Hannibal – Season Three, Episode Ten: “…And the Woman Clothed in Sun”

Posted on 1 Hour Ago by FATHERSONHOLYGORE

ReddragonNBC’s Hannibal
Season Three, Episode Ten: “…And the Woman Clothed in Sun”
Directed by Guillermo Navarro (D.P on Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado, & Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim)
Written by Bryan Fuller & Don Mancini

This week’s episode, a slight different wording from last week’s episode which corresponds to the William Blake paintings “…And the Woman Clothed in Sun”, begins as Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) prepares himself. For what? A conversation over the phone with an understanding ear: Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen).

Being an avid fan, an impressed spectator to the greatness of Hannibal’s crimes, Francis prepares himself. He doesn’t want his speaking voice to affect anything on his way to Lecter. He jacks into an abandoned building’s phone line to get in touch with the naughty doctor; he has on a telephone company uniform and all, SureTalk. This will hopefully quench the thirst of people bitching last week that there’d be no way Francis would’ve gotten through to Lecter. Solved now?

Then all of a sudden, we are in Lecter’s Memory Palace it seems. He and Francis sit, talk to one another. Now here comes friendship in Hannibal as an over-arching theme. Hannibal is looking for a friend, as is Francis. While Dolarhyde has certainly come to like Reba McClane (Rutina Wesley), he is still searching for that kindred spirit which understands the part of him that loves to – needs to – kill people. So again, we’ve got this duality going.

Added to the fact Hannibal is mad at Will, like a lover scorned and turned away, there is something dangerous and horrible brewing between these two. Worst part is, Francis Dolarhyde is half in, half out, as he struggles against the Great Red Dragon when he’s with Reba; her humanity brings him back to his own, in a sense.

Francis: “I want to be recognized by you”
Hannibal: “As John the Baptist recognized the one who came after”
Francis: “I want to sit before you as the Dragon sat before 666 and Revelation. I have… things, I would love to show you. Some day if circumstances permit, I would like to meet you… and watch you meld with the strength of the Dragon.”
Hannibal: “See how magnificent you are. Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

Impressive image as this conversation closes, just as opening credits cut. I actually went “Phewf”. Incredibly powerful and so darkly vibrant looking. Couldn’t get enough of this bit!

Now we’re seeing Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson) spinning a web of lies. I suppose it’s no different from Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) passing the events three years ago off as something they were not. However, I’d argue that Bedelia had a hand in far too much to truly sit by and believe anything else.
Regardless there she is, in all her glory, still on top of the world. She reels off tales of Hannibal Lecter and her forced captivity, when she was “swallowed by the beast“, and a whole room of people clap.

Will: “Poor Dr. Du Maurier – swallowed whole, suffering inside Hannibal Lecter’s bowels for what must’ve felt like an eternity. You didn’t lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn’t be bothered.”
Bedelia: “Hello, Will.”
Will: “You hitched your star to a man commonly known as a monster. You’re the Bride of Frankenstein.”
Bedelia: “We’ve both been his bride.”
Will: “How’d you manage to walk away unscarred? I’m covered in scars.”

An impressive exchange between Bedelia and Will. I love the pure sass coming out of Graham, like he’s just chewing on it. Furthermore, we’re getting so much in the way of the relationship between Will and Hannibal; it’s the truest, purest heterosexual male love story of the 21st century this far in.

There are some enlightening bits here, especially one of Dr. Du Maurier’s last lines in the scene…
Bedelia: “I was with him behind the veil. You were always on the other side.”

Perhaps one of my favourite moments of the entire episode is when Francis takes Reba to see the tiger who is under medication for surgery. There’s this part where Reba is touching all the way up to the tiger’s face, the music is so tense and suspenseful as if we might get a crazy dream sequence where Reba gets her hand bitten off, and Francis has this look on his face, he’s almost biting his own hand, then nothing happens and Reba goes on touching the big animal, rubbing its fur. Just shows how much of a fixation Francis has on mouths, teeth, et cetera, he could barely even handle seeing Reba touch an animal’s mouth. So intriguing and also had my heart rate pumping a few times.

How many times can I say it? Richard Armitage is doing a superb job with the character of Francis Dolarhyde. I mean, I’m a massive fan of Ralph Fiennes – total nut for the guy’s filmography, but still… I think because of his performance, and plus the ability to play the character in a handful of episodes as opposed to a single two hour film, Armitage has the advantage here. There’s something about his quiet physicality. It moves me, honestly. Even in the beginning when he’s practicing certain sounds, making sure he can sound appropriate enough to make it through so he can speak to Hannibal, I felt this insanely vulnerable feeling for Dolarhyde. Not that he doesn’t scare me at certain times, but Armitage truly makes me feel bad for the guy. The other incarnations – both Fiennes and also Tom Noonan – really came across with the insane aspects of the character; they didn’t overdo things, they just played it quite well on that end. With Armitage, I’m impressed by how he brings out that vulnerability and the traumatic past so much better. It’s really something to revel in. So glad he was chosen to play this part because even if someone else could’ve done a decent job, Armitage is making Dolarhyde one of the best villains ever on television. The essence of a sympathetic killer, if there ever was one.

P.S. The love making scene between Francis and Reba went insanely well. I love how those types of scenes in this series come out as these trippy, psychedelic affairs, which keeps up with the whole weird aesthetic Hannibal has going on.

We’re seeing more and more now that struggle of Dolarhyde against the Great Red Dragon, bursting inside him, calling out from the painting, telling him to kill. Because now, the Dragon wants Reba, it does not need that side of Francis clogging things up. The pain, the sound in Francis’ head returns, but he wants to overpower it. No matter how strong the feeling that he is becoming, Francis clearly does feel something for Reba.

Good dose of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon.
Hannibal is able to dial his way into Dr. Frederick Chilton’s (Raúl Esparza) office. He manages to con his way into getting Will Graham’s home address, the sneaky, dirty doctor.

Will: “If he does end up eating you, Bedelia, you do have it coming.”
I’m truly enjoying the scenes between Hugh Dancy and Gillian Anderson this week. Great episode for them. It’s like a tit-for-tat type of situation, the two of them going back and forth – Will trying to get to the bottom of things, Bedelia toeing the edges as long as she’s permitted.

Bedelia: “Do no harm”
Will: “And did you?”
Bedelia: “I did. Technically.”
Will: “You dared to care.”
Bedelia: “Not the first time I’ve lost professional objectivity in a matter where Hannibal is concerned.”

I fucking love this! Zachary Quinto shows up again, finally not as a corpse like when we last saw him in Bedelia’s office. He was the patient she ended up killing in her office, the one whose death Hannibal Lecter, that damned dirty dog, helped to cover up. I think he’s an incredible actor, despite what anyone else wants to say. He has this very gentle, subtle quality that helps to frighten when things become intense. His turn in American Horror Story: Asylum is one of my favourite characters on television – ever. Great to see him here. Adds to the ever increasing list of awesome guest stars the show has had in its jaw-dropping three seasons.
Not only that Quinto is awesome, his character clearly knew how messed up Bedelia and Hannibal both were. Unfortunately for this he had to go.

Bedelia: “My relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours. You are here visiting an old flame. Is your wife aware of how intimately you and Hannibal know each other?”
Will: “She’s aware enough”
Bedelia: “You couldn’t save Hannibal. Do you think you can save this new one?”

The way we learn about Bedelia’s patient, Neal Frank (Zachary Quinto), the one who formerly went to Hannibal, is a great example of why Fuller & Co (this week’s episode is written by him and the most excellent Don Mancini) have done such a fabulous job fleshing the story out in an appropriate way. At least in a way I see as appropriate.

