Ich habe bisher zwar nur den Trailer und nicht die ganze Folge gesehen, fand die Reviews aber äußerst hilfreich: ohne die ganzen Vorinformationen habe ich nämlich nach 5 Minuten aufgegeben. Jetzt werde ich möglichst bald einen neuen Anlauf wagen. Auch wenn ich mit der Serie sicher nichts anfangen kann - es ist offensichtlich, dass das eine für die Karriere tolle Rollenauswahl war!

Hannibal season 3 episode 8 review: Great Red Dragon
Review Laura Akers 29 Jul 2015 - 08:30 Share on printShare on emailShare on stumbleuponShare on twitterMore Sharing Services

Richard Armitage's spectacular performance as Francis Dolarhyde completely reinvigorates Hannibal season three...

This review contains spoilers.

3.8 Great Red Dragon

I have something to confess, to those of you who have not already sussed it out: I am not a Brit. I am an American writing abroad, as it were, which may be my only excuse for the first half of this review. You’ve been warned.

You see, as an American, my exposure to Richard Armitage has been limited to what little of his work has crossed the pond and made itself easily accessible (thank you, BBC America), especially since my time living in England ended just as his star began to rise. Thus, short of his turns as Guy of Gisborne and Thorin, I haven’t had the opportunity to appreciate his skill as an actor.

And I enjoyed him a great deal in those roles. He’s impressive as a man of action, his brooding looks bringing a measure of depth to characters which don’t require it but are greatly enhanced by it. Still, it’s one thing to rampage about with a sword. It’s quite another to hold one’s own in a show like Hannibal, where strong writing is bolstered by precise and beautifully textured acting. And I really had my doubts whether he was the man to play Francis Dolarhyde in this production.

The first five minutes of The Great Red Dragon convinced me not only to put aside my doubts but has completely reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the series. Armitage is every bit that impressive in the role.

The problem with trying to present such a character is that so much of what makes Dolarhyde is the fantasy going on in his mind—how he sees himself. The most common way of handling this is to do it through the profiler’s eyes in retrospect: have him examine the scene and then describe the psychosis of the perpetrator, including his identification, in this case, with William Blake’s Red Dragon from his watercolour The Great Red Dragon And The Woman Clothed In Sun. Letting someone explain what’s going on in the person’s head is always easier than showing it, especially when you’re dealing with insanity. And the show’s already done that with its more mundane killers in earlier episodes.

Another approach, of course, is to simply show what that character sees. But here, Hannibal’s creator has painted himself into a bit of a corner, since we are already being forced to look at the world through the strange perceptual lens of the comparatively more stable Will Graham. So that’s not a very good option either.

What we get instead in those opening scenes is an intense and spot-on combination of the physical skills of an actor and the careful staging by a director. Armitage’s contemplation of his hands as they form themselves into claws, the labelled watercolor on the cover of Time, the beginning of a look of realisation on the character’s face as he reaches to pick up the magazine and thus reveals his name tag: Francis Dolarhyde. For a full five minutes, there is no dialogue (in fact, the character is on screen a total of about 8 minutes and never speaks an actual word, though his vocalizations are fascinating), and yet we understand: he is undergoing a transformation that both energizes and disturbs him.

But throughout the episode, Armitage manages to communicate things about his character that props cannot. He is not simply transitioning from one entity to another. He moves between the two. As Dolarhyde, he has a certain bit of Hannibal’s fastidiousness, and yet, he is essentially a nervous person. The dragon, on the other hand, is certain in his movements, the actor’s body taking on a more powerful and distinctly reptilian quality as it goes about its business. He is also not passive in this transformation, the actor showing us that it is not mere compulsion that drives Francis. In the scene with the projector, there is seeking in his expression—he wants to understand what is happening and why (though this desire is frustrated in the end).

Where Mikkelsen and Dancy have proven themselves adept at conveying a great deal in a look, this was still within the context of a lot of supporting dialogue and narrative. Watching Armitage doing it absent all of the former and much of the latter has highlighted his own skills in a way that little else could. It’s a spectacular introduction of both character and actor to a series where the bar for both is already set quite high.

And while there are sure to be new faces in this storyline--Nina Arianda’s Molly being a less impressive first among them--The Great Red Dragon returns to us three more familiar ones. Scott Thompson’s now Agent Jimmy Price and Aaron Abrams’ Brian Zeller not only provide a bit of comic relief but also remind us what a normal person’s response to seeing Will back in the field should be after everything Graham’s been through, made necessary by Crawford’s more blasé attitude, especially considering everything he's actually seen the profiler experience.

The return of Dr. Chilton (Raúl Esparza) is particularly interesting. He is not in charge of the Baltimore State Hospital of the Criminally Insane—Dr. Bloom is, which suggests much about how he will get the job, especially when she catches him sitting at her desk. His book is evidently precisely the sort of mediocre-but-sensational schlock that sells but earns no professional respect and is soon to be torpedoed by Dr. Lecter’s own rebuttal.

But what is intriguing is that between his last appearance and this one, Dr. Chilton has undergone no trauma we are aware of. And yet, there seems to have been a shift in his character. This is not the craven but still insightful man of season two. His baiting of Hannibal is both obvious in execution and overtly rude. Has the intervening time really made him so sloppy? This reads as a lot closer to the caricature we saw in The Silence Of The Lambs than the more fully developed character we’ve seen here in Hannibal. If he were the one scheduled to die next (rather than, say, Alana) this might make more sense, but for now, it’s hard to account for.

