The 5 most shocking moments of the 'Hannibal' finale

By Libby Hill contact the reporter

In lieu of a final review, we decided it would be best to break down the "Hannibal" season finale by its five most shocking moments. For a show that dedicated itself to never being dull, the finale was no exception, and these five scenes are ones fans are sure to remember forever. (Warning: if you haven't seen the show, spoilers are below).

Death of the Great Red Dragon

After demanding awe from blind ex-girlfriend Reba last week, Francis Dolarhyde (a.k.a. the Great Red Dragon) tested her to see if she was trustworthy, instructing her to find her way downstairs and lock the door. Reba, of course, tries to make a run for it but is caught and Dolarhyde punishes her, setting the house around them on fire before committing suicide. The scene itself is breathtaking, as fire envelops the whole of the screen. Ultimately, Reba manages to escape and reports to Will Graham what transpired inside the house.

Resurrection of the Great Red Dragon

Except that Dolarhyde didn't actually kill himself. He took advantage of Reba's visual impairment to leave a false body in his place. Eventually Will is able to reason with Francis and convince him that killing Hannibal would be far more satisfying than killing him, and the two set about making a plan for such events to take place. Their interaction is gritty and tenuous and it's always unclear who's manipulating whom, but that Francis was alive at all was shocking enough to the audience. (That is, the audience unfamiliar with the source material.)

Actual Death of the Great Red Dragon

When Dolarhyde meets his end in earnest, it's at the hands, or, rather, blades of both Will and Hannibal. While it's not shocking that the two men are able to get the better of the serial killer, the way the events played out were so precisely choreographed and the fight scene that ensued so visually stunning, that they transformed the death of a legitimate monster into something balletic and moving. Though a strange testament to the quality of the series, it's possible that no series used blood spray as poetically as "Hannibal" did.

Over a Cliff

Though going over a cliff is typically seen as a bad thing, "Hannibal" found a way to take its final moments over a cliff in the best possible way. Knowing that the only way that Hannibal can be stopped is by giving up his own life and, perhaps, overwhelmed by his own emotions when it comes to the manipulative sociopath, Will takes Hannibal over the bluff that the two are standing on, into the rocky waters below. Though the two are locked in an embrace at the time, it's impossible to tell precisely what's going through Will's mind when he makes his choice. What's easier to discern is the operatic beauty of the gesture and the sad inevitability that no matter what the future held for Will and Hannibal, they would be entwined.

The Future is Now

It wouldn't be right for "Hannibal" to give its audience no hint about what the future held for the characters beyond the end of the show, so fans who were patient enough to wait around through the credits, were rewarded with a scene of Bedelia Du Maurier, former companion of Hannibal Lecter, sitting at an impeccably decorated dining table. But that's not particularly shocking. What's shocking is that apparently what's being served for dinner is Bedelia's leg. There is an empty place setting at the table and as the camera pans down, we see Bedelia clutching a fork, readying herself for whoever took her leg to come back. This brilliant moment implies so much, including the fact that Hannibal Lecter lives to fight another day and wreak his vengeance on those who wronged him. Fans can only hope that showrunner Bryan Fuller can find a way to tell more of this story at some point in the future.

Follow me on Twitter at @midwestspitfire.

Review: 'Hannibal' Season 3, Episode 13, 'The Wrath of the Lamb': Over The Edge

By Jeff Stone | Indiewire August 30, 2015 at 11:04AM

"Why in God's name would anyone want to meet Hannibal Lecter?"


Appetizer

Many thanks to Becca Nadler for filling in for me last week, as "Hannibal" played out what is probably "Red Dragon's" most infamous scene. And hey, it did so in a way that was more graphic than either R-rated film adaptation! On network television! I'm really gonna miss this show.

Behold The Great Red Dragon

We open with a bit of business from the novel -- enjoy it while it lasts because Fuller and Co. toss it by the wayside about 10 minutes in. Francis pretends to kill himself in front of Reba, so he can spare her as well as get the drop on Will. But after Francis sent Will a very detailed message last episode about the revenge he was going to wreak on him, it takes Will about three seconds to convince him to go after Hannibal instead. This makes a kind of sense, since Hannibal betrayed Francis and would certainly be the ultimate offering to the dragon, but it's also pretty rushed and tenuous. Not to mention that Francis mentions, "I am stronger than the dragon now," a key bit of character work left to the audience to infer how he got there. Presumably since he was able to spare Reba, the dragon has been quelled? Since so much of Francis's material has been his dual nature, it feels like a lot of that work over the season is now being swept under the rug.