We’ve already seen bits and pieces of this stuff, but now we’re getting the full story, a better look at everything going on. The manner in which Fuller & Co. drop things into the story, little subplots and sidebars, then come back to things later instead of explaining things full-on right away, I think that’s the mark of some excellent storytelling. Another reason this series is great, and another reason some adaptations are better off on television than necessarily becoming a series of films – I love, love, love the films featuring Hannibal Lecter, there’s just a special place in my fandom of the Thomas Harris novels for this particular version. So much room to move around and play with themes, characters, arcs, and so on.

Also, we come to see how Bedelia is actually more like Hannibal than Will. At the key moment between her and Neal Frank, she does what she does out of pure curiosity. For a moment, I thought it was actually going to be an accident what happened in the end, however, it’s curiosity that drives Bedelia – and drives her hand further down Neal’s throat instead of helping open up his airway. Very interesting. Then it feeds her continuing chat with Will Graham.

Bedelia: “You are not a killer. You are capable of righteous violence because you are compassionate.”
Will: “How are you capable?”
Bedelia: “Extreme acts of cruelty require a high level of empathy. The next time you have an instinct to help someone, you might consider crushing them instead. It might save you a great deal of trouble.”

We get more of Will and Hannibal together, working once more in unison towards understanding a killer. Of course, Hannibal has not revealed his call from the Tooth Fairy, Mr. Francis Dolarhyde; though, Lecter does not know the man’s name, only that he is… becoming.
Hannibal certainly didn’t tell Will that he has gotten a home address for the new Graham family. Mostly he is teasing Will; that jealous lover side of him coming out, pissed that Will has decided to have a family, a wife, a child to look after.

When Francis Dolarhyde makes his way into the museum, I got giddy. This has always been one of my favourite things out of Red Dragon, particularly because it shows just how beyond deranged Dolarhyde is, I mean, if it wasn’t sickeningly obvious. It has this fascinating quality that speaks to Dolarhyde’s delusions. Further reinforcing the fact he wants to gain control over the hold the Great Red Dragon has over him.
Armitage had me just creeped out here, enormously. The teeth come out, he’s sniffing the painting, then starts biting into the thing.

BUT WAIT!
WILL GRAHAM. WHAT?
He shows up to see Blake’s painting just as Dolarhyde is chowing down, having himself a nice little snack. I was so blown away by this little moment, the meeting between Graham and Francis – the power of the former comes out as he manhandles Will, literally tossing him like a rag doll, beating him against the elevator’s insides and then throwing him out.

What a spectacular end to this episode. I cannot wait to see the next one, to the point I’m freaking out here. One of the greatest yet. Puts a wild twist on Harris here, which I think works perfectly. We’re going to see one odd love triangle between Lecter, Dolarhyde, and Graham play out.
Especially once the bad doctor drops Will Graham’s address to the Tooth Fairy.

Soon, my fellow Fannibals…. soon.
The next episode is “And the Beast from the Sea” – so stay tuned with me!

The other incarnations – both Fiennes and also Tom Noonan – really came across with the insane aspects of the character; they didn’t overdo things, they just played it quite well on that end. With Armitage, I’m impressed by how he brings out that vulnerability and the traumatic past so much better. It’s really something to revel in. So glad he was chosen to play this part because even if someone else could’ve done a decent job, Armitage is making Dolarhyde one of the best villains ever on television. The essence of a sympathetic killer, if there ever was one.

Und wie der Reviewer denke ich auch, dass Richard viel überragender in der Rolle ist, als die anderen, von Fuller genannten Besetzungsoptionen, es je sein hätten können.

Das ist doch mal eine Hausnummer!!!!

Hannibal 3×10 review: ‘…And the Woman Clothed in Sun’
Posted on August 7, 2015 by cinephilactic


Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) takes his relationship with Reba (Rutina Wesley) and Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) to the next level.

Let’s bitch it out…

At this point, Hannibal is just a few episodes away from what invariably appears to be its series finale. Although series creator Bryan Fuller probably didn’t know that these would be the final episodes of the show, the series has slowly evolved into an odd dual-story line structure that sometimes makes it feel like we’re watching two interconnected, but separate shows.

On one hand, we’ve got our familiar characters like Will (Hugh Dancy), Hannibal and Bedelia DuMaurier (Gillian Anderson) – people we know well enough to infer nuance and double-meanings when they talk. ‘…And the Woman Clothed in Sun’ dedicates a lot of screen time to Bedelia and Will’s chats about how Hannibal chipped away at their respective psyches. Unsurprisingly Anderson turns in another memorable performance as the compromised doctor who (accidentally?) murdered her own patient, Neal Frank (Zachary Quinto). Anderson has always infused Bedelia with an icy demeanour, half-whispering her lines in such a way that she always seems half-removed from everyone else. This episode reveals how much more alike she is to Hannibal than we knew: her public lecture conflating their time in Florence with Dante’s inferno is reminiscent of Hannibal’s art history lecture earlier this season and the tone and cadence of speech she adopts for outsiders confirms that Bedelia is quite a skilled liar/actress.

There’s no performance in her conversation with Will deconstructing the difference between kindness and cruelty, however. Bedelia confesses to Will that murder is not in his nature – his reaction to a wounded bird is to help it (a fact evident in Will’s reclamation of so many stray dogs). Compare this to her (and, by extension, Hannibal’s) reaction: she would feel empathy for the bird, but her first impulse is to crush it and eliminate the perceived weakness. This unusual reaction is visually represented by her sessions with Neal, whose fear and paranoia of Lecter she dismissed until the moment she found herself with her arm crammed down Neal’s throat. Meanwhile the visual symmetry between Will and Neal is undeniable. Although Neal may have been less aware of Hannibal’s true nature, by intercutting Neal’s therapy with Will’s discussion – both men seated in the same position – there’s a clear link between them. Couple this with Hannibal’s move to secure Will’s home address (acquired so easily it’s frightening) and Bedelia’s tip to Will to resist helping and Hannibal is laying the foreshadowing down pretty thick. Bedelia’s suggestion is less of a warning than an inevitability. Thomas Harris fans know what’s to come, but for those who are unaware, these scenes make it clear how much danger Will is in.

The Dolarhyde/Reba story line that dominates the rest of the episode feels like part of its own separate show. After last week’s meet cute, the pair take their relationship to the next level after a memorable visit to the animal doctor for some heavy (tiger) petting. Hannibal has never lacked for memorable visuals, but the lighting and FX used to capture how Dolarhyde sees Reba is breathtaking. The choice to brighten the colour of the tiger’s fur coupled with Armitage’s ecstatic/fearful/tantalized visage as Reba’s hand inches towards the sleeping tiger’s teeth is unexpectedly gripping (the layered soundtrack, featuring both piano and horror movie undertones, is also incredibly effective).

All of Francis and Reba’s scenes have teased the interconnectedness of sexual attraction and violence in a really understated fashion, which has been fascinating to watch. Too often shows with serial killers <cough Criminal Minds cough> focus on the fetishization of murder to such an extent that victims (nearly always female) become objects to be destroyed and humiliated. While I won’t argue that Reba is a fully fleshed out character, Francis’ idolization of her (particularly evident in the angelic light of sex) has infused the traditional serial killer story line with a personal intimacy that makes it feel fresh. The persistent undercurrent of danger in their relationship – from his pressing down on her chest while she sleeps to his frenzied search for her the next morning – infuses all of their interactions with a sense of dread; we’re constantly waiting for something terrible to happen to her. Although Will is in arguably far more danger, it’s Reba we worry for, especially when Hannibal admits that the Tooth Fairy likely targeted his victims because they were kind.