Finally, much has been made of Fuller’s decision not to focus on the rape of the female victims in Dolarhyde’s crimes. I have to admit that I was initially relieved, but after this week’s episode, I am a bit concerned. It’s one thing to not want to glamorise the act—few enough writers and directors can resist rising to that ratings-bait, especially when their show is so in need of viewers (and please, don’t get me started on how wrong it is that such a thing can affect ratings like that). But when the crime is specifically about the twisted spectatorship of such a crime, I think you have to do more than make a passing reference to a piece of mirror in her labia.

The way Hollywood usually deals with rape is terrible. But erasing rape isn’t the answer either. My hope is that Fuller will do better going forward. We’ll see.

Read Laura's review of the previous episode, Digestivo, here.

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Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/hannibal/36 ... z3hH0oMDuL

Hannibal Reviews Roundup - Part 3
Round-up of some of the Hannibal reviews that discuss Richard Armitage/ Francis Dolarhyde - Part 3
For Part 1 - click here

For Part 2 - click here

Warning - includes spoilers
Entertainment Fuse - Outside of setting up Will’s internal conflicts, the episode managed to provide another truly masterful stroke of storytelling: Fuller and Richard Armitage (who is playing Dolarhyde) created a full and complex character without a single line of dialogue. Think back on the episode. Dolarhyde does not speak a single word, but by the episode’s close, we know who and what he is. We understand that he believes himself to be the reincarnation of the Great Red Dragon. That he has gone to great physical lengths to become this beast. Sure, the character will be further fleshed out as the season continues, and he will eventually speak, but the silence surrounding this monster makes him all the more formidable an adversary for Will and Hannibal. After all, what makes Hannibal into the monster that he is is his ability to charm those around him with words and wit. This is an entirely new kind of killer. It was a truly inspired decision by Fuller to introduce us to this villain without and speeches or grandstanding (and, even without much exposition provided by other characters discussing who he might be). Kudos all around on this one.
Link - Entertainment Fuse



Masslive - The show’s version of Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) doesn’t have to play by the same rules as Ralph Fiennes’ did. We already know he is the Tooth Fairy, and we know he is absolutely insane. Armitage is tasked with playing someone who has already gone far off the deep end. He envisions himself as a dragon, hears the painting making noises already, and is otherwise disconnected from the reality around him. So far, he is the Tooth Fairy we know from the film, just turned up a notch, which is a fine way to be introduced to the character.
Link - Masslive



Den of Geek - While Hannibal, Alana, and Chilton may all agree that Hannibal isn’t insane, it’s obvious that Dolarhyde is. In many ways, his murders are much more gruesome than Hannibal’s, but their tragedy lies not only in the horrific deaths of these innocent families, but in Dolarhyde’s own instability. This is a man barely holding onto any sense of the world as it is. He can never evade the rumbling growl of the dragon. Unlike Hannibal, he is as much a victim as the people he kills.
Link - Den of Geek



Nerdly - Richard Armitage plays with his commanding physique to make Dolarhyde a figure of clockwork horror and pitiable derangement. Wordless throughout the episode’s course, Dolarhyde assembles himself before our eyes with skin-crawling slowness. Fixated on William Blake’s famous painting, ‘The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed In the Sun,’ he has the titular dragon tattooed on his back (the tattooing itself shown in uncomfortably sensual slow motion, the needle pulsing blood and ink into the air) and keeps himself honed to his physical peak with a grotesque exercise routine. His moments of fear and confusion, his haunting by the ambient growls and whispers of what sounds like an actual dragon(perhaps pursuing him from his last gig as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit), and his bizarre and beautiful vision of being subsumed by a film projector impart a distinctly unsettling visual and emotional texture to the character.
Link - Nerdly



Paste Magazine - That being said, any nitpicks are all but overwhelmed by the way the episode handles its titular character . As Francis Dolarhyde, actor Richard Armitage delivers an all but silent performance, communicating almost solely through grunts and body language. What’s more, episode director Neil Marshall films Dolarhyde’s pre-kill hysterics almost like the moment in a horror movie where a man starts transforming into a werewolf, complete with a quasi-epileptic filming style and a pain-stricken performance from its actor. Time will tell how well Armitage holds a candle to his predecessors, including Manhunter’s Tom Noonan and Red Dragon’s Ralph Fiennes but he’s certainly off to an impressive start.
Link - Paste Magazine



Cut Print Film - Even though he doesn’t get to say much, Richard Armitage makes an instantly memorable impression as Dolarhyde. All his muscle-flexing and guttural growling make him seem god damn scary.
Link - Cut Print Film



Decider - More impressive still is Richard Armitage’s instant-classic work as Francis Dolarhyde — aka the Tooth Fairy, aka the Great Red Dragon — whom he doesn’t so much play as inhabit. In a recent interview, Armitage said he patterned his (so far entirely wordless) performance on Mica Levi’s avant-garde score for Jonathan Glazer’s art-house horror masterpiece Under the Skin. That a main character on a network television show would be based not a performance but the music from one of the most difficult and surreal horror films ever made is remarkable in and of itself. But beyond that, the connection makes perfect sense. Like Under the Skin, Red Dragon concerns an individual in the process of becoming: making, and perhaps unmaking, themselves into a creature driven to commit monstrous crimes. Armitage’s Dolarhyde stares at his own hands as if only now realizing not just their potential but their existence, and mouths formless syllables as if trying to construct not just speech but the meaning behind it. It’s both easy and instructive to see the parallels with Scarlett Johannson’s nameless predator, another beast slouching toward mayhem to be born.
Link - Decider



