Annotations of Entrée

Hannibal Annotations – Entrée

A Note on the Episode Title

Time Index

Event

Notes

01:00-02:00

Dr. Gideon attacks a nurse, echoing a future attack by Hannibal.

From Red Dragon Chapter 7 "On the afternoon of July 8, 1976, he complained of chest pain. His restraints were removed in the examining room to make it easier to give him an electrocardiogram. One of his attendants left the room to smoke, and the other turned away for a second. The nurse was very quick and strong. She managed to save one of her eyes. "You may find this curious." Chilton took a strip of EKG tape from a drawer and unrolled it on his desk. He traced the spiky line with his forefinger. "Here, he's resting on the examining table. Pulse seventy-two. Here, he grabs the nurse's head and pulls her down to him. Here, he is subdued by the attendant. He didn't resist, by the way, though the attendant dislocated his shoulder. Do you notice the strange thing? His pulse never got over eighty-five. Even when he tore out her tongue." Eddie Izzard is absolutely awesome in this episode; his performance combines the power of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal, with the unpredictability of Malcolm McDowell as Alex. His character is named for “Gideon Quinn” which was one of the aliases that was considered for Hannibal Lecter in the scripting stages of The Silence of the Lambs if the producers were unable to obtain the rights to use the Lecter name.

02:10

Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane

Hannibal will someday live here. Bryan Fuller tweeted “Guards of Baltimore State Hospital for Criminally Insane were faithful to those in Silence of the Lambs.” in terms of uniforms.

02:40-02:45

Will: “I always feel a little nervous going into these places. Jack: “Why's that?” Will: “Afraid they won't let me out.” Jack; “Don't worry. I won't leave you here.” Will: “Yeah, not today.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 11 “Garmon Evans, a paraprofessional formerly employed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, said Graham was admitted to the psychiatric wing soon after he killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs, the "Minnesota Shrike." Graham shot Hobbs to death in 1975, ending Hobbs's eight-month reign of terror in Minneapolis. Evans said Graham was withdrawn and refused to eat or speak during the first weeks of his stay.”

02:50-02:55

Chilton: “Mr. Graham... or should I call you Dr. Graham?” Will: “I'm not a doctor.” Chilton: “You're not FBI either.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 7 “Dr. Frederick Chilton, chief of staff at the Chesapeake State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, came around his desk to shake Will Graham's hand. "Dr. Bloom called me yesterday, Mr. Graham - or should I call you Dr. Graham?" "I'm not a doctor."” Of note also is Raúl Esparza’s excellent performance as Chilton, at times he seems to be channelling Anthony Heald who played Chilton in The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, but as Esparza’s Chilton precedes Heald’s chronologically, there is still a real youthful spark and ambitious urge in his character that will become inured into complete contempt for his patients over time.

03:15-03:30

Will: “Why was a nurse left alone with a prisoner in a high-security psychiatric hospital?” Chilton: “For the two years since he was brought here, Gideon behaved perfectly and gave every appearance of cooperating with attempts at therapy. As dictated by our present administrator, security around him was slightly ... relaxed.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 7 "It may seem gratuitous to warn you, of all people, about Lecter. But he's very disarming. For a year after he was brought here, he behaved perfectly and gave the appearance of cooperating with attempts at therapy. As a result - this was under the previous administrator - security around him was slightly relaxed.”

03: 50-04:10

Chilton: “You're quite the topic of conversation” in, uh, psychiatric circles, Mr. Graham.” Will: “Am I?” Chilton: “Uh, yes. A unique cocktail of personality disorders and neuroses that make you a highly skilled profiler.” Jack: “He's not here to be analyzed.” Chilton: “Perhaps he should be.”

Is it possible that Chilton is right? Will is obviously suffering constantly because of the work that he does, and Jack is clearly manipulating him cynically and sinisterly to force him to continue doing work that is bad for his health. Will really does need help and needs to get away from Jack (and Hannibal).

