Will Graham

This episode focuses on a killer who creates a garden of mushrooms out of living humans as well as Will slowly coming around to sharing his true thoughts with Hannibal. Script.

• In a dream, WIll is shooting a target. As the target comes towards him, it changes into the corpse of Garrett Jacob Hobbs. He immediately loads another clip in and fires at the body without stop.


• After Jack wakes Will, he inspects Hobbs' hunting cabin. Jack questions if Abigail, his comatose daughter, may have been helping her father to hunt. Will denies Jack's theory, asserting that he killed alone.


• Hobbs killed seven other young girls, but Will is certain that there is nothing left of them to find; they were eaten and otherwise by Hobbs.


• Jack has an Evil Minds Museum. Will jokes Hobbs could be an installation in it.


• Will returns to the classroom to give a lesson on Hobbs. He disassociates during the lecture to when he was trying to save Abigail's life, an internal and discrete process.


• WILL: Hi.
  ALANA: How are you, Will?
  WILL: I have no idea.
  ALANA: That may change. I didn't want you to be ambushed—
  WILL: Is this an ambush?
  ALANA: Ambush is later. Immediately later, soon to now. When Jack arrives consider yourself ambushed.
  WILL: Here's Jack.
  JACK: How was class?
  WILL: They applauded, it was inappropriate.
  JACK: Review board begs to differ. You’re up for a commendation and they okay'd active return to the field.
  ALANA: Question is... Do you want to go back in the field?
  JACK: I want you to go back in the field, but I told the board I'm recommending a psych evaluation.
  WILL: Are we starting now?
  ALANA: Session wouldn't be with me.
  JACK: Hannibal Lecter might be a better fit. Your relationship's not as personal. But if you'd be more comfortable with Dr. Bloom—
  WILL: I'm not going to be comfortable with anybody inside my head.
  ALANA: You've never killed someone before, Will. It's a deadly force encounter. It's a lot to digest.
  WILL: I used to work homicide. I've got a good metabolism.
  JACK: Reason you currently "used to" work homicide is you couldn't stomach pulling the trigger. You just pulled the trigger ten times.
  WILL: So, psych eval's not a formality?
  JACK: It's so I can sleep. I asked you to get close to Hobbs and I need to know you didn't get too close. How many times have you spent the night in Abigail Hobbs' hospital room?
  WILL: Therapy doesn't work on me.
  JACK: 'Cause you won't let it.
  WILL: 'Cause I know all the tricks.
  JACK: Un-learn some tricks.
  ALANA: Why not have a conversation with Hannibal? He was there. He knows what you went through.
  JACK: I need my beauty sleep, Will!


• Will paces on the second level of Hannibal's office while talking with him, staying as far from Hannibal as possible.
  
  WILL: What's this?
  HANNIBAL: Your Psychological Evaluation. You're totally functional and more or less sane. Well done.
  WILL: Did you just rubber stamp me?
  HANNIBAL: 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 I need therapy.
  HANNIBAL: I'm not sure therapy will work on you. Stealing into other minds has taught you how to fortify your own.
  WILL: That's what I said.
  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. It comes with certain emotional obligations, regardless of empathy disorders.
  WILL: You were there. You saved her life, too. Do you feel obligated?
  HANNIBAL: 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 might've 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. Will, the mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself and not the worst of someone else.


• Will is at the gun range, frustrated with his aim.
  
  BEVERLY: I'm pretty sure firearm "accuracy" isn't a prerequisite for teaching.
  WILL: I've been in the field before.
  BEVERLY: Now you're back in the saddle. Ish.
  WILL: Ish, indeed. It took me ten shots to drop Hobbs.
  BEVERLY: Zeller wanted to give you the bullets he pulled out of Hobbs in an acrylic case, but I told him you wouldn't think it was funny.
  WILL: Probably not.
  BEVERLY: I suggested one of those clacking, swinging ball things.
  WILL: That would have been funny.
  BEVERLY: You're a Weaver? I took you for an isosceles guy.
  WILL: I have a rotator-cuff issue, so I have to use the Weaver stance.
  BEVERLY: You are tight.
  WILL: I got stabbed when I was a cop.
  BEVERLY: I got stabbed in the third grade. With a number 2 pencil. Thought I was going to get lead poisoning.
  WILL: Uh, no lead in a pencil. Graphite.
  
  Beverly adjusts Will's stance.
  
  BEVERLY: See if that helps with the recoil.
  WILL: Better. Jack sent you all the way down here to teach me how to shoot?
  BEVERLY: No, Jack sent me down here to find out what you know about gardening.


