Wannabe

S01E05

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Eddie Izzard plays Dr. Gideon, a seemingly mild-mannered surgeon who murdered his wife and her family on Thanksgiving. Holidays, amirite? Gideon’s a good patient at the old psych hospital until he snaps and plays voodoo doll with the night nurse, skewering her in so many places that everyone suddenly thinks Gideon is the infamous serial killer the Chesapeake Ripper. Gideon’s more than happy to take the sash, crown and title. Graham and the FBI team are called in to assess whether Gideon really is the Ripper. Graham is suspicious.

Soon enough the real Chesapeake Ripper makes himself known. Turns out that while the Ripper has been silent for two years (which coincides with Gideon’s prison term) Crawford has been working on the Ripper case for a long time. Via a series of flashbacks, we meet Miriam, a young recruit who Crawford brought in straight out of the Academy to work on the Ripper case. She had some of Graham’s skill set with forensics and was helping Crawford a lot until she disappeared. Crawford thinks she was the last victim of the Ripper, until he gets a phone call from her in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, the team is still trying to determine whether or not Gideon is the true serial killer, but evidence is mounting that he is, in the words of Graham, "a plagiarist." When "Miriam" calls again, they realize there is no way that Gideon is the Ripper. After a series of calls, they finally trace the number to a disposable cell phone that is technically in Miriam’s possession. Unfortunately the arm holding the phone is not attached to Miriam’s body.

Elsewhere Lecter hosts yet another dinner party where he serves mystery meat to his unsuspecting guests. He also draws closer to Crawford, counseling him about how to cope with his wife’s cancer and her impending death. One thing Lecter doesn’t mention in their tête-à-têtes? The fact that he strangled Miriam years ago when she came to his door while she was investigating the Ripper and found some evidence tying him to the murders. Yep, he doesn’t mention that at all.

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Somehow I forgot that Hugh Dancy is married to Claire Danes and now I can't stop imagining them having crazy-eyed face-offs in their marital bedroom. I mean, they probably have a master class for two in glazed looks and wild goggling. Can't wait for them to get really drunk and leak a YouTube video. Anyway on to the latest installment.

Eddie Izzard is guest-starring in tonight's episode as a prisoner who the guards find lying face down in his cell. They rush him to the prison hospital and, as expected, despite being restrained, the moment he's alone with the nurse, he kills her. I love Eddie Izzard, especially when he plays bad guys.

Jack Crawford and William Graham show up at the hospital to try and positively identify the prisoner as the serial killer known as the Chesapeake Ripper. While the name is undoubtedly supposed to sound terrifying, I'm pretty sure it's the name of a specialty cocktail at a Baltimore crab shack, which is, in its own way, completely terrifying. On their way into the hospital, Graham mutters, "I'm always afraid going into these places." "Why?" Crawford asks. "I'm afraid they won't let me out," Graham says with a straight face. Ugh, is this show trying to sound hackneyed and hit every cliché in the thriller manual?

Anyway, the warden/head doctor has heard all about Graham from someone (maybe the pesky blogger?) and has no qualms showing a severe lack of social graces and good manners by telling Graham that he possesses "a unique cocktail of neuroses and personality disorders make you a great profiler." He then invites Graham back to the hospital for examination, which Crawford quashes, because what is that guy even doing anyway. Who wrote this episode? Crawford and Graham finally get down to work trying to determine whether Gideon (Izzard) is actually the Chesapeake Ripper or just some wannabe who wants the credit within the psychopathic community and with those insane women with low self-esteem who write love letters to crazytown. The man in charge takes them to see crime scene, where the body has been left in situ. It's grotesque -- so grotesque that the doctor is pretty sure the prisoner was the infamous Chesapeake Ripper. Graham does his thing, channeling the killer and walking in his shoes to recreate the crime.

Flashback to a young FBI recruit (played by Anna Chlumsky, formerly of My Girl and currently of Veep) being called into a younger and goateed Crawford's office. He explains that he is putting her on the Chesapeake Ripper taskforce, because even though she's still at the Academy, they need bodies on the case. Cut back to the psychiatric hospital where the doctor is explaining that the killer, Gideon, received quite a bit of fan mail during his stay at the hospital. Dr. Bloom -- who has joined the team -- is surprised, because Gideon murdered his first wife. Graham thinks that is one clue that Gideon is not the Chesapeake Ripper, murdering his wife was too spontaneous, while the Ripper was methodical. Graham and Bloom will both be interviewing Gideon. As it turns out, Bloom has interviewed Gideon before and Gideon is a big fan of her work. Gah, this show is like porn for psychologists. Who is a fan of psychologists? Unless any of you are psychologists, then you are very attractive. While Bloom and Graham both know that Gideon killed the nurse, their task is to determine whether or not Gideon is truly the Ripper. As Gideon, Izzard does an impressive job of channeling Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs." This is not a bad thing, but just a thing. Bloom and Graham point out that the Ripper brutalized the body while the victim was still alive, but he played voodoo doll with nurse after she was dead. Graham is very suspicious of it all.

