Hannibal Episode 3.03 Secondo

When Hannibal returns from Palermo, he confides in Bedelia that it felt nice to see Will and adds that Will knew exactly where to look for him. Not missing a beat, Bedelia reminds Hannibal he knew where Will would look. Hannibal also reveals that Will told him he forgives him, but Bedelia cautions that forgiveness is a two-way street. She also warns Hannibal that his actions are going to get him caught. When Bedelia wonders where Will will look for Hannibal next, he answers confidently: home.

Just like that, we are transported to Castle Lecter. After leaving Palermo, Will has traveled to Lithuania, home of the Lecter family's ancestral home. When he finds the gate to the estate locked, Will scales it and makes his way towards the castle. He stops at the guesthouse on the way, looking in its windows and trying the front door to no avail. Will next explores the Lecter family cemetery, where he finds a headstone for Mischa Lecter, Hannibal's sister.

To aid his search, Will remembers a conversation he had with Hannibal in his office about Hannibal's memory palace. His childhood memories have been hidden deep in the palace, in places that Hannibal dare not go. Gunshots return Will to reality and force him to take cover behind a fallen tree. He sees a Japanese woman aiming a shotgun at him, but a second later, she pivots and shoots and kills a pheasant. Afterward, she retrains the gun on Will's location, but when she doesn't see anything, she picks up the pheasant and moves on. At the guesthouse, we see her pluck the feathers from the bird while surrounded by more dead pheasants. Will takes this all in through his binoculars.

In Florence, Hannibal is preparing another feast, this one made from a human arm. Bedelia serves the finished dish at the dinner table, where Professor Sogliato is seated and chatting with Hannibal as he chips ice out of a block with a pick. When Hannibal presents Sogliato with punch romaine, the cocktail served to first class guests of the Titanic during their last dinner, we and Bedelia both know things are not going to end well. Sogliato, however, continues to antagonize Hannibal until finally, Hannibal snaps and stabs him in the temple with the icepick. As his brain functions begin to go, Bedelia ends Sogliato's misery by pulling out the pick, causing blood to spurt everywhere. Hannibal, thoroughly enjoying himself, simply looks at Bedelia and says, "Technically, you killed him." It's clear to Bedelia that Hannibal is no longer interested in keeping the peace. Rather, he's trying to draw his old friends back to him. Little does she know, Jack Crawford has just entered the Norman Chapel in Palermo, Italy.

While looking at crime scene photos of Hannibal's heart - the disfigured remains of Antony Dimmond - Jack is approached by Inspector Pazzi. The Florentine police chief opens up to Jack about his decades-long hunt for Il Mostro and what it's cost him, something Jack intimately understands. Jack advises Pazzi that Hannibal will return to Florence, if he hasn't already. Pazzi attempts to enlist Jack's help in catching Il Mostro, but Jack must decline. He didn't come to Italy searching for Hannibal; he's looking for Will.

Still hiding in the woods surrounding Castle Lecter, Will fends off the cold of night with a fire. He hears something behind him and fears it might be the stag, but instead, Will discovers a swarm of fireflies. He follows them to a secret garden, where they're gathering around a pedestal with an angel statue on top. On the stone circle that encircles the pedestal, Will finds a child's red handprint. When he returns to the woods by the guesthouse, the woman who shot at him is headed for the castle. Will follows her as she goes inside and descends a dark stairwell into a wine cellar. Snails crawl along the walls and pheasant bones litter the ground. Will hears a man's voice speaking in a language he can't understand. The voice is coming from a prisoner in a cage, malnourished and covered in unkempt hair. As Will takes him in, he hears a gun click behind him. The woman's shotgun is once again trained on Will.

Will's explanation that he's a friend of Hannibal's does not make her lower her gun. He asks about the prisoner, and the woman explains that he's done this to himself. With her gun still raised, she leads Will out of the cellar. He asks why the man is imprisoned, and she calmly responds, "Because he ate her." Will quickly realizes the "her" refers to Mischa and that Hannibal is responsible for this woman standing guard. The woman, Chiyoh, questions Will about his relationship with Hannibal. Will says they knew each other intimately and to prove his point, shows Chiyoh the "smile" Hannibal left him with: a scar across his stomach. His admission gets Chiyoh to drop the gun.

Hannibal's next dinner party sees him prepare lungs at the table in front of his two guests, who question why Professor Sogliato isn't in attendance. If only they knew: there'd be no dinner party without him. When the pair gushes over Hannibal's cooking, he can't resist nearly giving himself away. Hannibal explains that in order to make the dish, the lamb must be freshly slaughtered and its organs cooked the same day. He proudly adds that he personally oversees this process. Bedelia, meanwhile, quietly eats her oysters.

At Castle Lecter, Will discovers Chiyoh condones Hannibal's cannibalism, saying he does what was done to Mischa. Will asks why Chiyoh is so sure her prisoner is responsible for Mischa's death. She confirms Will's suspicion by saying Hannibal told her so. When it's her turn to ask the questions, Chiyoh inquires why Will is searching for Hannibal after what he's done to him. Will admits, somewhat begrudgingly, that he's never known himself as well as he does when he's in Hannibal's company. Chiyoh then admits that Hannibal left her in charge of the prisoner after she convinced him not to kill the man. Will, deducing Hannibal's game, makes Chiyoh realize Hannibal only did that to see if Chiyoh would kill the prisoner herself.

When Bedelia takes a bath, Hannibal sits outside the tub and washes her hair. It's a moment of rare intimacy and also terrible vulnerability. With Hannibal's hands intertwined with her hair, Bedelia asks him about his first spring lamb and why he can't return to his childhood home. Hannibal reveals it's not that something happened to him at Castle Lecter, but rather, that he happened. Understanding the weight of that statement, Bedelia boldly follows up with, "How did your sister taste?" before submerging herself in the tub.

In the cover of darkness, Will frees Chiyoh's prisoner, bringing him out into the woods and ordering him to leave. But the next day, when Chiyoh arrives to feed her captive, the man is back in the cage. As Chiyoh sets his meal down, he barges through the door and knocks her to the ground. Pinning her down, the prisoner strangles Chiyoh, who mouths, "I'm sorry," as she gasps for air. But before she passes out entirely, Chiyoh manages to grab hold of a pheasant bone and jam it into the prisoner's neck. After the man bleeds out, Chiyoh screams, alerting Will that his work is done. When he enters the cellar, he finds a stunned Chiyoh sitting against a wall. Will explains that he freed the prisoner to free Chiyoh but, she is not fooled. Chiyoh knows Will set the man free because just like Hannibal, he was curious if she would kill him. With no more reason to stay at Castle Lecter, Chiyoh agrees to help Will find Hannibal. After she leaves, Will creates his own Valentine for Hannibal out of the prisoner's body. Using branches for wings and shards of glass from broken wine bottles for the feathers, Will transforms the prisoner's corpse into a firefly, which he suspends from the ceiling with rope. When he's finished, he and Chiyoh leave together.

With her newfound knowledge of Hannibal's sister, Bedelia draws a parallel between Hannibal's affection for Mischa and his affection for Will. Hannibal even admits it's akin to love. Bedelia tries to comfort Hannibal by saying all of us are capable of betrayal, but Hannibal interrupts her and says Mischa didn't betray him. Rather, she influenced him to betray himself. Bedelia notes that if past behavior is an indicator of future behavior, there is only one way Hannibal will truly forgive Will. "I have to eat him," he confirms.