Hannibal Episode 1.09 Buffet Froid

It's a rainy night in Greenwood, Delaware, and Beth LeBeau is just getting ready for bed. As she tucks herself in, Beth notices a leak coming from the ceiling and goes to the attic to check it out. There is a hole in the side of her roof, and Beth quickly patches it up with some plastic wrap before going back to bed. What she doesn't know is that the hole was man-made. Back in her room, hands reach out from underneath Beth's bed and yank her under; the splattering of blood that follows marks her end. Elsewhere, Will meets with Hannibal and discusses his regret of the innocence he lost after killing Garrett Hobbs. Hannibal tries to get Will to live intentionally in the present by having him draw a clock, but the doodle Will gives Hannibal is vexingly askew. Something is wrong with Will...

Will brings fish home and cuts one open in his kitchen, but when he does so, he comes rushing back to reality, and is covered in the blood of Beth LeBeau, in the midst of her brutal crime scene. Will screams and runs out of the room, to find the FBI investigation team awaiting his results. Outside, Jack admonishes Will for contaminating the crime scene, but Will wonders aloud if Jack has anyone else that can do Will's job stable better than he can do it unstable. Back inside, Brian says the girl drowned in her own blood. Beverly thinks it's an old flame, as the photos in the room of her are scratched out. When Will realizes the skin on Beth's face was pulled back, he wonders if the killer was trying to remove her "mask"...

Will goes back to Hannibal and tells him about the grandiose hallucinations he had at Beth's crime scene. Hannibal agrees to refer Will to a neurologist, but warns him that if they don't find anything wrong physiologically, he has to accept his problems as mental illness. At Dr. Sutcliffe's office, Will is placed in an MRI machine to take a scan of his brain. Inside, Will hallucinates about being under Beth LeBeau's bed. The results of his MRI show he has severe encephalitis, which Hannibal claims he already knew by scent alone. Off of Dr. Lecter's suggestion, however, Dr. Sutcliffe tells Will his brain scan was "completely normal" to keep him in the dark about his condition.

Hannibal and Jack converse over drinks. Hannibal accuses Jack of knowingly allowing the deterioration of Will's psyche by placing him in harm's way with these investigations. Jack thinks Will's temporary mental health is a small price to pay for the saved lives of many. Regardless, Hannibal knows Will has a psychological tendency to mirror what's around him, and so placing him at these crime scenes doesn't just rub off on him, the terror and macabre absorbs into his entire being...

Will visits Beth LeBeau's house late at night to look at the crime scene again. Inside her bedroom, he repeats Hannibal's cadence to ensure he's fully in the present moment. Suddenly, Will notices someone under the bed and when he kneels down to get a better look, the person makes a run for the door. Will grabs the person's hand, but the skin on their entire arm slides off. In a blink, Will is in the middle of the woods in Delaware, scared and alone. As he repeats his cadence, Will begins to questions what's real, and what's a figment of his imagination.

Beverly accompanies Will to Beth's house and the two try to figure out whether Will was hallucinating, or whether he actually encountered Beth's killer. Beverly thinks the skin peeling off the murderer would make sense, as the killer was cut during the crime but never bled. Will also thinks it may explain why they were trying to cut Beth's face off - they may have mistook it for a mask and could also have trouble distinguishing faces. The killer came back to make sure they hadn't committed the crime, but their delusions would've been confirmed by the blood on the ground. The killer's profile is beginning to take shape.

Will and Hannibal meet and discuss the latest with his hallucinations. Will is still drawing messed up clocks, despite his understanding that they're perfectly in order. When discussing his recent case, Will tells Hannibal about the killer's profile. Hannibal thinks the killer might suffer from a mental illness that dissociates recognition with faces or people. The killer may have reached out to someone they loved - Beth - but struggled to see the person as anything more than an imposter. If crossed, the killer may have lashed out and gotten violent. She can't trust anything or anyone. Will can't help but see the similarities in his own mental struggles.

That night, as Will has a nightmare in his bed, Georgia Mansion stands outside his house window and watches him. At Quantico, Will and Jack speak with the suspect's mother. The woman is relieved to hear she's alive more than anything; her daughter's suffered from mental illness her entire life and is definitely capable of violence. As the mother speaks on her frustrations with mental health rehabilitation, how doctors just offer vague generalities instead of concrete solutions, Will empathizes greatly, having recently experienced the exact same thing.

Later, Jack confronts Will at FBI headquarters; Jack still harbors guilt for his handling of Miriam Glass, his fallen protege, and he can see a pattern occurring now with Will. What Jack wants to know is why Will still comes to work everyday when he knows it's bad for him. Will can't offer an answer, so Jack provides his own hypothesis - he thinks Will comes because work is the only stabilizing force in his life at the moment. Jack tells Will, when he doubts himself, he doesn't have to doubt Jack too.

Hannibal and Dr. Sutcliffe converse over dinner. Dr. Sutcliffe asks Hannibal about his relationship with Will. What makes Will so rare? Hannibal enjoys Graham's vivid imagination and pure empathy. There's nothing Will can't understand, and that terrifies Graham. Dr. Sutcliffe asks if Hannibal helped set his mind on fire? How long can they let the fire burn in Will's head? Hannibal says Will is his friend, and when it's necessary, he'll put out the fire. Now that they know what his diagnosis is, it'll be easier to hide from Will.

Will is eager to diagnose his mental problems, unaware that Hannibal and Dr. Sutcliffe are intentionally keeping him in the dark. Will goes in for more MRI testing, but when it's over, no one is around to help him wrap up his appointment. The hospital is worryingly empty. As Will investigates, he finds Dr. Sutcliffe's office door dripping with blood, and when he enters, the doctor is dead at his desk, his head ripped apart at the jaw...

Dr. Sutcliffe's office has turned into a crime scene, and Brian sees a similarity in the weapons used at Beth LeBeau's house. The only connection between the victims is Will, though. Will wonders if Georgia mistook his doctor for Graham, as she struggles to identify faces. Will tells Jack he might have contacted her that one night in the forest, when he was going through his cadences. At that moment, Will shouted out "you're alive," and if Georgia was listening, it might've been the first time she realized that in a long while.

That night, as Will sleeps, he awakens from a dream and checks under his bed... Georgia is lying there, watching him! Will falls to the floor and calmly attempts to bring her into the present moment. When Georgia asks if she's alive, Will says yes, and reaches his hand out to hold hers. Later, Georgia is taken to ICU and treated for her loss of vital fluids. Jack wonders to Hannibal whether she'll make a full recovery, and more importantly, whether she'll remember what she's done. Dr. Lecter says he hopes she doesn't, for her sake... but it's revealed that Hannibal was the one who killed Dr. Sutcliffe - not Georgia! She wandered into the room that night, and Hannibal handed her the weapon...