Movie Pilot - If you already know Richard Armitage, his transformation into “The Great Red Dragon” was epic, but not surprising. However, the relatively unknown British actor left many, who are not familiar with his work, in awe.
Fans were elated, as were all those involved in the cancelled NBC series. Showrunner Bryan Fuller and executive producer Martha De Laurentiis have been singing Armitage’s praises for days, promising viewers something amazing. He didn’t disappoint.
Link - Movie Pilot



True Crime io9 - With Lecter behind bars, there’s room for a new handsome/sadistic/exquisitely bizarre killing machine to do his thing on Hannibal. And what an entrance Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) makes! Welcome, sir, and your obsessions with William Blake, dentistry, fitness, and slaughter.
The glass between them cracks, but it’s really a mirror in Dolarhyde’s attic lair that enables us to see a man whose personality is literally fractured. It’s only 10 minutes in, and he hasn’t spoken a word yet, but it’s hard not to be already loving this character and performance: brutal yoga moves, a huge back tattoo applied in what looked like one sitting, picking out false teeth, yowling and growling at a broken mirror, and standing covered in blood under a full moon … EVERYONE ELSE IS BORING!
Link - True Crime io9



Arts Beat NYT - Mr. Reitzell’s cacophonous musical creation, layered with dozens upon dozens of unique percussive sounds, coupled with Richard Armitage’s physically powerful depiction of Francis Dolarhyde, result in an arresting pre-credits scene that illustrates the making of a monster in way that words could never suffice.
Link - Arts Beat NYT



Digital Spy - The episode opens on a close-up of Dolarhyde’s face, setting him up very distinctly as a leading character for these six episodes, and we see his growing obsession with the William Blake ‘Red Dragon’ paintings which appear to trigger his murderous blackouts.
He works out compulsively to sculpt his body into the same muscular shape as the figure in 'The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun’, and has it tattooed in full onto his back, seemingly driven to literally become the painting. So in Dolarhyde’s obsession with aesthetics, we have a direct mirror back to Hannibal, who makes use of his own visual imagination to endure being locked up in Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
- So… Richard Armitage working out in tiny shorts. I have nothing to add to that, really.
Link - Digital Spy



Flickering Myth - Richard Armitage made a memorable introduction in the opening as he prepared for his first set of kills. While he did not have any lines, much of his performance was given through body language and facial expressions, painting a picture of a very disturbed and emotionally unstable man. Armitage is sure to be a standout of the series once all is said and done.
Link - Flickering Myth



Hypable - Recaps and reviews can offer only so much. This recap cannot do justice to the performance that Richard Armitage gave to the role of Francis Dolarhyde. Not speaking a single word in 43 minutes, Armitage moved through the motions of the Dragon’s discovery through his first killing spree.
Dolarhyde’s transformation begins with the discovery of the “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Cloaked in the Sun” feature in TIME magazine. The painting by William Blake awakens something deep inside Dolarhyde, a voice he cannot shut out. As he contorts his body, testing his own strength, a larger replication of the portrait taunts him from across the room. The transformation continues with new dentures, jagged teeth fitted to cover his own, and a full back tattoo fusing the image of the dragon to his own body.
Link - Hypable



Screen Crush - We also meet Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage), a man obsessed with “The Great Red Dragon” painting of the episode’s title, to the extent that he believes he is the monster depicted in the painting — a monster that speaks to and controls him, tormenting him with its twisted desire to completely destroy “perfect families.”
Armitage does not have a single line of dialogue in the entire episode, making our introduction to Francis Dolarhyde totally visceral. It’s a wholly physical and impressive performance, and a striking way to communicate his psychology to the audience. The scene in which he stretches to emulate and transform into the Great Red Dragon is the most effective display of this.
Link - Screen Crush



Forbes - Needless to say, The Hobbit actor Richard Armitage has some serious shoes to fill. But if Armitage’s chilling but charismatic first appearance is any indication, than like the rest of Fuller’s brilliant series, Armitage plans to take The Tooth Fairy’s primary attributes from the book and spin them in a way that is unique to the series.
Dolarhyde is obsessed by the William Blake painting, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, and the episode begins with The Tooth Fairy reading about said painting in a new issue of TIME Magazine. We then see him performing Yoga in an attic. He is supremely cut and strong, as if preparing for something awful that he knows he must do all the same. He appears as if he fancies himself more than just a man, sound like anyone familiar?
Link - Forbes

Hannibal – Season Three, Episode Nine: “…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun”
Posted on 11 Hours Ago by FATHERSONHOLYGORE


Season Three, Episode Nine: “…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun”
Directed by John Dahl (Rounders, Joy Ride, Breaking Bad, Dexter)
Written by Bryan Fuller/Steve Lightfoot/Helen Shang/Jeff Vlaming

* For a review of the previous episode, “The Great Red Dragon” – click here
Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) has become distanced from Dr. Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) since three years ago, when they were still sickly close to one another, tit for tatting with arterial spray all over the place. Now they’re no longer on a first name basis, as Will seems to completely refuse calling him by name – always doctor, or Dr. Lecter. Evidence of Will truly wanting to have a life separate from their odd connection that once was, and still is – deep, beneath the skin, down in the heart. As always, Hannibal mines for details trying hard to uncover all he can about Will’s personal life: his new life, without Hannibal. It’s intriguing and sad all at once.