Other Observations:

The final scenes at the museum are a little too brief for my taste. I wasn’t bothered by the convenience of both Will and Francis seeking out the Red Dragon painting at the same time (we’re running short on episodes at this point), but their encounter was more of an agonizing tease. Still, I didn’t expect the pair to interact so soon, so that’s fun…

The phone call that ended last week’s episode is revisited as we see how Francis got in touch with Lecter. I like how Francis pictures himself standing outside of his body, watching as he and Lecter chat. It reinforces how the Red Dragon is like a second entity within – a possession that he is a bystander to, if you will.

I really dislike that this episode title is nearly identical to last week’s. Just sayin’

Best Lines:

Will (after Bedelia claims she “lost herself” in Hannibal’s aura): “You didn’t lose yourself Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you lost yourself.”
Will: “If he does eat you, Bedelia, you’d have it coming.”
Bedelia (to Will, when he suggests Hannibal commits unacceptable acts of murder and cannibalism): “They are acceptable…to murderers and cannibals.”

Your Turn: Do you feel like you’re watching two different series at times? Did Bedelia’s confession shock you? Is Will in grave danger? What are your thoughts on the visual techniques used to show how Francis sees Reba? Thoughts on Will and Francis’ first interaction? Sound off below.

Hannibal airs Thursdays at 10pm EST on CityTV in Canada and Saturdays at 10pm EST on NBC in the US

HANNIBAL, 3.10 – 'And the Woman Clothed in the Sun'
Saturday, 8 August 2015


★★★☆

Just to remind readers, this review is scheduled alongside Thursday's broadcast in Canada. This episode airs tonight in the U.S on NBC, and Wednesday in the UK on Sky Living, so proceed at your own risk of spoilers...

I loved this episode's examination of human senses, mental states, and our primal instincts, which can all be corrupted with relative ease given the right circumstances. Francis Dolarhyde's (Richard Armitage) romance with Reba (Rutina Wesley) became sexual, which seemed to surprise him with its suddenness; but whereas blind Reba's under the misapprehension she's found a soulmate nobody else understands, her sweet "Mr D" is later seen imagining her as the 'Woman Clothed in the Sun' (a figure snared by the tail of William Blake's 'Great Red Dragon' in his painting), and consequently just a component of his unhinged fantasy-world. I particularly loved the moment Dolarhyde took sleeping Reba's hand and nuzzled it as they lay together the next morning; echoing an earlier moment he surprised her with a trip to the zoo to feel an anaesthetised tiger, when her fingertips touched the the big cat's mouth and teeth—parts of the body Dolarhyde's self-conscious about, and, judging from his silent reaction, very excited by.

By the end of this hour, we arrived at the famous scene where Dolarhyde tricks his way into a museum for a private viewing of Blake's original 'The Great Red Dragon' watercolour, and uses the opportunity to literally devour the art (sans his false teeth, which made him resemble the monster he believes himself to be—or, maybe more accurately, the predator that's just caught and ate the object of his infatuation). It's an intriguing parallel to Dr Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), whom you might also describe as a predator naturally going about his business... eating those who, evidently, are below him in both the food chain and social pecking order.

Away from its magnificent Dolarhyde scenes, "And the Woman Clothed in the Sun" also delivered unexpected insight into Dr Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), three years after her twisted European vacation as Lecter's courtesan. It appears her alibi about being brainwashed by Hannibal passed muster with the authorities, and she's now considerably more famous and giving sellout lectures about living and dining with the notorious serial killer. Will (Hugh Dancy) naturally doesn't believe her story, and thankfully Bedelia's willing to concede the truth's more complex—to the only other person to get as close to Lecter as she managed. Although Bedelia pointedly reminds Will that she was 'behind the veil', whereas he was always on the other side.

Will and Bedelia's tete-a-tete was a fantastic scene crammed with memorable dialogue, and it finally gave us definitive answers about Bedelia's state of mind and weird relationship with Lecter. Answering her own hypothetical question, Bedelia tells Will that her first thought upon noticing a vulnerable hatchling on the floor would be to crush it, not protect it. And while she's not a sociopath who'd act on that first impulse, she doesn't believe people who do are inherently "monsters"—they're just different to those whose instinct is to nurtyre, but still part of the natural world.

I also loved the interwoven flashback to the moment Bedelia's client, Neal Frank (Zachary Quinto), was murdered during a session with her. We already know Lecter helped cover-up his death, to her eternal gratitude, but this episode's details put a memorable spin on things—as it was revealed Neal actually began choking on his own tongue during a heated discussion and, while trying to clear his airway to help, Bedelia instead found herself momentarily compelled to do something extraordinary: force the majority of her arm down the poor man's neck? Why? Why not? It was just a twisted impulse she indulged in the heat of the moment, and clearly a behaviour that endeared her to Lecter—whose company she perhaps kept because, well, how endlessly fascinating to be around someone like Lecter, who acts on the immoral instincts she has without any sense of guilt.

This was a wonderful episode, and one which didn't even feature Lecter a great deal, or Jack Crawford at all. What's amazing is how well Hannibal's writers continue to mix the original storyline by Thomas Harris (very faithfully) with aspects of their own inventions for the series, and how that's managing to elevate the material to a sublime level. I particularly love the way Lecter's becoming a father figure to Dolarhyde, who envisages himself curled up by Lecter's side once transformed into the Great Red Dragon—making it clear he perceives Lecter as 'The Beast' from The Book of Revelation. I also like how Will sees Dolarhyde as a similar monster to Lecter, but someone he can perhaps catch and help before his crazy masterplan reaches fruition. And poor Reba's caught up in this madness, oblivious to the danger she's in with her "Mr D"; and now Lecter has the address of Will's wife and stepson. It's not going to end well, is it?

written by Don Mancini & Bryan Fuller • directed by Guillermo Navarro • 8 August 2015 • NBC

Hannibal Recap: Season 3, Episode 10, "And the Woman Clothed in Sun"
By Chuck Bowen on August 8, 2015 in TV

"And the Woman Clothed in Sun" is explicitly taken with Hannibal's great theme: "reality" as a terrifyingly fluid and elastic realm, dictated by the conditions of the fragile mind. The most taken-for-granted elements of our lives, events that we think just "happened" to us, can be revealed to have been actively initiated by us without our conscious knowing, and can mean nothing that we initially take them to mean. These ideas aren't new to psychiatry or even to pop media, which often utilizes crude acknowledgements of subjectivity in the service of springing lurid twists in which half a narrative is revealed to be an illusion or fabrication. Hannibal is after something more ambitious and universal, however, exploring how we casually isolate ourselves, how traumas can inform different people in greatly unpredictable fashions. This notion of loneliness, of self-imposed exile inspired by self-loathing, is what has lent the series-spanning arc between Will (Hugh Dancy) and Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) such remarkably durable emotional heft. At its broadest, this series is about people who hate themselves managing to find one another, revealing social functionalities they didn't know they possessed. The murders and the Grand Guignol flourishes are symbolic of a desire to connect and to reach out socially, and this is how Hannibal evades the chic nihilism of most serial-killer fiction.

We're halfway through creator Bryan Fuller's six-episode adaptation of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon now, and it's striking how Hannibal has never entirely re-embraced the crime-procedural format that largely, loosely defined the series before it segued into the dreamy, expressionist Italian sojourn that governed the first half of this season. Will's efforts to capture Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) are rarely the active emotional focus of the show in the way that his desire to capture killers-of-the-week have been in the past. Francis is no mere antagonist, for one thing, but a vital intensification of the desires and resentments that have long stymied Will and Hannibal. We don't think of Francis as the "villain" exactly, despite the vileness of his master plan, but more like another character trapped in an ever-expanding web of subjectivity. Francis also suggests a literal fusion of Will and Hannibal, perhaps a missing link, as he possesses Will's working-class grace and Hannibal's taste for the outré and florid. Francis would also appear to have more than a bit of Will's sentimentality; decidedly unlike Hannibal, Francis needs people, especially his victims, to like him or at least respect him, which is a major portion of his need for transformation into William Blake's Red Dragon.

