Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 8: The Great Red Dragon

Tom Noonan. 

Ralph Fiennes.

Richard Armitage. 

There are the men who have worn the name Tooth Fairy. By this point I've read the novel and seen the two film adaptations of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon and have the plot pretty much memorized. Brett Ratner's adaptation felt like a less interesting copy of Michael Mann's Manhunter rather than a new take on an old story. Yet even with this plot buried in my bones I couldn't help but be excited to see how Bryan Fuller would make the story his own. So far I haven't been disappointed. 

Having Francis Dolarhyde as the series' first new killer makes sense. He plays a foil to Hannibal in a way. He's intelligent and meticulous but unlike Hannibal, he's totally out of his own control. It's interesting too that after having so many long winded villains in the series, the final one we're faced with is nearly mute. He doesn't have a single line in his first episode. His silent nature isn't just a personality trait, it's more deeply rooted in his traumatic upbringing. It shaped him and explains his main motivation. He believes, through killing and "transforming" his victims, he may transform himself from a mentally abused man with a cleft pallet into something else. Something invincible. Something that in his mind has taken the form of the famous figure in William Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, a painting depicting a scene from the Book of Revelation. It is one of a series of four paintings that tells the story of the Red Dragon failing at his purpose to steal the newly born Redeemer, yet revealing that his is not the only threat. Which is, of course, perfect for this series. Because he's not the only threat. In fact, he's barely the real threat at all. That spot will always be held by Hannibal. 

It has been three years since Hannibal's surrender and imprisonment when Francis Dolarhyde begins murdering whole families at the full moon. It is chilling to learn that his targets are always families and even more chilling to learn that Will now has one of his own. This could be looked at simply from an academic, story structure point of view. Will sees families being murdered so of course why wouldn't he go back to a world that almost broke him in order to protect his own. The motivations make sense. But I like to see it more from a prophetic point of view since that always seems to be the stance that this series has taken. Will's life is inevitably always going to wrap itself around or inside of Hannibal's. So when Dolarhyde begins his killings, he does so as an instrument of fate. Will cannot be free. Not while Hannibal lives. Even if he's living in imprisonment. Because let's not forget he allowed himself to be put there. 

Once Will gives the okay to return to the FBI we're quickly reminded why he was so hesitant. He enters the home of the first family of victims, the Leeds and struggles to enter Dolarhyde's design. But once he does we're shown a sequence that might be the darkest the show has ever been. Blood splatters everywhere and Will is shown shooting two children in their sleep. He places mirrors in Mrs. Leeds mouth, eyes, and labia and it's important to note that at this point Bryan Fuller has made what I think is a wonderful decision to downplay the sexual violence that made Harris' novel famous. There is never any direct depiction or even mention of rape in Hannibal. Instead Fuller asks his audience to read between the lines. His restraint makes this series far more palatable but almost a lot more horrifying all at once. Nothing is scarier than our own imaginations.

Speaking of horror, The Descent's Neil Marshall directs this episode, his first time behind the camera on Hannibal. Even though James Hawkinson's eye is essential to the look and tone of the series, Marshall's influence is felt all over "The Great Red Dragon," in particular flourishes with sound design. Most importantly, he's found a way of filming Richard Armitage that depicts his often naked or barely clothed character the same way we've grown so accustomed to seeing the female form portrayed on TV. Blake's painting is immediately visceral and sexual to anyone that takes the time to look at it and it's brilliant the way that this series works to overly sexualize the male form to the point of making it terrifying. The show has always done it but never better than in this episode. It's one of the best changes that Fuller has brought to this familiar story.

On the subject of change, the series' version of Hannibal's experience is probably my favorite. Hannibal's imprisonment is far more interesting to watch because we experience it from his point of view. That is to say, we get to live in the mind of a kind of genius and so we get to watch him share a glass of wine with Alana in a beautifully decorated room for much of a scene before we get Alana's take on everything and see the truth. Hannibal has no wine. No beautiful room. But he's using his mental palace as a way of remaining in control of his situation. Almost every scene that Hannibal occupies begins this way and it's a great little addition to Fuller's legend of Lecter. But of course, the show must go on and so after an entire episode of new plot developments and catching up we get what we were waiting for all along: Will must go and speak with Hannibal. 

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 7: Digestivo

"Digestivo" feels more like a season finale than a mid season episode. The last six episodes have been methodical in assembling pieces and moving them around the series' board in order to get all of Hannibal's characters to this point, but it's been seriously worth the wait. 