We’re served up a flashback from events in the very first season with Hannibal and Abigail Hobbs (Kacey Rohl), as he prepares the crime scene he concocted which framed Will for a time.
“You accepted your father. Would it be so difficult to accept me?” Hannibal asks.
“I don’t know if it would be smart,” replies Abigail.
“We don’t get wiser as we get older, Abigail. But, we do learn to avoid or raise a certain amount of Hell. Depending on which we prefer.
“I’ll need to collect some flesh,” says Hannibal. “Not a pound, only a piece.”
Incredible exchange here as they play on the phrase of “The King is dead – long live the King“…
Hannibal: “Abigail Hobbs is dead.”
Abigail: “Long live Abigail Hobbs.”
Poor Will is being reluctantly sucked back into the entirety of his old life, working with the FBI and Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne). Also there is Dr. Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas) who has brought a Verger baby into the world herself, a true son of her own with Margot Verger (Katharine Isabelle).
But it’s Will who is in the most danger. Everyone else seems sort of sectioned off and encased in their own new worlds, yet Will is always in that danger, the peril of slipping back into the arms of Hannibal.
Hannibal: “This is a very shy boy, Will. I’d love to meet him.”
As they work together, Will and Hannibal inhabit the Memory Palace. It goes to show how Will and Hannibal are so intricately linked in their psyches now that the Memory Palace where they go together is something of their simultaneous creation; they are partners, in so many senses of the word. They have rooms in their Memory Palace which are identical, perhaps even meant solely for the two of them and no one else. It’s a great visual representation that doesn’t have to do a big ton of exposition to get the point across.
Furthermore, Hannibal and Will walk around in the crime scene together. A testament to both of their powers to empathize, their twisted minds much alike, and also that connection constantly running strong. It’s as if they hadn’t skipped a beat in those years apart, each living other lives yet yearning to be together in some way.
“Have you ever seen blood in the moonlight, Will? It appears quite black.”
A great image of Will standing like Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) did in the previous episode, painted in the black blood of his victims and naked in the moonlight.
Back again is Freddy Lounds (Lara Jean Chorostecki), the awful and immoral tabloid reporter. Snooping around, watching Will Graham. Naughty, naughty. Tsk. How rude, Ms. Lounds!
I like the new dynamic between Dr. Bloom and Dr. Lecter. Very interesting. They’ve crossed so many borders in their relationship. Especially when Alana let him go at Muskrat Farm when she could’ve just as easily let Mason Verger (Joe Anderson) eat him, torture him kill him. So it’s fun to see scenes between them both now. Once lovers, now enemies, at odds with one another. Furthermore, Hannibal is in a different position from before. He is uneasy now because of being trapped in that big cell, that fish tank, that observatory – like some bug, there to be studied. And Alana is there, poking, prodding. We also find out that the reason Lecter has cushy surroundings is due to Alana getting some of that Verger cash from the new male heir she gave birth to along with Margot, so that’s how he has been afforded some luxuries. It’s also a way for Alana to existentially torture him, I suppose.
More Francis Dolarhyde moments bring us deeper into the psyche of Mr. Tooth Fairy himself. INCREDIBLE MOMENT = as Dolarhyde squirms and groans in his becoming there slithers a dragon’s tail back beyond the projector – amazing little shot thrown in there.

What interests me here is we’re seeing Dolarhyde trying to come to grips with who he is – he does not know, he thinks he’s becoming and he’s undergoing a transformation – meanwhile, Will is trying to get inside this guy’s head. It’s an almost impossible task; surely why Will feels the need to go back to Hannibal. However, it’s still an excellent duality where we’re seeing Will fall apart again, at least slightly, while trying to figure out who this man is: a man who does not even know himself.

There’s some amazing yet brief shots giving bits of insight into the past of Dolarhyde. I’ve included a couple screenshots that show a wonderful scene that goes so quick you can almost miss it. Includes some stuff from the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon in a real intense, fast moment.
I cannot get enough of Richard Armitage as Dolarhyde. I mean, it’s incredible. His physicality, the way he embodies the character and truly becomes him; it’s the essence of the character. Plus, he has several episodes to flesh out that performance. Perfect actor to have chosen for this role. Armitage rules – I am now a believer!
Here in this episode, “…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun”, Dolarhyde meets his blind love interest. A perfect fit I always thought, for a man who has truly disturbing issues surrounding his own physical appearance. Rutina Wesley plays Reba McClane, previously a role inhabited by both Joan Allen and Emily Watson – so I’m interested to see Wesley’s take on it and see how well she handles it. From what we get to see in this episode, she will do great! She has a nice presence and tons of charisma.
I find the relationship between her and Dolarhyde so ripe for tension. It just fits so perfectly. Incredible adaptation here of Harris’ work. However, the original characters in the Harris novel are just amazing as is; what a writer.
Again, again – love the visuals!
While the conversation between Will and his wife Molly (Nina Arianda) happens, Will uses his Memory Palace to imagine the two of them on the bed together, sitting, in love. It’s an awesome little use of the imagery we so often get on Hannibal. Plus, a nice scene between Will and his loving wife; she is good for him, even if he’s beginning to tear at the seams of his being. The dreams are starting to reappear, he’s sweating: harkens us back to the first two seasons when he descended into madness and instability.
Jack: “We’re all in this stew together, Dr. Lecter.”
Such a fitting line for Jack to say. It describes everything so perfectly, almost literally at times as Hannibal has made plenty of stews/other dishes out of people, ones they’ve known, and at the same time they’re all just boiling in one big pot together with their hatreds and their grudges and ill feelings towards one another – Hannibal, Jack, Will, Alana, Bedelia – like a giant circle, swirling in that pot, they all curl around each other. We’re constantly wondering: who’s the next to die, to be eaten, to feel the full length of the horror?