"And the Woman Clothed in Sun" might be the loneliest episode of Hannibal since the great "Aperitivo", which memorably wrestled with Jack's grief over Bella's death, fusing the past and present tenses in manners that're memorably experimental and ambitious. Early in this episode, Bedelia (Gillian Anderson) delivers its thesis aloud, lecturing to a rarefied group about Dante's inferno, which she capitalistically laces with bits of her infamy as the "captive" of Hannibal Lecter in Italy. As Will watches on from the background, Bedelia reminds us that Dante was the first to provide an "urban" definition of hell; before him, it had often been described as having a "mouth" rather than gates. This is a poetic, roundabout way of saying that we make our own hell, in addition to our own reality, something about which Bedelia, like Hannibal, knows quite a bit. A gorgeous, unsettling painting of Dante's inferno, characterized by a polka-dot-ish red pattern, is glimpsed behind Bedelia as she speaks. Her classroom is subtly stylized to resemble its own hell: Everyone sits in sync with almost supernaturally erect posture, suggesting disciples rendered as vertical slits—a painting sprung to life.

Fuller and co-screenwriter Don Mancini finally clarify something about Bedelia that isn't too surprising: She's every bit as chilly, calculating, and amoral as Hannibal. The mysterious past patient (Zachary Quinto) who binds the two mad doctors, often implied to have represented a fashion in which Hannibal might've exploited or somehow emotionally imprisoned Bedelia, is revealed to have merely been a plaything passed along between them. Hannibal was driving the patient insane for his amusement, per his wont, and Bedelia killed him in a flamboyantly gory fashion that was alluded to earlier in the season, reaching down his throat, plunging her arm up to beyond its elbow inside of him. The patient wasn't killed out of any sort of retribution or just desserts; he was an innocent.

The bombshell here pertains to what this story potentially says about Will's involvement with Hannibal. As Bedelia tells Will the truth of the dead patient, her dialogue with him is cross-cut with her final exchange with her victim, in a doubling effect that suggests that Will and the patient are interchangeable as patsies. "One thing I learned from Hannibal is the alchemy of lies and truths. It's how he convinced you you're a killer," Bedelia says, in a bit of common sense that might come as somewhat of a shock to the viewer anyway, as there's something weirdly, romantically appealing about the idea that Hannibal and Will are these simpatico master killers, divided only by the latter's governing guilt and self-consciousness. In a loony way, it's sentimental, allowing Will (read: the audience) to be special in the eyes of a person who's absolutely like no one else. What if Hannibal were just fucking with Will too, as he has most of his other victims?

Or what if Bedelia is just fucking with Will? (The show is beginning to resemble early David Mamet in its density of who's-conning-who intrigue.) Not only possible, but probable, the real question being the extent to which she's fucking with him. This long dialogue scene between Bedelia and Will, arriving near the end of the episode, represents Anderson's best work on the show since her scene opposite Will when the latter was in prison at the beginning of the second season for the murders of the Chesapeake Ripper, a.k.a. Hannibal Lecter. At times, she's been hobbled by the coy ambiguities assigned to the character. Given something to truly play, Anderson shines, rising to the standards of the show's melodramatic grandeur, particularly by casting her eyes with a truly unnerving deranged glint.

Regardless of Bedelia's motivations (perhaps a little jealousy of Will), she's at least partially right about Hannibal's manipulation of his favorite patient, and this casts a pall on the Hannibal/Will friendship that was already set into effect by Hannibal's envy over Molly, Will's wife. Speaking of deranged glints, Hannibal's satanic, pitch-black eyes in this episode put Bedelia's evil slits to shame. Teasing Will about Francis, attempting to make the former jealous with the latter, Hannibal mentions Blake's Great Red Dragon painting, saying that "few images in Western art radiate such a unique and nightmarish charge of demonic sexuality," He could very well be talking about himself, and his teeming anger. Taunting Will, Mikkelsen's Hannibal even busts out an unexpected homage to Anthony Hopkins's, his pop-cultural father: Referencing how much time's left until the lunar calendar is to inspire Francis to kill again, Hannibal utters, "Eleven days until the next full moon. Tick tock."

And what of Francis? He continues to imbue the series with a pathos that's admirably uncomfortable, considering that he's a serial killer. He also co-inhabits the episode's best scene, a variation of one of the best scenes from Red Dragon. Taking Reba (Rutina Wesley) to the zoo to see a drugged tiger, who's having a tooth pulled, Francis watches her as she interacts with the animal, which he clearly takes as a symbol of what he strives to become. Reba and Francis have literal sex later on (rendered in a series of astute fades and superimpositions that inform traditional TV-sex grammar with a newfound sense of communion and longing), but this interlude with the tiger comprises their first act of making love. "The orange [of the tiger's fur] is so bright, it's almost bleeding into the air around him," Francis movingly tells Reba, who massages and explores the great cat while its body nearly glows in spectral orange. We're not seeing the tiger as it is, but as Reba imagines it, in another moment that affirms the show's notion of subjectivity as the true governor of our lives. Francis uses his profound alienation from society as a conduit for empathy with Reba's blindness, and, in turn, the tiger is a conduit for Francis's visions of his own strength and for Reba's desire to find within that strength a reservoir of the very real vulnerability that she detects in his pleading, halting speech.

Tellingly, when Reba first makes an explicit sexual gesture to Francis, it echoes the way she touched the tiger. Reba leans her head into Francis's lap, as she positioned herself on the tiger's massive chest, which rose and fell in line with its slumbering breathing. Francis and Reba explore one another in fashions that are intensely evocative of people touching those who aren't used to be touched. There's a fraught yet arousing physical tactility inherent in the tension of their awkwardness that's often missing from many sentimental "late bloomer" stories. In these scenes, one feels the intense challenge of rewiring one's vision of oneself in society, particularly romantically (the most frighteningly personal and unpredictable of all social interactions).

These resonances lend Francis's desire to eat the real Blake watercolor painting of the Red Dragon, here said to be stored in the Brooklyn Museum, a real sense of stature (which also culminates in a wonderful first encounter with Will that stealthily references the elevator imagery from Dressed to Kill). Francis is wrestling with himself, with the idea that Reba, whom he sees briefly in a vision as a savior, might be the agent of transcendence he craves, a portal into belonging. She isn't, of course, because such a convenient savior doesn't exist. We save ourselves, with much much-needed help. This pitiful madman doesn't only represent our fears, but our desires, which are one in the same more often than we might care to admit.

Hannibal season 3 episode 10 recap: '...And the Woman Clothed in Sun'

Season 3, episode 10 | Airs Wednesday, Aug 12 2015 at 22:00 BST on Sky Living

For the first time in Hannibal history, we have an episode in which neither Hannibal Lecter nor Will Graham are the protagonist. That role is occupied very distinctly by Francis Dolarhyde, who is at various moments throughout '... And The Woman Clothed in Sun' paralleled with both Hannibal and Will, emerging as a kind of twisted composite of both men.

Will sees Francis as a version of Hannibal that he might be able to save – a man whose transformation into a monster might yet be reversible. And Hannibal sees him as a potential heir, an impressionable student whom he can shape in his own image, like Will without that pesky moral compass. Francis comes face to face with both Hannibal and Will this week – the former in mind palace fantasy, the latter in a genuine and tense collision, as Will walks into the museum where Dolarhyde has just ingested the Great Red Dragon painting he so admires.

Until this week, it hasn't been particularly clear what traits Will and Francis could possibly share in common, setting aside Will's well-established ability to get inside the mind of violent killers. But in this episode, we see that Francis shares something of Will's empathy, crafting a romantic gesture for Reba which is so personal and so compassionate, connecting her to a world she's been cut off from.