This is by far one of the best episodes of the show to date and it was apparent going into it based on "Dolce's" ending. Mason Verger plays the most typically villainous character this series has introduced and that's saying something. He lays out his plan in a typical fashion too, telling Hannibal that he'll eat him piece by piece and take Will's face to use as his own. This level of evil does less to inspire fear in Will and Hannibal as it does to bring them together. They know now more than ever they need each other to survive. Will goes so far as to bite off part of a man's face in self defense and Hannibal looks at him like a proud father. The look on Mads Mikkelsen's face actually brought a smile to my own.

Genuine insanity ensues as the episode goes on. Hannibal is tied up and treated like livestock. Will is prepared for surgery to have his entire face removed. Knowledge that there is a Verger child after all is only seen as a mild surprise after it is revealed that the child is being carried by a comatose pig. It is actually amazing that in a show that focuses so strongly on its male leads, it's the women who manage to save the day. Alana and Margot go to Hannibal's paddock and address him like the animal he appears to be. They release him on the condition that he'll use his banshee-like powers for their own purposes. Hannibal's happily agrees. So after being unleashed upon the Verger estate, Hannibal murders Mason's surgeon (though not before removing his face instead of Will's), milks Mason's semen as a gift for Margot, feeds Mason to his pet eel, and finally takes Will away from all of this madness and danger, all the while aided by Chiyo, providing covering fire with a sniper rifle. It's the most thrilling sequence in a television show I've seen in ages.

Hannibal and Alana even manage to have a reunion where they finally are able to come to an understanding between one another. Alana finally realizes what Hannibal truly is: he's an enigma she'll never even hope to solve. But she's fine with that because she sees that somewhere inside of him there is humanity hiding, only rearing its head when absolutely necessary. 

Will and Hannibal get their own bit of closure as well. Will finally releases himself from his obsession with Hannibal. He finally understands there is nothing but death and darkness on that road. Hannibal lives on a similar road but because he embraces that death and darkness it's never seemed quite as terrifying to him. Jack explains to Chiyo at one point in the episode that Will and Hannibal are "identically different;" the perfect description. Will finally breaks away from Hannibal and by doing so is finally released from Hannibal's control. It is a moment of sheer triumph for Will that the show has been working towards for two and a half seasons now, even though when the police arrive to take Hannibal away, they find him gone. They question Jack and Will and just when the man hunt seems about to begin anew, Hannibal appears and surrenders. Hannibal has always ever only let people believe they are in control of him. It's incredibly fitting that even now at the end of everything, Hannibal doesn't lose. After everything they still didn't 'catch' him. The episode ends with what I really wish were the last line of the entire series. Hannibal gets to his knees with guns drawn on him. He looks at Jack, and then past Jack at Will before saying "I want you to always know where I am. Where you can always find me." It's one of the most chilling lines of the series and there is still so much more to come. In fact, the last act of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal is actually the legend's first. The Great Red Dragon. 

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 6: Dolce

Seeing Hannibal walk away from Jack with open wounds was a jarring experience and it took this week's episode, "Dolce", to help cement what it really meant. "Contorno's" bulletin finale was designed to make viewer's understand that we were entering completely new territory. No one was safe anymore. Not even Hannibal himself. The first four episodes of this season exist to move characters around on a story arc chess board. It just took this long for this to be clear because Bryan Fuller and his team managed to do an ingenious job of hiding exposition behind the best cinematography and editing the show has achieved thus far. Not to mnetion dialogue so vague and mysterious it could only die-hard fans could assemble the puzzle from the pieces provided. Bedelia has been warning Hannibal all along that he's been flirting with disaster and now, finally, disaster had chosen to respond.

Bedelia herself is a huge part of "Dolce" and with good reason. It seems to be the last episode Gillian Anderson will occupy and she goes out with a bang. Even after everything that Hannibal has done to her, she still doesn't want to be directly responsible for his downfall. There's a kind of love there that no one, not even Bedelia, fully understands. Knowing her own limitations when it comes to creating an alibi for herself and her supposed husband, Hannibal, Bedelia shoots heroin to keep herself from revealing the truth. The beauty of this sequence is even though she's helping Hannibal, she's ultimately just trying to free herself from him and after providing a wonderful performance and a sultry and silly alibi, she finally does it.

We also learn this episode the full meaning of Margot's motivations. She wants a child more than anything and has developed a physical (at the very least) relationship with Alana in order to help her get it. A kaleidoscopic sex sequence helps what could have been a blunt elbow to the ribs sequence become something much more and this reason isn't much of a surprise. Hannibal has always been skilled at taking expository sequences and masking them behind mind bending visual effects which make for great TV watching and force the audience to keep their minds open while they watch in order to absorb every detail.