Crawford stops by Hannibal Lecter's office to try and eke out some information about his wife. He's stymied by his wife's efforts to keep him out of her cancer treatment. She won't talk to him about her end-of-life decisions and so Crawford has to turn to Lecter for answers. Unfortunately Lecter won't violate doctor-patient confidentiality and spill the beans on Crawford's wife. He does sense that something else is bothering Crawford, though, which cues another flashback. Crawford and the young recruit study a Ripper victim. The man is skewered with all sorts of metal objects -- much like the nurse -- and the liver and thymus glands were removed. The recruit coolly assesses the scene and announces that Crawford will catch him.

At the FBI lab, the CSI people note that the nurse's body has the exact same wound pattern as the Ripper's last victim. In what we can only guess is foreshadowing, Crawford corrects him that the last victim's body was never found. Graham thinks the crime is nothing but grotesque plagiarism and that the real Ripper is going to make sure everyone knows it.

Crawford is sound asleep when his phone rings. It's someone named Miriam who is crying and saying "she was so wrong." In the morning, Crawford tries to have the call traced, but there's no record of it anywhere. The team gently questions Crawford as to whether it really was Miriam, who apparently was the recruit, or whether he is Lord Cuckoopants. Crawford is having none of it. He knows that the Chesapeake Ripper recorded Miriam while he was killing her and he thinks that the Ripper called him last night and played the recording. Since they know that Gideon didn't make the call, it's clear that he's not the Ripper. Graham points out that since they never found Miriam's body, it may not have been a recording. Crawford brushes him off and works on devising a plan to enrage the real Ripper and draw him out. The plan? It involves the blogger, of course. Crawford points out that she ran an unconfirmed story about the Chesapeake Ripper. They want her to confirm it. She gets to visit Gideon in the psych hospital and she can have an exclusive story claiming that Gideon is the Ripper. The story runs and Lecter, an avid blog reader apparently, gets quite twitchy reading the fabricated tale.

Crawford returns to the psych hospital to further question Gideon. He doesn't want to talk about the time that Gideon murdered his wife and her family. (Holidays, man.) He doesn't want to talk about Gideon's supposed other victims -- he wants to talk about Miriam. In the middle of their interview, Crawford gets a call from home. He goes to answer, thinking it's his wife, but instead it's Miriam. The team heads to his bedroom where they find fingerprints and a long blonde hair that match the missing recruit. Crawford is still convinced she's dead, though, so Grant thinks the killer knew Crawford and Miriam were close and knows that Crawford feels guilty about her death. Another flashback shows Crawford chiding Miriam for skipping class to work on the Ripper case and telling her to develop thicker calluses. It's a bit unclear whether that flashback is supposed to show us that they were close or that Graham has no idea what he's talking about.

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Back at the psych hospital, Bloom is grilling Gideon again. She wants to know why he was a model prisoner for two years before playing pin the tail on the donkey with the night nurse. Later, the psychologists -- Bloom and the head of the psych hospital -- are having a dinner party at Lecter's house, of course, because this show can't go a single episode without reminding us that Lecter likes to eat people. As the doctors toast to the opportunity to examine a true psychopath (Gideon), Lecter serves up plates of tongue and says something about "having an old friend for dinner." Ugh, this show is good enough that it doesn't need the clunky, on-the-nose dialogue. Over some poor sap's body parts, Bloom asks the head of the hospital, "Is it possible that you inadvertently planted the idea in Gideon's mind that he was the Ripper?" The doctor swears he was not unethically manipulating Gideon, but no one seems to believe it, because up until this moment the doctor seems proud of having the Ripper in his facility under his care. Lecter pulls the hospital head aside and promises that he is much more forgiving of the unorthodox than Dr. Bloom. The look the doc gives him suggests that this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Crawford gets another call from "Miriam." This time the call can be traced and the FBI team follows the electronic trail to an abandoned observatory. They find the cellphone. It's in Miriam's hand... which is not attached to her body. Nearby is a note that reads, "What do you see?" which may have been what Crawford said to her during training.

Later, Crawford goes to chat with his new BFF, Hannibal Lecter. They sit by the fire sipping digestifs as Lecter gently queries, "What would be the benefit of letting you think that your trainee is alive?" "Hope," Crawford answers. Lecter segues from hope for his recruit to not giving up hope for his wife. Crawford can't believe that the Ripper would even want him to think his recruit was alive. Lecter shrugs and offers a toast that cues a flashback to Miriam interviewing Lecter about a patient named Jeremy Olmstead, who was a victim of the Ripper. Lecter can't remember the man, but offers to get Miriam the journals that he kept during his time as an ER doctor. He leaves her alone to discover his drawings of a man killed exactly the same way as the Ripper's victim (clearly Saint Sebastian inspired). So Lecter killed her, strangling her with his bare hands. Cut back to Lecter sitting by the fire with Crawford, toasting to the memory of Miriam.

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