Both Richard Armitage and Rutina Wesley did beautiful work in that zoo scene, where Reba touches the unconscious tiger's face and mouth, and Francis is momentarily overwhelmed by the emotion of it because in that moment it's his twisted jaw she's caressing. The actors and writers have done a fairly remarkable job of making us care about this romance in the space of just two episodes, and this scene becomes more moving moments later as Reba lays her head against Francis just like the tiger, wordlessly soothing his distorted self-image.

Francis's cleft palette is, as Hannibal says, a minor disfigurement made insurmountable in his own mind, which is a lovely and weirdly universal bit of commentary on self-image. Most of us don't behave like Francis Dolarhyde, but most of us have at some point irrationally fixated on a single flaw, believing it to make us unloveable. Francis is simultaneously desperate to hide and desperate to be seen, which makes Reba his perfect match, and makes Will his perfect counterpoint – Will, whose desperation to be understood Hannibal exploited.


But Will is paralleled even more clearly to Neal (Zachary Quinto), a former patient of both Hannibal and Bedelia whose bloody fate we glimpsed back in the season premiere. "I nearly choked on my own tongue, and he remained indifferent," Neal spits indignantly, revealing that Hannibal induced a seizure in him just as he did to Will back in season one. We cut back and forth seamlessly between Bedelia speaking to a caustic Will in the present day, and to an unstable Neal on the day of his death, both men depicted as innocents being gaslighted by the demonic duo of Hannibal and Bedelia.

Neal's backstory, and his murder, finally answers a long-unanswered question about Bedelia. Far from being brainwashed or even coerced by Hannibal, she shares his ruthless capacity for violence, and his primal impulse to destroy rather than nurture the vulnerable. She and Hannibal are both essentially destroyers, whereas Will is a nurturer, and Francis seems to be at a violent impasse between the two extremes.

Hannibal is still playing Will, of course, even from behind bars. He's coaching him in his pursuit of the Tooth Fairy despite knowing Dolarhyde is the culprit, giving him just enough help to keep him hungry. The most telling line this week was Bedelia's "I was with Hannibal behind the veil – you were always on the other side." No matter how clearly Will thinks he saw Hannibal, there was always some subterfuge going on, with Hannibal keeping his true, worst self hidden from Will. After three years, he might be ready to cast off the veil.

Food for thought:
- "Is your wife aware of how intimately you and Hannibal know each other?" I wonder how much Will has told Molly, and this in turn makes me wonder whether Hannibal has a more subtle plan to tear Will's life apart. Maybe, rather than sending Dolarhyde after Will's family, he could simply use Dolarhyde as a means of revealing to Molly just how messed up Will really is.
- I've always loved the way in which Hannibal explores the abusive potential of psychiatry, and that's been sidelined a bit this season with neither Hannibal nor Bedelia actively practicing. Poor Neal was dead right when he called them "weird and cult-y".
- It struck me that Bedelia's analogy about the injured bird isn't quite accurate. A better comparison might have been to a rabid dog: Will's instinct is to try and save even the most wretched, sickly, potentially dangerous creatures.
- Of course Hannibal sends Bedelia a recipe with his holiday cards. Trollin' to the end.
- No matter what fancy trickery he was pulling off with the wiring and with getting the operator to dial out for him, the amount of free reign Hannibal has to make phone calls is ridiculous.
- "You're the bride of Frankenstein." "We've both been his bride." I did read something which explicitly compared Will to the Bride of Frankenstein in 'Digestivo', when Hannibal carried him home.
- "If he did end up eating you, Bedelia, you'd have it coming." Will is a living embodiment of the idea that the traits we hate most in other people are the ones we see in ourselves. He's so derisive of Bedelia for running away with Hannibal, as if he hasn't fantasised about doing the same.

Hannibal season 3 episode 10 recap: '...And the Woman Clothed in Sun'
By Emma Dibdin
Sunday, Aug 9 2015, 03:00 BST


For the first time in Hannibal history, we have an episode in which neither Hannibal Lecter nor Will Graham are the protagonist. That role is occupied very distinctly by Francis Dolarhyde, who is at various moments throughout '... And The Woman Clothed in Sun' paralleled with both Hannibal and Will, emerging as a kind of twisted composite of both men.

Will sees Francis as a version of Hannibal that he might be able to save – a man whose transformation into a monster might yet be reversible. And Hannibal sees him as a potential heir, an impressionable student whom he can shape in his own image, like Will without that pesky moral compass. Francis comes face to face with both Hannibal and Will this week – the former in mind palace fantasy, the latter in a genuine and tense collision, as Will walks into the museum where Dolarhyde has just ingested the Great Red Dragon painting he so admires.

Until this week, it hasn't been particularly clear what traits Will and Francis could possibly share in common, setting aside Will's well-established ability to get inside the mind of violent killers. But in this episode, we see that Francis shares something of Will's empathy, crafting a romantic gesture for Reba which is so personal and so compassionate, connecting her to a world she's been cut off from.

Both Richard Armitage and Rutina Wesley did beautiful work in that zoo scene, where Reba touches the unconscious tiger's face and mouth, and Francis is momentarily overwhelmed by the emotion of it because in that moment it's his twisted jaw she's caressing. The actors and writers have done a fairly remarkable job of making us care about this romance in the space of just two episodes, and this scene becomes more moving moments later as Reba lays her head against Francis just like the tiger, wordlessly soothing his distorted self-image.

Francis's cleft palette is, as Hannibal says, a minor disfigurement made insurmountable in his own mind, which is a lovely and weirdly universal bit of commentary on self-image. Most of us don't behave like Francis Dolarhyde, but most of us have at some point irrationally fixated on a single flaw, believing it to make us unloveable. Francis is simultaneously desperate to hide and desperate to be seen, which makes Reba his perfect match, and makes Will his perfect counterpoint – Will, whose desperation to be understood Hannibal exploited.

But Will is paralleled even more clearly to Neal (Zachary Quinto), a former patient of both Hannibal and Bedelia whose bloody fate we glimpsed back in the season premiere. "I nearly choked on my own tongue, and he remained indifferent," Neal spits indignantly, revealing that Hannibal induced a seizure in him just as he did to Will back in season one. We cut back and forth seamlessly between Bedelia speaking to a caustic Will in the present day, and to an unstable Neal on the day of his death, both men depicted as innocents being gaslighted by the demonic duo of Hannibal and Bedelia.

Neal's backstory, and his murder, finally answers a long-unanswered question about Bedelia. Far from being brainwashed or even coerced by Hannibal, she shares his ruthless capacity for violence, and his primal impulse to destroy rather than nurture the vulnerable. She and Hannibal are both essentially destroyers, whereas Will is a nurturer, and Francis seems to be at a violent impasse between the two extremes.

Hannibal is still playing Will, of course, even from behind bars. He's coaching him in his pursuit of the Tooth Fairy despite knowing Dolarhyde is the culprit, giving him just enough help to keep him hungry. The most telling line this week was Bedelia's "I was with Hannibal behind the veil – you were always on the other side." No matter how clearly Will thinks he saw Hannibal, there was always some subterfuge going on, with Hannibal keeping his true, worst self hidden from Will. After three years, he might be ready to cast off the veil.