The end of the episode is excellent. We get another great flashback involving Hannibal and Abigail; right after Will called Hannibal in the Season Two finale. There’s lots of good things here, giving us more and more insight into the “sensitive” side, if you will, of Hannibal Lecter; if there truly can be one.
Then of course we see another relationship budding – a new one for Hannibal onto which he can latch (because for all he is Lecter is a parasyte). Francis Dolarhyde reaches him by phone, posing as Lecter’s attorney.


This moment with Hannibal and Francis on the phone at the end is a creepy bit. There’s a duality again between Hannibal and Francis, just as there exists one between Hannibal/Will and Will/Francis. So much going on, like a twisted and scary love triangle of the worst kind.
Gets really tense especially after Lecter asks him what he’s becoming, to which Dolarhyde replies, in an awful tone: “The Great Red Dragon”
We’re building more and more to see a huge confrontation between Will and Francis Dolarhyde, ultimately another game initiated by Hannibal. This time, I think it’s also a confused bit of revenge/an attempt at bringing Will Graham back into his world on Hannibal’s part. Either way, there are so many things happening and I can’t wait to see how Dolarhyde is slowly going to go further mad and twist things up.

Stay tuned for next week’s episode, directed by Guillermo Navarro, titled “…And the Woman Clothed in Sun”

I hate that this is cancelled, shame once more NBC! I say it again. Such great horror. I hope this will somehow help mainstream horror television, maybe, maybe not. Wish there was some way to #SaveHannibal – alas, it looks as if it is dead. Hannibal, we hardly knew ye.

TV Performer of the Week: Richard Armitage, HANNIBAL
BY ALLISON KEENE 1 MIN AGO


One of the things that makes Hannibal such a great show is that it’s truly an ensemble piece. Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy deserve the be awarded every week, and Joe Anderson did an exceptional job of stepping in this season as Mason Verger. Let us not also forget Lawrence Fishburne, Gillian Anderson, and so many other wonderful performances by the show’s cast on a weekly basis.

But then we met “The Great Red Dragon.” As a newbie to Thomas Harris’ books, I wasn’t familiar with Francis Dolarhyde before Hannibal’s introduction of him — and what a stunning introduction it was. Sometimes a TV Performer of the Week is a lead actor doing something extra noteworthy, or a supporting acting getting accolades for a season of great work, but with Richard Armitage and Hannibal, it is for one particular set of scenes, at least to start: the opening five minutes.


Dolarhyde is first made known to us through a closeup of his hand. He flexes it almost like something beastly with claws, before hiding it back away as he studies a picture of William Blake’s “The Great Red Dragon.” Later at his home, Armitage as Dolarhyde exerts a complete mastery of his body as he stretches and planks and writhes, appearing to work through a transformation that might literally sprout dragon wings. The tension here is immense, and even though we’re seeing Armitage’s full, flexing body, it’s curiously not sexy. It’s terrifying. Armitage is not Armitage, he’s utterly Dolarhyde. And he’s becoming something terrible.

It does not end. Continuing to work in total verbal silence, the scene cuts back to where he again flexes his hands like sprouting wings or beastly claws, trembling with their power. Later, Dolarhyde closely investigates a palette of teeth like a child in wonderment, before getting his entire back tattooed. At home, he reveals the literal mark of the best, and then falls before Blake’s red dragon image and worships it. It is one of the scariest things the show has ever done, and while the music and direction played huge roles in creating the atmosphere, its ultimately success is owed all to Armitage.

Showrunner Bryan Fuller spoke recently about Armitage’s dedication to the role of Dolarhyde, and about the journal entries he would write about his character. Armitage added what it was like getting into his character and how he researched it; notably, he mentions that he studied an ancient Japanese form of movement to find something unique for Dolarhyde, which is clearly the origin for his incredibly distinct motions in the opening scenes.


Fuller has said this season contains a scene that Armitage was fearful of portraying, and one that made the show’s crew gasp (to the point where their audio had to be edited out). Whatever that is, Armitage has clearly set the stage for it in “The Great Red Dragon,” becoming — within a mere five minutes — something wholly other, not only from his recognizable self, but something unique in the TV landscape. Something precise, yet unhinged. Something terrifying.

Even now, almost a week after watching the episode for the first time, his movements as Dolarhyde stand out clearly in my mind. Though we get a sense of the carnage he’s capable of later in the episode, Dolarhyde is not an ordinary killer. He writhes in pain at hearing imperceptible sounds, keeps a Domesday-esque scrapbook of his newspaper clippings, and becomes one with the film projection he’s watching. Armitage is mesmerizing on every level here, and absolutely steals the episode with his scenes. Through an incredible degree of craftsmanship, he was able to, even in silence, create a character that is instantly distinct, haunting, and memorable. Just remember — whatever you do, do not call him the Tooth Fairy.

Hannibal airs Saturday nights at 10 p.m. on NBC. You can catch up with Chris’ weekly recaps here, and see my list of past TV Performers of the Week here.

.@NBCHannibal @ColliderNews @BryanFuller @rutinaofficial wow thanks Alison. Now who's excited to meet REBA tomorrow.