04:10-04:20

Chilton: “We are woefully short of material on your sort of thing, Mr. Graham. Would you mind speaking to some of the staff? Jack: “Doctor.” Chilton: “No, no, no. Not this trip. Maybe a special visit.” Will: “Thank you, Dr. Chilton. I'd like to see the crime scene now.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 7 "We're woefully short of material on that sort of thing. There's one single piece in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Would you mind talking with some of the staff - no, no, not this trip - Dr. Bloom was very severe with me on that point. We're to leave you alone. Next trip, perhaps." Dr. Chilton had seen a lot of hostility. He was seeing some at the moment. Graham stood up. "Thank you, doctor. I want to see Lecter now."

05:15

Wound man

From Red Dragon Chapter 6 "I think it was maybe a week later in the hospital I finally figured it out. It was Wound Man - an illustration they used in a lot of the early medical books like the ones Lecter had. It shows different kinds of battle injuries, all in one figure. I had seen it in a survey course a pathologist was teaching at GWU."

08:35-10:15

Jack enlisting Miriam Lass

Reading Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs it is clear that Jack has an amazing ability to spot talents in other people and to manipulate those people to do what he wants. It is absolutely no surprise that Jack’s enlistment of Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs wasn’t the first trainee that Jack has used, he just cares about getting the job done. In a way catching the killer is all Jack cares about and he doesn’t seem to mind too much who gets hurt in the process, I’ve always felt that for cases that are going on for several months Jack is secretly bringing in other people as well and letting them think they are the primary investigators. I can picture cases where he would secretly bring in Patrick Jane (The Mentalist), Cal Lightman (Lie to Me), Frank Black (Millennium), Richard Castle (Castle), or Jessica Fletcher.

08:35-08:50

Jack: “Lass, Miriam Regina. Come in.” Miriam: “Morning, agent Crawford.” Jack: “Sorry to pull you out of class. There's nothing wrong, no reason to be nervous.” Miriam: “I'm not nervous. Curious.” Jack: “Your instructors tell me that you are in the top 10%?”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 "Starling, Clarice M., good morning," he said. "Hello." Her smile was only polite. "Nothing's wrong. I hope the call didn't spook you." "No." Not totally true, Starling thought. "Your instructors tell me you're doing well, top quarter of the class." Anna Chlumsky is absolutely wonderful as Miriam Lass; she combines sincerity, intelligence and determination in a really brilliant way. Miriam Lass shares a surname with the protagonist of “Dead Like Me” Georgia Lass, who we will be seeing a Hannibalified-version of later on in the season.

08:55-09:15

Jack: “You wrote me a letter when you qualified for the academy.” Miriam: “I wasn't sure you got it. You never replied.” Jack: “Never do. Odds are against any trainee completing the program. But I'm glad to see you're still here. In your letter, you said you wanted to work for me in the violent criminal apprehension program.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 "She had met Special Agent Crawford when he was a guest lecturer at the University of Virginia. The quality of his criminology seminars was a factor in her coming to the Bureau. She wrote him a note when she qualified for the Academy, but he never replied, and for the three months she had been a trainee at Quantico, he had ignored her." : “You put down here that you want to come directly to Behavioral Science when you get through with the Academy."

09:30-09:50

Miriam: “They say he's a true sociopath.” Jack: “What do you say?” Miriam: “I say they don't know what else to label him. He has some of the characteristics of what they call a sociopath...no remorse or guilt at all. He won't have any of the other marks. He won't be a drifter. He'll have no history of trouble with the law. He'll be hard to catch.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 6 Will: "They say he's a sociopath, because they don't know what else to call him. He has some of the characteristics of what they call a sociopath. He has no remorse or guilt at all. And he had the first and worst sign - sadism to animals as a child." Springfield grunted. "But he doesn't have any of the other marks," Graham said. "He wasn't a drifter, he had no history of trouble with the law. He wasn't shallow and exploitive in small things, like most sociopaths are. He's not insensitive. They don't know what to call him. His electroencephalograms show some odd patterns, but they haven't been able to tell much from them."