Food for thought:
- "Is your wife aware of how intimately you and Hannibal know each other?" I wonder how much Will has told Molly, and this in turn makes me wonder whether Hannibal has a more subtle plan to tear Will's life apart. Maybe, rather than sending Dolarhyde after Will's family, he could simply use Dolarhyde as a means of revealing to Molly just how messed up Will really is.
- I've always loved the way in which Hannibal explores the abusive potential of psychiatry, and that's been sidelined a bit this season with neither Hannibal nor Bedelia actively practicing. Poor Neal was dead right when he called them "weird and cult-y".
- It struck me that Bedelia's analogy about the injured bird isn't quite accurate. A better comparison might have been to a rabid dog: Will's instinct is to try and save even the most wretched, sickly, potentially dangerous creatures.
- Of course Hannibal sends Bedelia a recipe with his holiday cards. Trollin' to the end.
- No matter what fancy trickery he was pulling off with the wiring and with getting the operator to dial out for him, the amount of free reign Hannibal has to make phone calls is ridiculous.
- "You're the bride of Frankenstein." "We've both been his bride." I did read something which explicitly compared Will to the Bride of Frankenstein in 'Digestivo', when Hannibal carried him home.
- "If he did end up eating you, Bedelia, you'd have it coming." Will is a living embodiment of the idea that the traits we hate most in other people are the ones we see in ourselves. He's so derisive of Bedelia for running away with Hannibal, as if he hasn't fantasised about doing the same.

Hannibal Season 3 Episode 10 Review: And the Woman Clothed in the Sun
Loader Robin Harry at August 9, 2015 12:12 am. Updated at August 9, 2015 12:43 am. 0 Comments
19


The search for the Tooth Fairy continues on Hannibal Season 3 Episode 10, and we saw more of the life of Francis Dolarhyde. This was another strong hour, and Richard Armitage is just killing it every week.

The moral was easy enough to decipher: telephones are dangerous in the hands of serial killers.

Seeking Wisdom - Hannibal
We need to keep telephones away from Hannibal Lecter. First of all, his phone call with Francis Dolarhyde at the beginning was incredible. Hannibal had him figured out before he even started talking.

I loved that Dolarhyde broke into Hannibal's home to make the call. It was wonderfully poetic that Hannibal counseled him there; Hannibal's mind palace likely had put him there as well.

Then there's the fact that Hannibal somehow managed to turn an incoming call into an outgoing call and charmed Frederick Chilton's secretary into giving him Will Graham's address. That can't possibly end well for Will.

I'm not exactly sure why Will needed to visit Bedelia Du Maurier. Not that I wasn't pleased to see her; I had been wondering what became of her after Italy. She apparently had been doing the lecture circuit, having had an insider's and survivor's view of life with Hannibal Lecter. Will was very quick to call her out on her victim play.


Poor Dr du Maurier. Swallowed whole, suffering inside Hannibal Lecter's bowels for what must have felt like an eternity. You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered.

Will
Permalink: You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered.
What insight did Will need to get from her? Did he simply go to reminisce about the good old Hannibal days? Was he hoping for insight on himself, for reassurance that he was indeed separate and different from her and from Hannibal? As grateful as I am for that conversation between them, I'm still unsure as to the point of it in the context of this case.

That said, Will's conversation with Bedelia revealed more about her than we've known all season. Bedelia is of the same mind as Hannibal – she just has restraint. Her plan all along was to observe Hannibal, and she allowed him to believe that he was in control of her, when really, that's exactly what she wanted.

I find it hard to believe that Hannibal was not aware of her intentions, given that he has always been two steps ahead of everyone. I am inclined to believe that he was completely aware, and the circumstances just changed too quickly for him to act on her duplicity. That's also probably why he mails her recipes.

We also found out what happened with that fateful patient, Neal Frank (played wonderfully by Zachary Quinto). Poor Neal didn't stand a chance with those two psychiatrists. It's unclear whether Bedelia, at the time, believed that Neal was actually psychotic or whether she knew Hannibal was manipulating him and didn't care. Either is plausible. She's always known that Hannibal's worn a "person suit."

Francis Dolarhyde, on the other hand, doesn't have a "person suit" quite like Hannibal's. Unlike Hannibal, Francis seems quite capable of feeling genuine care and desire for another person without manipulation. His relationship with Reba McClane is actually quite sweet.

He brought her to experience the sleeping tiger as a beautiful gesture. It was also apropos; when Francis is with Reba, he's also a dormant predator, much like that anesthetized tiger. So it's no wonder that he was so moved by her reaction and acceptance of the beast within her fingers.


Francis seems to genuinely care for Reba, and has not manipulated her at this point. He was able to suppress the dragon's urges because of her presence. She grounds him.

However, he saw her as The Woman Clothed in Sun, which is not a good sign for her. It will be interesting to see how this relationship continues. I've read the books, so I know the general direction in which this is all heading, but I'm quite excited to see how it will all play out on the screen.

The confrontation between Dolarhyde and Will was interesting. Will now knows what he looks like, which is bound to put a wrench in his plans. Also, Dolarhyde consumed the painting of The Great Red Dragon and The Woman Clothed In Sun, which is all part of his becoming the Red Dragon.

The theme of "becoming" is an important one in the novel, and I'm glad that it was touched upon. Francis Dolarhyde is becoming the Red Dragon. However, what is Will becoming? At his last visit with Hannibal, he saw himself in Hannibal again, as he did three years ago when he was most lost. Is Will becoming what he wanted to avoid?

Other Notes:

My favorite visual of the night HAS to be the tiger. The way Dolarhyde described it was perfect; the orange was radiant and was such a beautiful contrast to the rest of the scene.
Hannibal Lecter dancing at someone's wedding – I'd kinda pay to see that.
Does anyone else miss the food on the show?
Bedelia saying that she obfuscates just has to be a shout out to one of Gillian Anderson's most memorable closing sentiments on The X-Files: "...deceive, inveigle and obfuscate."
And the cannibalism joke of the week comes from Bedelia Du Maurier – it's more like a joke at her expense, but I couldn't stop laughing at this one:
Will: Have you had any contact with him?
Bedelia: He sends me greeting cards on Christian holidays and my birthday. He always includes a recipe.
Will: If he does end up eating you, Bedelia, you'd have it coming.


Another excellent episode, with strong performances by EVERYONE, and with a great look into the lives of Francis Dolarhyde and Bedelia Du Maurier. What did you all think?

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Hannibal: “And the Woman Clothed In Sun” Review – S03E10
Posted by Samuel Brace On August 09, 2015

“This is why Scientologists hate psychology”.

This week’s episode of HANNIBAL, the tenth episode of season three, an episode titled ‘And the Woman Clothed In Sun”, was a big episode for two characters that weren’t Hannibal or Will Graham. Bedelia and Francis (The Tooth Fairy) really took centre stage this week, as we learnt a lot about The Dragon and uncovered some new things about Bedelia, things that weren’t quite so obvious in her previous appearances, but looking back, have always been hiding under the surface, waiting to reveal themselves.

Bedelia returned to the show as Will paid a visit to a talk she was leading, a talk regarding her time spent with the infamous Hannibal Lecter, still spinning her lies about those dark days spent in Europe and how she was convinced by him that she wasn’t herself, that her mind was compromised by a dark force out of her control. It was a fantastic scene as she prowled around, barely breaking stride as she spotted Will’s late attendance, directing the latter part of her spiel at him, bringing up Dante for the second time this season and how she didn’t enter the gates of hell, that she was consumed by the “mouth of the beast”. Later on in the episode, the two of them would engage in a one on one, a little — not so cosy — chat as they discussed Hannibal and their relationship with both him and the truth. It turns out Hannibal has been sending her cards over the years, along with — in typical Hannibal fashion (his sense of humour is magnificent) — recipes for certain dishes, letting her know that he still plans to eat her one day.

“My relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours”.

There is an undercurrent — well kind of — to the Hannibal and Will relationship, and Bedelia has become the first person on the show to really acknowledge it, the first person to recognise the romance between the two men. It was a great moment when she brought it up to Will, beating around zero bushes as she did so. The look on Will’s face was great as she asked if his wife knows the extent of his relationship with his ‘friend’.

“The alchemy of lies and truths”.