Hannibal Recap: Season 3, Episode 9, "And the Woman Clothed with the Sun"

Hannibal operates as a full-tilt relationship melodrama this week. The actual hunt for Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage), a.k.a. the Tooth Fairy, a.k.a. Red Dragon, takes an emotional backseat to a variety of couples who're sorting through almost comically elaborate assemblies of skeletons in the closet. As with nearly every other episode of this series, "And the Woman Clothed with the Sun" is composed of alternating duets of escalating intensity. In the pre-credits scene, Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will (Hugh Dancy) discuss—what else?—the thin ideological line separating their respective positions in society, which now parallels the fragile boundary separating Will from Francis (a doubling that the series repeatedly emphasizes by likening Will's investigation to Francis's preparation for the acts that have triggered it). Will's a killer almost like these men, who has pivotally funneled his emotional trauma and estrangement into law enforcement, deriving his predatory thrills from the hunt of other predators. That text has always powered Hannibal and Will's duets, but, now that Hannibal's imprisoned in the world's poshest lunatic asylum, a certain brittleness has crept into the former's parrying and jousting. Mikkelsen plays Hannibal with a layer of spurned torment here that's naked even by the standards of his distinctive interpretation of the character: His eyes sing with dashed erotic bitterness, which quietly primes the well for a betrayal down the road that's inevitable if creator Bryan Fuller intends to follow Thomas Harris's Red Dragon.
The show's narrative structure now resembles a sort of love octagon. There's Hannibal and Will, of course. For reasons that aren't yet apparent, Abigail (Kacey Rohl) has turned up again in flashbacks that unsurprisingly reveal her to have been complicit with Hannibal in the ambush that concluded the second season. There's also Francis, who admires Hannibal and calls him under the pretense of being his attorney in the highly unlikely development that serves as this episode's final stinger. Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) may still be with Margot, raising a "Verger baby" with the latter's family money, but she's slept with Hannibal in the past, and has had a pronounced "will-they-or-won't-they" thing with Will—an electricity that still exists between the two on some subterranean level in their brief duet here. And, remember, she also conspired with Hannibal to murder Mason—information that hovers, un-lanced, above Alana's power negotiations with Hannibal, of which she's now the dominant party due to his incarceration. (Dhavernas now plays Alana as a closeted woman freed, reveling in a newfound element of sexual confidence, dressing as a kind of modernized cross between an American professional and a French aristocrat. Scene to scene, the character still doesn't make much sense, but the actor keeps you watching.) Will's married to Molly (Nina Arianda), a coupling that's roused class insecurities in him that parallel Francis's exclusion from the nuclear family structure he simultaneously envies, seeks the approval of, and actively aims to destroy. Now complicating matters further is Reba McClane (Rutina Wesley), a blind film developer who works with Francis and seeks out his companionship. Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) isn't kidding when he tells Hannibal that "we're all in this stew together, doctor."
There's quite a bit of accomplished, bitchy verbal game-playing in the marvelous "And the Woman Clothed with the Sun," one of several high points of an adventurous and sterling season. Three duets, described below, best illustrate the shifting power dynamics between the characters as well as the surprisingly straightforward pathos. Though that straightforwardness is distorted when one remembers that three of the characters are multiple murderers.
The first duet between Hannibal and Will informs the show's increasing emphasis on dejection from the outset. Hannibal wasn't on screen much last week in "The Great Red Dragon," as quite a bit of the episode's running time was devoted to introducing Francis. This week, however, we see him enough to notice details about his incarceration, such as the institutional jump suit that Hannibal must wear, which has a comic effect, emphasizing a declawed, condescendingly infantilized quality that only renders the former doctor scarier; you know he's biding his time, looking for opportunity for escape or retribution. And Hannibal says something particularly surprising to Will, likening the acolytes who routinely visit him, attempting to leach off his notoriety, as "pencil lickers." It's a startlingly nasty, evocative sentiment, and not only for the taboo nature of the derogation he uses. There's also crassness to Hannibal's delivery, which suggests a loss of control. Hannibal might conspire to ruin the lives of people he respects, and he might murder people and eat them, while manipulating people who're barely out of their teens to become his protégés, but one doesn't associate him with verbal faux pas.
This duet has a second part, in which Hannibal and Will mentally visit the Jacobi family home, the site of one of Francis's murder sprees. In their minds, they walk the grounds of the estate and we see them do so, Hannibal pointing out to Will that the killer might be targeting families with enclosed yards, so as to savor the moon. This scene is an inspired example of the showrunners using Hannibal's abilities of mental projection as a pretense for freeing him from the confines of his cell. The device emphasizes the touristy distance that Hannibal and Will both feel from regular family arrangements, while, more practically, allowing episode director John Dahl and his collaborators to visually spice up scenes that could've merely existed as exposition traded between characters in two-shots (though the two-shots in the institution are always subtly varied, using the glass panel that exists between the characters as an elegant, image-enriching plane). A vision of Will naked, covered in blood, looking up at the moon envisioning himself as Francis, prepares us for his duet with Molly.
Will and Molly's phone conversation is a case of Hannibal rendering a heartbreaking scene from a moment that scanned as obligatory character work in the book. Certain macho relics from the story's 1980s roots remain. We don't believe Molly, for instance, when she calls Will a "hot shot," even facetiously, because this show's sensibility couldn't be farther away from the tone of derring-do that occasionally characterized the book and its first film adaptation, Manhunter. The series in general, and this scene particularly, is wounded, unexpectedly warm (the key to the show's success), sad, and essentially hopeless. Fuller and his collaborators, riffing on Harris, clearly believe that outsiders can never really join society; the best they can hope for is to limit the extent of their destruction, either to themselves or to others or to all of the above. Will envisions himself sitting on his bed with Molly, the disjunction between reality and fantasy crushingly epitomizing the cliché of being so close yet so far away. A telling line of dialogue suggests that Will may be married to Molly, but that he may never be intertwined with her spiritually as many couples might appear to be (normally only from the vantage point of lonely people like Will). Molly makes a flippant reference to Will's "criminal mind," wounding him—and a woman married to this man for even just a spell should know that it would. Does Molly truly love Will, or are her feelings for him a complicated embodiment of pity? Is he just another of the strays they take collectively in?
As rich as these scenes are, the duets between Francis and Reba take Hannibal to a level of intensity that honors the best, most surprising portions of Red Dragon. We've seen the carnage that Francis has wrought, especially this week in those unmooring close-ups of Mrs. Jacobi in bed, spread out in a quasi-crucifixion pose, engulfed in geysers of blood stains, and now we're to somehow find a way to understand him as the most pitiful, tormented human being this series has offered. Francis speaks for the first time this week, after only uttering guttural moans previously, and we can hear the profound speech impediment caused by his cleft palate. The way Francis utters "Mrs. McClane" from his van, garbling it yet determined to verbally push it out so as to reach out, when he offers her a ride home, is the most moving gesture in the entire series. Considering the context of who Francis actually is, the scene is flabbergasting for its empathy and awareness of vulnerability, bringing to mind some of the vocal effects that Charles Laughton landed in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Armitage plays this role in the tradition of some of the 1930s-era Universal Studios movie monsters: with an acknowledgement of the grace that arrives almost inadvertently from the purity of the effort to overcome physical damage—a grace that Francis hates himself too much to recognize. When Francis eats a piece of pie that Reba offers him as they sit in her home, quickly, like a hungry dog, we share his relief in being able to eat with someone while remaining alone and unwatched in equal measure. It's training-wheels companionship for a man who's long been lost in the figurative cold.

