"Hannibal", Episode 7: Sorbet — May 9, 2013
Episode seven opens with Will Graham presenting a slideshow of the Chesapeake Ripper's nine victims. Will explains how the Ripper sees his victims as not people or prey, but pigs. He details how their organs were removed. Jack Crawford enters the hall as Will reaches the ninth victim on the slideshow: Miriam Lass, Jack's missing FBI trainee.
Hannibal watches a woman singing opera in an upscale music hall. He is completely captivated by the performance and seemingly doesn't notice a fat, bearded man (have wee seen him before?) glancing at him from several rows back. After the opera, a well-to-do woman asks Hannibal why he doesn't throw dinner parties anymore; he replies that inspiration must strike. The man from earlier and his friend, Tobias, approach Hannibal.
The man, whose name we learn is Franklin, admits to being a patient of Dr. Lecter's. When Franklin and Tobias leave, Hannibal watches and then turns and asks who's hungry.
Miriam's presumed death haunts Jack. He finds Miriam's arm in a morgue with a ringing cell phone in hand - it's a dream. Jack wakes up, alone in his bed, to his phone ringing.
It's the middle of the night, and Jack and Will are speeding down the road in an SUV. Their latest victim was found with abdominal mutilations and organs missing in a hotel bathtub. We hear how obsessed Jack is over the case. Will warns him not to let the Ripper stir him up.
Jack and Will examine the bloody hotel crime scene. They find the victim sitting up in the bathtub. Despite the amount of blood present, Will thinks there should be more and posits that the killer is performing the surgeries elsewhere and then transporting his victims. The room clears and Will goes into "Will Vision."
He reenacts the crime and deduces that the victim woke up from sedation, struggled with his killer and ultimately went into cardiac arrest. The killer tried to save his victim by cutting open the victim's chest and resuscitating him by internally massaging the heart, but he failed. Will doesn't think the latest victim is the Ripper's work.
Hannibal invites Franklin into his office. Franklin says he wants to be friends with Dr. Lecter. Hannibal declines. Franklin describes a dream he had about Michael Jackson and conveys his desire to touch the greatness of someone.
It turns out Hannibal is seeing a psychiatrist. They are longtime colleagues and she can see past Hannibal's meticulously constructed veil. She asks if he's lonely. She says she sees enough of Hannibal to see the truth of him and she likes him. They have a glass of wine to end the session.
In a flashback, we see Hannibal getting his blood drawn by a rude doctor. The scene flashes back to the present and shows Hannibal selecting a business and recipe card from a rolodex. In the next scene, we see the doctor stranded on the side of the road. A car pulls up, and Hannibal steps out. He approaches the doctor.
We next see the doctor, his body severed in half, on the Medical Examiner's table. Will and the team debate whether an organ harvester is disguising his crimes as a serial killer or if it's vice versa.
Elegant opera music plays as Hannibal packages and freezes three different sets of organs in his kitchen. He is preparing for a feast with the viscera of his latest victims.
After Will misses an appointment, Hannibal finds Will asleep in the lecture hall and wakes him from a dream. They discuss the Ripper case. Will says the Ripper tried to humiliate Jack by killing Miriam. Hannibal asks if it worked.
Meanwhile, back at FBI headquarters, Jack and an agent make a break in the case - they discover through surveillance footage that an ambulance driver, Devon Syvelstri, is behind the crimes.
Hannibal and Will join Jack and his FBI team as they locate the ambulance. They discover Syvelstri inside the ambulance and in the middle of removing someone's organs. Hannibal is able to save the victim's life, and Syvelstri is taken into custody. Will doesn't believe they found the Ripper.
Prior to Hannibal's feast, he talks with Will in the kitchen. Hannibal reveals he was once an ER surgeon but, after being unable to save every patient, transferred his passion for anatomy into the culinary arts.
Hannibal hosts a large, elegant dinner party. He smiles and warns the guests that nothing here is vegetarian.