09:55-10:15

Miriam: “I'm grateful for the opportunity, agent Crawford, but I can't help wondering... why me?” Jack: “You have a forensics fellowship, six years of law enforcement, a degree in psychology, doctorate in criminology, and what I don't have are enough warm bodies.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 "You have a lot of forensics, but no law enforcement background. We look for six years, minimum." "My father was a marshal, I know the life." Crawford smiled a little. "What you do have is a double major in psychology and criminology, and how many summers working in a mental health center--- two?" : "Yes, well--- Okay, right. I'm glad of the chance, but you have to know I'm wondering--- why me?" : "You got it. It's the old story--- not enough warm bodies."

10:20-10:15

Chilton: “The volume of Abel Gideon's mail is becoming a nuisance.  Sometimes I feel like his secretary rather than his keeper.” Alana: “Any specific correspondences that stood out from the others?” Chilton: “Mostly researchers or PhD candidates requesting interviews. A scattered dozen lonely hearts seeking his hand in marriage.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 7 "Frankly, I sometimes feel like Lecter's secretary rather than his keeper," Chilton said. "The volume of his mail alone is a nuisance. I think among some researchers it's considered chic to correspond with him - I've seen his letters framed in psychology departments - and for a while it seemed that every Ph.D. candidate in the field wanted to interview him. Glad to cooperate with you, of course, and Dr. Bloom."

13:00-13:10

Gideon: “Are you just going to run the psychopathic checklist here? I have had my personality inventoried by the Minnesota-Multiphasic.” Alana: “Would you prefer a Rorschach test?”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 "What tests have you given? Minnesota Multiphasic, ever? Rorschach?" "Yes, MMPI, never Rorschach," she said. "I've done Thematic Apperception and I've given children Bender-Gestalt."

13:10-13:20

Gideon: “Well, if you're going to show me those pictures, maybe you should put a blood pressure cuff to my genitals. I find it gives a much truer gauge of reaction.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 "It's ridiculous, you know; Lecter's a psychiatrist and he writes for the psychiatric journals himself--- extraordinary stuff--- but it's never about his own little anomalies. He pretended to go along with the hospital director, Chilton, once in some tests--- sitting around with a blood-pressure cuff on his penis, looking at wreck pictures--- then Lecter published first what he'd learned about Chilton and made a fool out of him.”

17:20-17:40

Miriam: “Organs were removed. Not all of them. He was choosy. He took the liver, thymus, but left the heart.” Jack: “What's he doing with the organs?” Miriam: “Surgical trophies.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 “Autopsy revealed that Raspail's heart was pierced and that he was short his thymus and pancreas. Clarice Starling, who from early life had known much more than she wished to know about meat processing, recognized the missing organs as the sweet-breads.”

18:00-18:05

Miriam: “I don't know that he's white, he's exotic somehow.”

'nuff said

18:10-18:20

Miriam: “We call you the guru. You have a peculiar cleverness.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 1 “There was a peculiar cleverness in Crawford, aside from his intelligence, and Starling had first noticed it in his colour sense and the textures of his clothing, even within the FBI-clone standards of agent dress.”

22:10-22:35

Jack: “We have a direct way of communicating with The Chesapeake Ripper, and we'd like to see if we can push him.” Will: “Push him toward what? Alana: “We might be able to influence him to become visible.” Jack: “If we can enrage him.” Will: “To what purpose, Jack? I-I don't see what you're asking.” Jack: “Do you think there's a way to push the Chesapeake Ripper and focus his attention?” Will: “Well, he's already focused on Gideon as his adversary. Don't fool around.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 17 “I have a medium where I can speak to the Tooth Fairy.” “The Tattler,” Dr. Bloom said. “Right. Do you think there’s any way to push him in a self-destructive way by what we say to him?” :  “Could we enrage him?” “Why do you want to know? To what purpose?” “Let me ask you this: could we enrage him and focus his attention?” “He’s already fixed on Graham as his adversary, and you know it. Don’t fool around.”

23:20-23:30

Jack: “You have all the qualities of a good reporter. You have intelligence, guts, a good eye. So how is it that you wind up where you've ended up?”

From Red Dragon Chapter 16 “Lounds was a pariah to them because he had taken a different faith. Had he been incompetent, a fool with no other resource, the veterans of the straight press could have forgiven him for working on the Tattler, as one forgives a retarded geek. But Lounds was good. He had the qualities of a good reporter - intelligence, guts, and the good eye. He had great energy and patience.”