Hannibal episode nine recap: And the Woman Clothed with the Sun

It’s a family matter as Will and Hannibal get close again and our new killer finds a new bit of prey – or redemption
Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Hannibal airs on NBC in the US on Saturdays. Do not read on unless you have watched season three, episode six, which airs in the UK on Sky Living on Wednesdays at 10pm.

Strangely enough, Hannibal is all about family, even when that family isn’t Will and Hannibal’s sexless same-sex marriage or someone going around gurgling about a “Verger baby”. This episode especially was about everyone imagining their own special version of what a family should be, and that always leads to complications in their own lives.

Speaking of asexual gay couples, Will went to visit Hannibal to get some insight about the Tooth Fairy and how he selects his victims. Hannibal can’t figure that out, but correctly assumes that the man is extremely shy, disfigured and likes to look at the moon while covered in the blood of his victims, hence the need for a backyard with a fence. However finding all those houses – and the ones with recently killed pets, another part of his ritual – would be absolutely exhausting.

So is Will’s visit to Hannibal, who likens Will’s choosing a family to the Tooth Fairy choosing his victims. To Hannibal the two of them are the only family that matters and the solace that Will finds in Molly, her son, and all those damn stray dogs they are taking in, is harshing on Hannibal’s mellow. He sees it as somehow beneath them, just like the gross aftershave that Will is wearing. Does anyone still wear aftershave?

Hannibal is so upset by Will’s visit that he starts remembering his life with Abigail Hobbs, who died in the last season finale. We finally see how Hannibal faked her death and it also shows that she was a willing participant in pushing Alana out of the window. She wasn’t a captive or brainwashed (well, maybe a little) – she was along for the ride because Hannibal replaced her father in her mind. She confesses that the most fun she had was hunting with her father and Hannibal gave her the chance to hunt with him, to reconnect with a father figure. He goes so far as to let her show her “love” for her father by slitting his throat, even though he was already dead.

This was the family that Hannibal chose, one where Will and Abigail could be together and he could be the father of both of them, raising him in his likeness. But it was a family that Will rejected when he chose the law and the FBI over Hannibal. Everything since then has been, what exactly? Revenge? Something like that.

Will is working on creating a family with Molly and when things get darkest for him while investigating the Tooth Fairy, he calls her and imagines she’s by his side, fighting off the darkness. However when he goes to sleep, he dreams that he killed her and laid her body out like the Tooth Fairy would. When he goes to the mirror, his face has broken like Hannibal’s teacup and we assume, just like that cup, he won’t be able to put it back together again. Just what Will worried about is happening. As he’s getting back into a killer’s mind he is slowly falling apart.

Is the love of a good woman enough to save him? Possibly. It seems like it might be enough to save Francis Dolarhyde, the real name of the Tooth Fairy. We see him remembering his stern adoptive mother in a flashback and wishing that he was in the perfect families that he ends up killing. But he can’t find peace in those families, instead watching their old movies turns him into the Red Dragon, even if it is only in his mind (we do get to see his scary tail). This is what drives him to kill, annihilating the perfection that he can never attain.

However he meets a nice blind woman at work (played by True Blood’s Rutina Wesley). She can’t see his harelip and understands the way he speaks because she listens intently, so he lets her in, overcoming his shyness. He takes her home and she invites him in, serving him the most awkward piece of pie that has ever been served in all of eternity. First he gobbles it down and then he grunts at her and grabs her hand when she tries to touch his face and says, in the most menacing voice I have ever heard: “Trust me. I’m smiling.”

If I was this lady I would never talk to him ever again and eat the rest of that pie all for myself because it looked really good.