The final storyline in the episode follows Hannibal as he nurses Will's wounds. That is, until he realizes that if he doesn't act on what has become an obsession with eating Will Graham, he'll certainly miss his chance. So follows the most jaw dropping ending sequence the medium of television has seen in a long time. Hannibal has Will drugged and strapped to a chair, forcing Jack (who's achilles tendon has been slashed) to watch as he saws open Will's skull. And as if the show realized when it's audience simply couldn't take it anymore the scene just stops. Suddenly we find ourselves pushed ahead through time, though how much time we don't know, and Hannibal and Will are the prisoners of Mason Verger. It's almost too much to take. What on earth could happen next?

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 3: Secondo

We all fear what we don't understand. Looking into the unknown has always been one of the greatest sources of humanity's unrest. So much so that many writers and creators like to work that mystery into characters, locations, and forces in their respective art forms. One of Hannibal's biggest sources of power as a villainous character stems from the knowledge that we have none about him. No one really knows where exactly Hannibal Lecter came from. He's like evil stuck out of time. Hannibal Lecter isn't a person with evil qualities. He is a force of evil.

Now that entire prelude is really just a way of saying that when the twenty minute mark hits in Secondo and Will finds himself in Hannibal's childhood home, I was very worried that the writers would attempt to rationalize his evil ways. To legitimize and humanize his character into something less than what I've grown to love and fear all at once. Shortly after having that feeling I had another much stronger one. And that was guilt. I felt like a traitor to Bryan Fuller who's been dazzling me all along when it comes to his version of Hannibal and I can't believe I didn't allow myself to just go along for the ride because Secondo doesn't give up any secrets at all. This episode manages to give us a quick tour of Hannibal's past without ever trying to explain away the kind of person he is. In fact, it reinforces the already terrifying things we know about Hannibal. He's a manipulative monster whose powers know no limit. Will learns that quite quickly when he meets Chiyoh, handmaiden to Hannibal's aunt. She's been tasked with guarding a prisoner who, according to Hannibal, murdered and ate his sister. This isn't true but Hannibal has a way of telling a story that transcends lies vs. truth. He takes a crime he is likely guilty of and manages to weigh down an innocent party with guilt built out of sorrow and humanity. Hannibal understands everyone he comes into contact with and always knows how best to handle them. Will Graham happens to be the first person he's ever encountered who's able to break down the persona that Hannibal has built to show himself to the world. He explains to Chiyoh that the story Hannibal fed her about his sister's death is a lie and more importantly, it's one of the smallest he's ever told. Hannibal killed and ate his sister Mischa but in no way was she the starting point, nor, really any kind of explanation for the man he is. She's just another one of his victims. A bloody drop in the bucket.

Secondo is a piece-moving episode and is legitimized by watching the episodes that follow it. This third season of Hannibal is moving those characters all around the board that is the killer's life. Once the truth is revealed, Will finds an ally in Chiyoh but manages to turn her into a murderer in the same motion. He convinces her to free her prisoner and then she kills him out of self defense. This story arc is paralleled with another murder by Hannibal's hand but this time Bedelia is as much a participant as he is. So even though Will's intentions are good he and Hannibal are so star crossed that they affect those around them in exactly the same ways. Will and Hannibal will do anything, even unconsciously, to get closer to each other. And this is Will's plan, slowly falling into place. The only way to beat Hannibal is to match him. They must perform on the same plane if they're going to find one another and truly have their war.

The Simple Art of Codependency - Hannibal Season 2

The finale of this season of Hannibal isn’t titled “Imago” because it wouldn't have fit the season’s theme of Japanese food preparation. However, about halfway through the season’s final episode, two characters let us know why it would have made a perfect alternate title. For those who don’t already know it’s the final form of an insect’s transformation from larva to adult and bringing it up anywhere in the second season would have been appropriate. The fact that the Bryan Fuller and his team of writers decided to keep this conversation close to the chest until the finale was a great idea though. It packed far more of a wallop when it arrived because Hannibal allowed itself to change this season. It stopped being a series that followed a case of the week formula (albeit a more gruesome take on the recipe than any on record) and only allowed itself a thin overarching season plot. I can’t stand television like this but Hannibal did it so well that it became a tolerable formula. From week to week the show presented its viewers with a ballet of blood that turned murder into a legitimate art form in every way that shows like Dexter, which frankly can go fuck itself, managed to fail at. But by changing the formula that the series' fans had come to know and love, season 2 of Hannibal knocked our expectations of the show on their ear. The show slowed waaaaaay down. No more was it merely a killer of the week kind of show. Hannibal tried for a new kind of horror. It took Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) who we’d all begun to rely on as an infallible source of true justice and has him switch sides with Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). The pair begin taking pages out of each other’s books and the result is a season that shows us what can happen when two men who are each incredibly dangerous in their own way begin to allow the boundaries between them to blur. 