23:55-24:10

Jack: “And you would get the satisfaction of seeing the Los Angeles Times, the sanctified Washington Post, and even the holy New York Times run copyrighted material under your byline, with a picture credit.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 16 “An exclusive story in the daily press would be a news coup. He would have the satisfaction of seeing the straight press - the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the sanctified Washington Post and the holy New York Times - run his copyrighted material under his byline with his picture credits.”

24:40-25:15	Alana: “He could be, and certain personalities are attracted to certain professions.” Jack: “Do you know what profession psychopaths disproportionately gravitate to?” Freddie: “CEOs, lawyers, the clergy.” Jack: “Number five on the list is surgeons.” Freddie: “I know the list.” Will: “Well, then you know what number six is.” Freddie: “Journalists. You know what number seven is, Mr. Graham?” Will: “Law enforcement.”	According to Kevin Dutton in the book The Wisdom of Psychopaths:
		The top 10 most psychopathic professions: 1. CEO 2. Lawyer 3. Media (TV/radio) 4. Salesperson 5. Surgeon 6. Journalist 7. Police officer 8. Clergyperson 9. Chef 10. Civil servant	The top 10 least psychopathic professions: 1. Care aide 2. Nurse 3. Therapist 4. Craftsperson 5. Beautician/stylist 6. Charity worker 7. Teacher 8. Creative artist 9. Doctor 10. Accountant

30:00-30:10

Jack: “Don't you have classes today? Aren't you still in school?” Miriam: “Yes, sir. I thought this might be more important than "exclusionary rules of search and seizure".”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 17 "No, he'll call with it. Don't you have classes today, Clarice? You're still in school, aren't you?" : With no breakfast she sat through two hours of "The Good-Faith Warrant Exception to the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure," before she could get to the vending machine and chug a Coke.

30:25-30:35

Jack: “You feeling frustrated, Lass? If so, you should start forming calluses, some thick ones, 'cause frustration's gonna wear you thin.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 31 "This is the hardest time, Starling. Use this time and it'll temper you. Now's the hardest test--- not letting rage and frustration keep you from thinking. It's the core of whether you can command or not.”

32:20-32:45

Hannibal’s dinner with Alana and Chilton.

Frédéric Chopin's Ballade No. 1 is playing, it was composed in 1831 during the composer's early years in Vienna; it was a reflection about his loneliness on being far away from home.

32:25-32:35

Chilton: “Dr. Gideon is going to provide us with a singular opportunity to analyze a pure sociopath. It is so rare to find one in captivity.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 7 "You know, when Lecter was first captured we thought he might provide us with a singular opportunity to study a pure sociopath," Chilton said. "It's so rare to get one alive. Lecter is so lucid, so perceptive; he's trained in psychiatry . . . and he's a mass murderer. He seemed cooperative, and we thought that he could be a window on this kind of aberration.“

32:45-32:55

Hannibal: “Inspired by Auguste Escoffier, we are having Long Tangyuan en papillotte, served with a sauce of duxelles and oyster mushrooms.”

Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846 - 1935) is legendary figure among chefs and gourmets who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. He is one of the most important leaders in the development of modern French cuisine.

33:05

Chilton: “The Romans used to kill flamingos just to eat their tongues.”

Roman emperors considered flamingo tongues a delicacy and served them in a dish that also included pheasant brains, parrotfish livers, and lamprey guts. Roman poets decried their slaughter, one poet, Marcus Valerius Martialis (known as Martial) wrote: My red wing gives me my name, but epicures regard my tongue as tasty. But what if my tongue could sing? See The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History (1985) by Stephen Jay Gould.

33:15

Hannibal: “It's nice to have an old friend for dinner.”

In the 1991 movie version of The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal’s last words in the movie (as he looks at Dr. Chilton getting off a plane) are:  “I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye.”

34:10

Chilton: “Psychic driving is unethical.”