The biggest moments for Bedelia this week, while coming from these moments with Will, also came from the scene that accompanied it, the one that took the form of a flash black, cut up and fused with her conversation with Will. We were treated to finally seeing the moment in time we have heard so much about, the one we have only seen snippets of before, the incident in her office where her patient died and she gave in wholly to Hannibal’s influence. Played by Zachary Quinto, her patient is seen coming to her fresh from Hannibal’s therapy, distraught and upset by Lecter’s ‘care’. But as we soon see, Bedelia isn’t exactly jumping at the chance to help this poor and fragile young man.

It is revealed that Hannibal had played with him, much like he had toyed with Will, but unlike Mr Graham he was discarded and sent off to Bedelia. Revealed to Will in the parallel scene, her first instinct isn’t to help a needy individual; her impulse is something much darker, something much more terrifying. Her patient begins to choke, clawing at his throat for air, and as it looks like she is about to help him… she suddenly doesn’t. With her hand down his throat to clear his airwaves, her true nature is revealed as she simply continues to slide her arm further inside him, killing him dead. Just like that. “Next time you have an instinct of helping someone, you might consider crushing them instead” she tells Will. This was a scary scene. Not just the action that was revealed to have taken place, but her body language and cadence as she spoke.

This was really Bedelia’s coming out party as a monster in her own right. Whether this was always her nature or was helped and nurtured by Hannibal’s presence in her life, is up for debate. Whatever the case, I won’t be looking at her the same way again.

Jumping over to Francis and a equally twisted tale, we first see The Tooth Fairy breaking into Hannibal’s old home and enacting the call to him that we saw at the end of last week’s installment. Richard Armitage certainly gives an interesting performance in this role. It’s certainly a hard one to play and can easily come off as cartoony, but he balances the nuances well, delivering to us a depiction of a very tortured and unfortunate soul. He’s a stark contrast to everything that Doctor Lecter is.

HANNIBAL is an impressive show, its visuals being right at the top of its accomplishments, none more so than Francis watching a conversation between himself and Hannibal that never really happened in person (I think) and how he inexplicably transforms into an artistic depiction of the dragon himself — tails and all. It was really quite the site, matched in grandeur by a later scene as he took his new girlfriend to the zoo, treating her to some time with a sedated tiger. Her blindness countered by a superb visual of the animal’s skin glowing bright like the sun as she stroked it.

Episode ten really served as a vehicle to flesh out Francis’ character. He took up a great deal of screen time this week as we got to know him more, as we got inside his head further and further, as the inner working of his deranged psyche were uncovered little by little. This is a good thing, no doubt about it and as the season was originally conceived — with a fourth hopefully coming after — this all makes perfect sense. This is something more shows and movies need to do, to flesh out there villains to become more than scenery chewing monsters, to attempt to make us feel something for them. But knowing that these last handful of episodes will be the shows last, that the swan song is coming, I kind of want the show to spend more time with its core dynamic, to concentrate these last minutes with Hannibal and Will.

I am sure the season will end on a big note (going by season two) and I trust the shows creative’s to bring Will and Lecter’s third season arc to a fitting end, but there is a little part of me that worries we will be left longing for a satisfying conclusion to their story. Not resolution per say, that’s not mandatory, but something… I don’t know. Hell, I’m just going to miss them. I really am.

The episode ended with a bang this week, a climax that came pretty much from nowhere, setting up some surely exciting moments to come. Francis and Will found themselves face to face in the final scene after both going to visit the infamous Red Dragon painting, the former consuming the art and then throwing Will across the room like the demon he has become. It was a great moment because it wasn’t telegraphed. A lot of shows would have saved a moment like this for the finale, the first meeting between hero and bad guy is normally something that comes later, so I appreciated this slight subversion of expectation.

‘And the Woman Clothed In Sun’ was another step towards our final destination, another fantastic chapter of storytelling logged away and another example that HANNIBAL has become one of the greatest book to TV adaptations around. It’s hard to explain HANNIBAL to someone who hasn’t watched it. It’s not enough to say it’s a show about Hannibal Lecter. It is a show that has to be experienced to be appreciated, you have to allow it to wash over you, it’s a sensory experience like none other on TV. But alas, it’s too late to convince those that stayed away, HANNIBAL is for me and you now. It’s our show and the fact that it’s fan base is small, kind of makes it all the more special.

SIDE NOTE: Hannibal’s tampered phone call in order get to Will was a scene worth mentioning. There was something about his delivery of the words that reminded me of Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of the character. I don’t know if it was a nod to him in anyway but I found something there and enjoyed it greatly.

Hannibal
Season 3, Ep. 10 | Aired Aug 08
Posted August 8 2015 — 11:00 PM EDT

Francis Dolarhyde is a very shy boy. Hannibal recognized it in him from the start. While the Great Red Dragon thrives on notoriety and headline collages, Dolarhyde is so fundamentally self-abnegating that he recedes into the shadows even when in the presence of a blind person. But the need to be seen and understood is a fundamental human yearning — esteem is right there under self-actualization on Maslow’s hierarchy — and Dolarhyde’s desire for recognition from the one man who can give it is enough to get him out of the darkroom. He’s careful, of course. He switches license plates, breaks into a location miles from his home, hijacks the phone lines — all so he can have a chat with his idol and role model.


He even practiced his plosives for the phone call, but of course he had nothing to be nervous about. Hannibal gets him. The look that passes over Richard Armitage’s face when Hannibal says that what particular body he occupies is trivial is one of long-dammed relief. It’s like a kid getting a letter back from Jimmy Page saying the demo tape he sent was rockin’. Hannibal asks whether he’s to be John the Baptist to the Dragon’s Christ, a polite way of testing the extent of his admirer’s ego. Dolarhyde corrects the analogy in more ways than one: instead, he is merely the Dragon sitting before 666.

The fact that he’s able to hold his own in conversation with Hannibal proves our Francis isn’t just some stunted psychopathic weirdo. I mean, he is that, but he’s also other stuff. Dolarhyde combines fierce intelligence with a primordial violent id in a way that’s reminiscent of another guy named Frank. Mary Shelley’s monster, too, was empathetic and twisted, both human and inhuman, but Dolarhyde doesn’t have a Dr. to blame. He’s both the monster and his creator.

And like the other Frank, he can be surprisingly charming. For a man who has lived his life deprived of most human contact, our boy still somehow manages to pull off a first date for the record books. Hell, I nearly swooned when she was touching that tiger. Unsurprisingly, Reba went home with him and discovered that while he’s a Francis in the streets, he’s a Dragon in the sheets. To him, she is nothing less than the woman clothed with the sun, but when he awakes, he’s afraid that she has learned too much about his life — afraid also of what his other self must think of these developments. Instead, she’s just sitting downstairs patiently waiting to be taken home.

Although Reba is the one falling for the monster, it’s Du Maurier that gets dubbed the Bride of Frankenstein. In the intervening three years, Hannibal’s former psychiatrist and travel companion has polished her lies until no one can see past the gleam. She’s turned her story into a narrative, and it seems that Will’s the only one who isn’t buying it. He ends up getting a glimpse at the real Bedelia, the one that Hannibal helped to unlock, the Bedelia whose first instinct is to crush an injured bird under her heel. Gillian Anderson is utterly terrifying in this episode, taking her typically clipped, clinical diction to the furthest, most unnerving extreme. We see in flashback, the short, unhappy life of Zachary Quinto, a paranoid patient of Hannibal’s that was left as a gift, or a test, for Du Maurier, much like a cat would leave an injured mouse at one’s feet. (HANNIBAL’S JOKE CORNER!: Q: How do you know Dr. Du Maurier is busy? A: She’s up to her elbows in patients!)