Hannibal got itself famous (at least with critics) for being one of the most beautifully shot and beautifully violent (again, just with critics) series to ever grace the small screen. The fact that it lives on NBC is a mystery to rival the Tunguska event. I watched the series after having seen all but the latest Hannibal film (Hannibal Rising) and enjoying all of them despite Brett Ratner’s horrific track record as a filmmaker - Red Dragon is by far his best film - and the pure awfulness of the series’ final chronological installment, 2001's Hannibal, which is up there with Ridley Scott’s worst films. It got me wondering why none of the films, with the exception of Hannibal, ever attempted anything as inventive as the visual style that the TV series has made its bread and butter. Director of Photography John Mathieson uses the already gorgeous palette provided by Florence, Italy to help Scott's Hannibal take on new life as a thing of visual beauty. Hannibal’s series cinematographer James Hawkinson seems to have taken brief inspiration from Mathieson before going off on a wild quest to create a show that would rival even Game of Thones in how painfully beautiful it was to look at.  

That visual style really ends up being the only thing about Hannibal’s second season that resembles its first. The plotlines this time around have felt more like Lecter himself was listening to music and painting to the tempo. It began at a fairly rapid clip with familiar faces dropping like flies but as it carried on it began to slow down and spend a lot of its time meditating on Will and Hannibal’s relationship. Hannibal tries as hard as he can to drag Will down (or up?) to his level and become a killer while Will resists. We, of course, begin to see cracks, sometimes big ones, in Will’s defense and we begin to genuinely fear for him in a way we never had to in season one. We now have to fear for his very soul.

This season also manages to invert the previous season’ structure by making Will a reliable narrator once again. When we first met Will in season one he was a good but troubled cop who was beginning to unravel by the end of the pilot. We had to watch over the subsequent twelve episodes as Will came completely apart at the seams due to his time in therapy with Hannibal Lecter. But after last season’s left field (though not unwelcome) finale, we got to watch Will rebuild himself back into someone who’s both sane and very dangerous to those who continue to walk the earth doing evil. He becomes the only person with enough mental capacity to outsmart Hannibal but because the writers never make it easy on him we really never know how it’s going to go down. This matching of wits may actually be why the writers decided to make Hannibal and Will some kind of genius sadistic team in the season’s latter half and pit (sorry for the incoming pun) them against Mason Verger (Michael Pitt) whose appearance represents both a wonderful callback to Gary Oldman’s stellar performance but also a unique source of total fear. Mason is a dangerous foe and even though lovers of the film series know his fate we still aren’t quite sure if the tv version is going to take the same road to get there so all our favorite characters are suddenly in harm's way.

Watching the season back in a rapid fire fashion results in some very thrilling television. Apart from a court room drama episode (the season’s low point for sure) the first half of the season moves incredibly quickly and the framing device presented in the premiere’s opening minutes keeps you aching to get back to it at the end of the season. Hannibal plays a much larger role this season than he did before. He gets his hands far more dirty and doesn’t just come off as some kind of god that the law abiding characters of the series waste their efforts trying to stop. Instead we see Hannibal as a fallen angel who's so enamored with humanity that he allows others to see a very human side of him and even though he rarely makes a mistake, he’s a much more sympathetic monster than we got in the first season and it makes it that much more interesting when Will finally goes toe-to-toe with him. The odds are finally evened up. Fuller and his writing staff have established that they like their creative liberties, which means the stakes are quite high.

Hannibal’s second season allowed itself a lot of creative license and I applaud them for doing so. The show pulled back on its gruesome nature but it traded a gimmick for far better long form storytelling. Not to beat a dead horse but I can’t believe this show ran on NBC. It’s astounding when you think about the kinds of themes this season focused on and how many times it made its viewers stare into the heart of human darkness and didn’t let them look away when it opened its eyes and stared back. The second season is the series’ imago; its final transformation. I have no fear for the third season but it became clear while watching the finale that the writers were prepared to throw in the towel. The series was renewed but extremely late in this season’s run and the finale’s final moments are certainly geared toward the idea that they could have been the shows last. I await it excitedly but I think Hannibal will be forced to reinvent itself again in order to keep becoming the best thing it can be.