Psychic driving is a form of medical torture in with victims are subjected to a continuously repeated audio message on a looped tape to alter their behaviour combined with the use of muscular paralytic drugs. It can be used to destroy an existing personality, and possibly to create a new one. The procedure was pioneered by Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron in the late 1950s. It appears that Ted Kaczynski (aka the "Unabomber") participated in a CIA run behavioural engineering study while in college that used an extension of this technique, using a continuously repeated video (instead of audio) of Kaczynski being humiliated as part of the study. Some have suggested that this experience may have been a factor in Kaczynski's future actions. Naomi Klein discusses psychic driving in her book The Shock Doctrine; it is featured in movies such as The Ipcress File (1965) and The Sleep Room (1998), and on television in the series The Pretender Jarod's brother Kyle is subjected to psychic driving.

38:20-38:25

Hannibal: “I believe the world is a better place with her in it.”

From The Silence of the Lambs Chapter 61 "I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being more interesting with you in it. Be sure you extend me the same courtesy.”

39:00-40:00

Miriam: “I was hoping to talk to you about a former patient...not necessarily one of yours, but someone you may have come into contact with when you were a practicing physician.” Hannibal: “I haven't practiced medicine for some time, but fortunately for you, I have a very good memory. Please.” Miriam: “His name was Jeremy Olmstead.” Hannibal: “Perhaps not so good a memory after all. I don't recall a patient with that name, but it sounds familiar.” Miriam: “He was recently found murdered in his workshop. We think he may be a victim of The Chesapeake Ripper.” Hannibal: “That's why he sounds familiar. It was all over the news.” Miriam: “He had two old scars on his thigh. Pathology checked with the local hospital. He had fallen out of a tree-blind five years ago while bow hunting ... stuck an arrow through his leg. The doctor of record was a resident surgeon, but you were on duty in the ER that night.” Hannibal: “I was?” Miriam: “Your name was on the admissions log.”

From Red Dragon Chapter 6 "Yes. Lecter was very hot - he did the next three in nine days. But this sixth one, he had two old scars on his thigh. The pathologist checked with the local hospital and found he had fallen out of a tree blind five years before while he was bow hunting and stuck an arrow through his leg. "The doctor of record was a resident surgeon, but Lecter had treated him first - he was on duty in the emergency room. His name was on the admissions log. It had been a long time since the accident, but I thought Lecter might remember if anything had seemed fishy about the arrow wound, so I went to his office to see him. We were grabbing at anything then. "He was practicing psychiatry by that time. He had a nice office. Antiques. He said he didn't remember much about the arrow wound that one of the victim's hunting buddies had brought him in, and that was it.” The name of the victim may be in honour of Jessica Olmstead, a seventeen year old student from Battle Creek, Michigan who killed a 448-pound black bear while on a hunting trip in Ontario, Canada with a bow and arrow in 2010.

41:15

Hannibal’s drawing

From Hannibal Rising Chapter 15: “From the bathhouse came the sound of a Japanese lute. Hannibal went to the music. A dusty window glowed with candlelight from within. Hannibal looked in. Chiyoh sat beside the bath plucking the strings of a long and elegant koto. She had lit the candles this time. The water heater chuckled. The fire beneath it crackled and the sparks flew upward. Lady Murasaki was in the water. In the water was Lady Murasaki, like the water flowers on the moat where the swans swam and did not sing. Hannibal watched, silent as the swans, and spread his arms like wings.”

41:45

Hannibal subdues Miriam   http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/miriam%20lass?language=fr_FR

From Red Dragon Chapter 6 "When I looked at him again, maybe my face changed, I don't know. I knew it and he knew I knew it. I still couldn't think of the reason, though. I didn't trust it. I had to figure it out. So I mumbled something and got out of there, into the hall. There was a pay phone in the hall. I didn't want to stir him up until I had some help. I was talking to the police switchboard when he came out a service door behind me in his socks. I never heard him coming. I felt his breath was all, and then . . . there was the rest of it." It appears Hannibal didn’t kill Miriam outright since he appears to have recorded statements by her that he was later played back over the phone to Jack. She may not be dead at all; all we know is that if she is alive, she is missing an arm. Since Miriam Lass uncovered Hannibal from recognising Wound Man, Will might uncover him in a different way.