But the real relationship that was cemented this episode was the one between Hannibal and Francis, when the later calls the serial killer. Tabloid reporter Freddie was following Will around looking to get the scoop and printed an article about how he consulted Hannibal about his new case. Francis calls Hannibal to let him know he appreciates the attention.

It seems like every serial killer is the intellectual offspring of Hannibal, the granddaddy of them all. Does Francis know that when Hannibal tries to get you to be part of his family it is almost always a trap? Looks like he’s about to find out.

Hannibal Recap: Stop Dragon Her Heart Around

Dr. Hannibal Lecter knows all about perfect pairings — a census taker’s liver and a nice chianti; Prof. Sogliato’s cranium and a freshly sharpened ice pick — and yet on this week’s installment of the NBC drama that bears his name, every pas de deux had me thinking “pas de don’t!”

Will Graham going from a flirty phone conversation with his open-hearted wife to a bloody homicidal fantasy (or maybe “nightmare” is a better word choice)? Alana poking the world’s most dangerous bear from her side of the plexiglass partition? Francis Dolarhyde pretending to smile — or even scarier, believing himself to be smiling — while sharing a piece of pie with guileless (and sightless) co-worker Reba? Mason Verger’s sperm and a viable egg? No, no, no and (oh em God) hell no — all of these situations need to be reported immediately to the Department of This Isn’t Going to End Well.
I know, I know… Hannibal isn’t a show for people who expect — or even want – happy, life-affirming outcomes. (“It would be more honest if you are his brain right out of his skull” is pretty much as feel-good a quote as you’re gonna get.) And yet still, even in an episode like “…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun” — which felt more about setting up tragedies than actually executing ’em — the sense of dread can be as overt and insistent as a Freddie Lounds headline.

With that said, let’s recap the action:
Hannbial - Season 3

HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND | We pick up with Will’s first visit to Hannibal since the latter’s incarceration, and while H. is prickly at first (“That’s the same atrocious after-shave that you wore in court”), he eventually agrees to read the Tooth Fairy case file and offer some suggestions — or at least allow Will to “get the old scent again.” Hannibal suspects the killer chooses fenced-in yards because he likes to go out in the moonlight following a kill, and “one must show some consideration for the neighbors.” Will manages to figure out that the Tooth Fairy is attacking or killing the families’ pets (aka early warning systems) when he scopes out his victims — all of whom share the common thread of being happy. There’s a creepy subtext, though, to all the old pals; conversations – one that ought to make Will flee the room and never return — and it involves Hannibal gleaning Will is a stepdad now (“you know better than to breed”). I mean, for all of Will’s murderous internal riptides, I can’t believe he’d ever want to hurt Molly or her son. But by not shutting all the doors between them and Dr. Lecter, is he somehow dangling them as bait in the twisted dance between himself and his sometimes therapist?

OH, IT’S HER AGAIN | Aside from seeing — in beautifully bloody detail — how Hannibal and Abigail collected her blood, then sprayed it around her father’s hunting cabin to fake her death, our titular sociopath’s flashbacks to his and Will’s “child” provide little more than flowery dialogue. Well, that and a doozy of a scene in which Hanniba exhumes Abigail’s daddy dearest and lets her slash his throat ’til all the embalming fluid runs out. (But what about the hardwood floors!)

CAN YOU (IN)DIG(NITY) IT? | Alana’s got a pumped up confidence now — she carried Mason Verger’s heir, and is still paired with super-rich Margot — but like one of those Powerball winners who don’t have big enough imaginations to figure out new and exciting ways to be lazy, she continues her work at the Hospital for the Criminally Insane — and maintains her awareness that there are “only five doors between Hannibal and the outside world. (Ummmm… isn’t there some slush fund to pay for five or 10 more?) Because she digs psychological examination — and maybe, a little bit, gloating — she keeps up her communication with Hannibal, and also threatens him not to play with Will’s addled mind. “You’ve got Will dressed up in moral-dignity pants. Nothing is his fault,” Hannibal huffs, half right. But Alana, for now, is in the driver’s seat, and warns her former lover (and wannabe murderer) that he needs to play nice, or she’ll take his books, his drawings, even his toilet — and leave him with nothing but indignity.

PSYCHOTIC MANEUVERS IN THE DARK | Francis, thankfully, doesn’t slaughter any families this week, but we are treated to some grainy flashbacks of family dinners headed up by a stern old woman, some film-reel clips (in his mind) of his horrific murder scenesand the appearance of his imaginary dragon tail. All of this seems to have him utterly tormented — and the only thing that calms him are sweet, tentative chats with Reba (True Blood’s Rutina Wesley), a new blind coworker at the film processing lab. She digs that he doesn’t show her any sympathy — girl, he’s not capable! — and he seems drawn in by her plainspoken ways. (Anyone notice how Reba’s the only Season 3 character who speaks in a normal, inviting cadence — rather than in a sloooow and deliberate hypnosis-talk?)
Whatever her positive effect on him, though, she doesn’t stop Francis from obsessing over headlines about himself — and about Will and Hannibal teaming up to capture him. (Welcome back, Freddie!) Jack gets in on the act, admitting to Hannibal that Will was “never better than with you in his head” — but the FBI profiler’s not the only one getting a Lecter injection into the brain. The hour ends with Hannibal getting a call from his lawyer — damn they need to monitor his calls better — but it’s actually Francis, and he’s all atwitter about what he’s becoming. Hannibal strokes the ego of this “shy boy,” and learns the next phase of the metamorphosis: Francis is beginning to see himself as “the great red dragon” — and that’s quite a toy for a serial killer trapped in his fancy cage, looking for a chance to play.