Will similarly has his prey served up to him on a silver platter. He just happens to cross paths with Dolarhyde in the elevator and even though he’s got a full stomach of proto-Romantic art, Will gets thrown around like a ragdoll. The Dragon makes his escape, but he’s been seen. And not in the way he wanted.

Hannibal, Ep. 3.10, “And the Woman Clothed in Sun” explores ecstasy, eloquence, and empathy

Hannibal S03E10Hannibal, Season 3, Episode 10, “And the Woman Clothed in Sun”
Written by Don Mancini and Bryan Fuller
Directed by Guillermo Navarro
Airs Saturdays at 10pm (ET) on NBC

Through the first half of season three, many fans of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon eagerly anticipated of the arrival of Frances Dolarhyde and Reba McClane. After “And the Woman Clothed in Sun”, it’s easy to see why. Richard Armitage made a big impression as Dolarhyde in his first episode, “The Great Red Dragon”, as did Rutina Wesley as Reba in “And the Woman Clothed with the Sun…”, but this episode brings them together powerfully, showing the beauty both are capable of and the strength of the connection they share, a connection with the potential to drown out the call of the Dragon. The series of paintings by William Blake which give the episodes of this arc their titles depicts a seven-headed, ten-horned dragon from the Book of Revelations that, among other things, swoops down to attack a woman who embodies the goodness and purity of spiritual faith. This episode embraces the spectacle and sweep of the Blake paintings, elevating Frances and Reba’s romance to the same epic scale as Dolarhyde’s horrific killings, and in doing so, cements the story of this half season as a battle for the soul of an already damned man.

The previous episodes of this arc established Dolarhyde’s obsession with the Dragon and painted him as another in Will’s long line of eventually captured or discovered serial killers. While it was interesting to see Dolarhyde interact with Reba in the previous episode, it was difficult to enjoy their budding relationship, as Reitzell’s tense score kept the viewer on edge throughout. This changes with “And the Woman Clothed in Sun”, thanks to Frances’ first selfless action, arranging a trip to the zoo for Reba so she can experience a tiger. It’s a lovely gesture, one borne of empathy, rather than sympathy, a distinction critical to Reba that gives viewers their first tie between Dolarhyde and Will. The score, so stressful in “And the Woman Clothed with the Sun…”, relaxes for much of the tiger scene (more on this in Kate’s Classical Corner), allowing the audience to experience Reba’s wonder at the tiger and the beauty of Frances’ gift to her. Armitage is fantastic, but this is Wesley’s scene and she nails it. The heightened colors of the tiger combine with the scoring and Wesley’s performance to convey the intensity of Reba’s experience and how precious it is to her. Hannibal is no stranger to placing its characters or the audience into others’ perspectives, be it Will processing a crime scene or Alana or Bedelia drowning in the dark waters of Hannibal’s influence. The tiger scene joins Alana and Margot’s sex scene from earlier this season as two of the series’ rare entirely positive examples of experiential storytelling, a welcome balm among the darkness of the Red Dragon arc.

Hannibal S03E10Equally beautiful is the scene that follows, as Frances and Reba drink martinis, talk, and have sex for the first time. The sequence is romantic and even a little funny—Reba’s, “Where the hell are you?” is great—and the image of Reba as the Woman Clothed in Sun is absolutely gorgeous, far more in keeping with the show’s usual aesthetic than the somewhat cheesy image of the Dragon that closes out the opening sequence. Overlaying the sex scene with Blake’s Dragon only to culminate in that glorious, artistic shot of Reba as the Woman is incredibly effective. The Dragon calls to Frances wordlessly, but the Woman sees him, looking at the awed Frances despite Reba’s blindness. Whereas he wants to show Hannibal the Dragon he could become, Frances already feels seen by Reba as he is. The audience knows the two cannot exist together and that the Dragon is likely destined to triumph, but with Frances and Reba’s scenes together here, the writers and director make a strong case for the Woman.

The other main thread of the episode is Will’s questioning of Bedelia and their discussion of empathy as a strength or hindrance. After seeing the immediate ramifications of it earlier this season, viewers are finally shown what led to Bedelia shoving her entire arm down her patient’s throat. Much like the scenes with Abigail last week, the scene with Bedelia’s patient, played by Zachary Quinto, winds up answering questions few were asking; the shots in “Antipasto” of Bedelia’s patient’s immaculate nails implied most of what is made explicit here. Her conversation with Will will likely wind up having greater significance, but on the whole, the sequence, while interesting, pales in comparison to the material with Dolarhyde and Reba. That being said, the post-opening credits scene with Bedelia speaking on her “captivity” is delightful, a fun counterpoint to Hannibal’s lecture in Italy that is staged not dissimilarly to Will’s lectures in season one. There’s plenty of fun to be had with Bedelia and Will can certainly gain insight on Hannibal from her, but after seasons of buildup, the reveal of her deep, dark secret is decidedly anticlimactic.

Hannibal S03E10A more successful answer to a question few may have been asking is the episode’s opening scene, which shows how Dolarhyde managed to get a call through to the incarcerated Hannibal. The focus shown by Dolarhyde throughout the sequence, the attention to detail, is telling of his character. He’s not a man struggling with dual identities or mental illness who becomes someone else when he kills, he’s driven and determined in all that he does. Hannibal asks for gimmes not infrequently. How did Larry Wells erect a totem pole of bodies on the beach? How did Hannibal break through the pavement of a parking lot overnight and plant his Tree Man tableau without being seen? How was Hannibal not immediately discovered in Florence via a quick Google Image search of Dr. Fell? Because Hannibal is magic and the totem pole looks grotesquely cool and the show is better if we don’t ask these questions. It’s nice, then, when the writers give us an explanation for a few of these good-faith leaps: Jack read Hannibal’s letter to Will before forwarding it on. The Leeds’ dog was at the vet because Dolarhyde attacked it previously. And Dolarhyde drove to DC and hacked Hannibal’s lawyer’s phone. It’s a great way to start off the episode, reestablishing and strengthening Hannibal’s budding curiosity in Dolarhyde while building to the apocalyptic visual of the Dragon himself. In Hannibal’s hands, a phone is a dangerous weapon. We’ve now seen how he can reach out beyond his prison cell and how others can reach in, and neither will lead to anything good.

The episode begins with Dolarhyde introducing himself to Hannibal. It’s only natural that it would end with him meeting Will. The sex scene with Frances and Reba showed Dolarhyde one kind of ecstasy. Being in the presence of Blake’s The Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, which inspired his back tattoo, is a similarly transcendent moment. Whereas the scene with Reba is beautiful and lush, however, his consumption of the painting is viscerally upsetting, at least to this art fan. The texture of the paper gives it weight and makes the painting feel tactile, even through the screen, and the reverence paid by both the unfortunate Paula and Dolarhyde imbues it with meaning. When Dolarhyde begins to tear and eat the painting, it feels abhorrent, and the sublime expression on Dolarhyde’s face as he destroys it only makes the moment more disturbing. Just as Hannibal immediately recognized something within Dolarhyde when he called, Will recognizes him at once on the elevator. Showrunner Bryan Fuller has spoken frequently about Dolarhyde as a pawn between Hannibal and Will, someone they both see as a second chance for what they failed to bring out in each other. We’ve seen plenty of what attracts Hannibal to Dolarhyde. Learning what Will sees in him, what makes Will think he can be saved, should be fascinating and this final scene gives viewers their first step along that path. Reba sees beauty, eloquence, and empathy in Dolarhyde. Watching Will find those traits in him should make for an exciting next few episodes.

Kate’s Classical Corner: Composer and music supervisor Brian Reitzell embraces impressionism and Romanticism in the scoring and soundtrack for “And the Woman Clothed in Sun” while the percussion of the Dragon lurks not far from the surface. Check back tomorrow for my thoughts on the soundtrack and scoring for this episode.