• Jack comments that therapy may work on Will, but Will demures at the suggestion. "Therapy is an acquired taste I have yet to acquire but sure served your purpose. I'm back in the field."


• They are at a crime scene deep in the forest where nine bodies have been buried in compost with intravenous lines and tubes have been set-up. The bodies are being used to promote the growth of mushrooms and fungi.


• The scene is cleared so that Will can construct the scenario. His vision and narration remains internal, "I choose this man. I do not bind his arm or legs as I bury him in a shallow grave. He is alive but will never be conscious again. He won't know he's dying. I don't need him to. This is my design." As he goes through the process, he sees Hobbs in the graves and loses his hold of the vision. At that same moment, one of the bodies grabs onto him.


• Later, Will discusses seeing Hobbs at the crime scene with Hannibal. He is on the same level as Hannibal, but he keeps moving around.
  
  HANNIBAL: It's stress. Not worth reporting. The mechanism that distinguishes conscious perceptions from internal perceptions misfired. 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?
  
  Will is unable to answer but eventually nervously nods.


• Quickly, Hannibal drops pushing Will and begins to discuss the case. Will finally comes closer, leaning on Hannibal's desk.
  
  WILL: Maybe he admires their ability to connect the way human minds can't.
  HANNIBAL: Yours can.
  WILL: Haha, yeah, no. Not physically.
  HANNIBAL: Is that what your farmer is looking for? Some sort of connection.


• Will talks with the forensics team about the case. He suddenly asserts the victims are all diabetic, and someone put them into a coma by switching their medication.


• Jack pinpoints the chain and employee that is switching the medications. When Eldon is not present, Will asks about his car, knowing he would have the next victim already set aside. He breaks into Eldon's car and locates the next would-be victim.


• Price comments that they found something on Eldon's work station terminal. A journalist for TattleCrime named Freddie Lounds has written an article on Will Graham saying the FBI is using someone insane to catch the insane. Beverly is upset and Jack is angry.


• Will is sleeping in Abigail's room and dreams of the ravenstag. When she visits Alana pulls a blanket over Will, it causes his dream to darken. He eventually wakes up to Alana reading to Abigail.
  
  WILL: What are you reading?
  ALANA: Flannery O'Connor. When I was Abigail's age I was obsessed. I even tried to raise peacocks because she raised peacocks, but they're really stupid birds.
  WILL: You could be reading to a killer.
  ALANA: Innocent until guilty and all that. I'm about to broach the subject of that "Takes One to Know One" article.
  WILL: Oh, that. Did Jack send you?
  ALANA: No, I sent me.
  WILL: I don't think we've ever been in a room alone together.
  ALANA: I haven't noticed. Have we? Not that we're necessarily alone now.
  WILL: Yeah, right. Back to Jack Crawford's crime gimp.
  ALANA: Certainly creates an image. I don't need to talk about it if you don't.
  WILL: No, no. We can talk about or not talk about whatever you want. Actually, I was just, I was just enjoying listening to you read.
  ALANA: Abigail Hobbs is a success for you.
  WILL: She doesn't look success.
  ALANA: Don't feel sorry for yourself because you saved this girl's life.
  WILL: I don't. I don't feel sorry for myself at all. I feel— I feel, uh, good.


• After the suspect kills in front of Freddie Lounds, Jack calls Will to warn him. Eldon wants to bury Abigail in order to foster a connection between her and Will. Eventually, Will locates Eldon wheeling Abigail away and shoots to disable him, not kill.


• WILL: What were you going to do with her?
  ELDON: We all evolved from mycelium. I'm simply reintroducing her to the concept.
  WILL: By burying her alive?
  ELDON: The journalist said you understood me.
  WILL: I don't.
  ELDON: Well, you would have. You would have! Walk into a field of mycelium, they know you're there. They know you are there! Their spores reach for you as you pass by. I know who you're reaching for. I know. Abigail Hobbs. You should have let me plant her. You would have found her in a field where she was finally able to reach back.


• Will is standing away from Hannibal, distant and not looking at him. As the conversation proceeds, he eventually settles into a chair and Hannibal into a chair opposite him.
  
  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 killing him. 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 it's own way. Giving voice to the unmentionable.
  WILL: I should have 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 struggles but finally speaks quietly, stammering.
  
  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 on who you ask.
  HANNIBAL: God's terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshipers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.
  WILL: Did God feel good about that?
  HANNIBAL: He felt powerful.