit.

You didn't take it. Why not?

Let me tell you what I think. I think that the work you do here has created a sense of stability for you.

Stability is good for you, Will.

Stability requires strong foundations, Jack.

My moorings are built on sand. I'm not sand.

I am bedrock.

When you doubt yourself, you don't have to doubt me too.

(Goldberg Variations:

Variation 13, by JS Bach)

The Jamon Ibérico.

Still love your little rare treats, don't you, Hannibal?

The more expensive and difficult they are to obtain, the better.

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

Not always.

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?

It's irrelevant.

If the meat-eater thinks it's superior, then belief determines value.

A case of psychology overriding neurology.

So, we know how Ibérico gets his pigs.

How did you get yours?

Are you referring to Will Graham?

We know you're fond of the rarified.

What makes him so rare?

Will has a remarkably vivid imagination.

Beautiful.

Pure empathy.

Nothing he can't understand, and that terrifies him.

So you set his mind on fire.

Imagination is an interesting accelerant for a fever.

So... how far does this go?

Do you put out the fire, or do you let him burn?

Will is my friend.

We will put out the fire when it's necessary.

He has asked for more tests.

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

You put these in.

This'll be over before you know it.

(mechanical knocking)

Dr. Sutcliffe?

You're clean.

You couldn't have done this without getting something on you, and there's nothing on you.

I don't feel clean.

The murder weapon has the same sort of diseased or damaged tissues that we found at Beth LeBeau's house. What's this guy got to do with the other victim?

(Will clears his throat.)

Just me.

What do you remember?

I remember coming here, going into the MRI, getting out, and, uh, finding Dr. Sutcliffe's body.

No confusion?

Well, not that I'm aware of.

Was your Dr. Sutcliffe in the habit of seeing patients after-hours when he's the only one in the office?

He was very accommodating.

Georgia Madchen followed you here, and while you're ticking away in the MRI, she does this to your doctor.

Why him? She can't see faces.

Maybe she thought he was me.

All right, while we're at it, why you?

I don't know.

I have a habit of collecting strays.

I-I-I told her, tried to tell her the night I saw her, I tried to tell her she was alive. Maybe she heard me.

Maybe that hadn't occurred to her in a while.

(dog growling)

(dog growling)

(growling)

(bark)

(dog growling)

I see you, Georgia.

Think of who you are.

It's midnight.

You're in Wolf Trap, Virginia.

Your name is Georgia Madchen.

You're not alone.

We are here together.

Am I alive?

(Jack):She'll recover?

(Lecter):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.

But she'll recover mentally?

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.

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

I am grieving Dr. Sutcliffe, but Will is very much alive.

He's still desperate for an explanation that can make everything right again.

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?

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

> GOOD EVENING. A 17-YEAR-OLD BOY IS PRESUMED TO HAVE