This scene in indicative of the problems with this finale. The episode has many strong scenes and a fantastic final sequence, but the plotting to get to that ending strains credibility to its breaking point. Which is honestly pretty fitting for the last episode of "Hannibal." It was a show that was never very concerned about plot (note how the FBI was never even close to catching The Red Dragon all season), and much more concerned about tone and emotions. As far as "Hannibal" is concerned, it doesn't really matter how we get to those final, brilliant moments, as long as we get to them. But more on that in a bit.

A Quick Appreciation of Scott Thompson and Aaron Abrams

They use their autopsy magic to establish that the body found in Francis's house isn't Francis, and that he's still out there, somewhere, allowing Will to suggest his crazy Hannibal plan without tipping the FBI that Francis came to see him. Great seeing you guys again for these last few episodes! I miss your banter!

Hannibal Behind Bars
Running Around, Free As A Bird

Admittedly, Hannibal is locked up for a great deal of this episode, so he can have two excellent scenes with Will and Alana, respectively. First, Will swings by (before Francis finds him) to let Hannibal know the case is closed, and he won't be returning. Hannibal engages in more of his passive-aggressive ex stuff, but Will shuts him down by telling him he wouldn't have turned himself in if Will hadn't rejected him. Will, getting in the sick burns while he can!

Hannibal's scene with Alana is more chilling, and a reminder of why everyone is afraid of Hannibal in the first place. When Alana floats the idea of the fake escape, Hannibal points out that he might turn it into a real escape. Alana concedes the possibility, and assumes Hannibal would come after her in that case. His response is amazing: "You died in my kitchen, Alana, when you chose to be brave. Every moment since is borrowed. Your wife, your child. They belong to me." No wonder Alana and Margot hop on a helicopter as soon as they hear that Hannibal has indeed escaped for real.

Grand Guignol

Then, of course, there is the final showdown at Hannibal's hideaway on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Hannibal and Will enjoy a relaxing glass of wine until Francis shows up, shooting Hannibal in the back. And since Will's not the only guy who can pull a double-cross, Francis turns on him, and they take turns stabbing each other with the same knife (here's a tip, guys: pull the knife out yourself instead of leaving it in the other guy's body for him to use on you). A single bullet can't stop Hannibal, though, so he pitches in to help. He and Will team up for a brutal finishing move of Will eviscerating Francis while Hannibal tears his throat out with his teeth. That's enough to put Francis down permanently. I'd make a joke about dragon slaying, but I respect you too much.

Most Wonderfully Unsubtle Moment


And as he dies, Francis's blood spreads out underneath him in the shape of dragon's wings.

Will Graham: Doin' Stuff!

And then, the final moments. Will and Hannibal, covered in blood, lock eyes over Francis's corpse.

"This is all I wanted for you, Will. For both of us," says Hannibal.

"It's beautiful," Will replies. They embrace.

And then Will throws them both off the cliff.

I was startled, then pleased. My least favorite endgame for "Hannibal" was always "they run off to be murder husbands together," and until that moment, it looked like that was the direction they were going to go. It's interesting, from the moment Will makes his deal with Francis, his motivations are inscrutable to the audience. Since he chose the side of good, last time he was tempted, we assume he's doing so again, but then Francis is able to intercept the motorcade and free Hannibal for real, and we have to assume that Will tipped him off to the motorcade's location, not to mention where he and Hannibal might hole up. And when Will and Hannibal take down Francis together, it is the ultimate consummation of their relationship. It's unclear whether this was always Will's ultimate endgame, but I like to believe it was. He was a man who was nearly consumed by the darkness but was able to overcome it in the end. The good news for those that disagree is that everything is ambiguous enough that many interpretations can be made. It's a stunning moment. Sticking the ending is one of the hardest things a show can do, and "Hannibal" managed it. It was meant to only end the season, but it's a pitch-perfect way to end the series.

BUT WAIT, because after the credits we cut to poor Bedelia, who has beautifully prepared her own leg for a dinner party only she will attend, forever waiting for the other guest to arrive. [Editor's Note: THIS WAS DEEPLY UPSETTING.]

Post Mortem

So that was "Hannibal," a show that seemed like a bad idea on paper but became one of my favorites. It was an easy show to mock, if you were so inclined, because it was so specific and committed to its outsized reality: its ponderous dialogue, its slow-motion close-ups, its unparalled visuals. That "Hannibal" aired on network television at all is a miracle; that it lasted three seasons is more than we could have hoped for (and in the case of Season 3's first half, more than we probably needed). It wasn't a perfect show by any means, but it was unlike anything else on television. I will miss it.

Grade: A-

Hannibal Season 3 Series Finale Review

August 29, 2015 by Ricky Church 1 Comment

Ricky Church reviews the season – and series – finale of Hannibal season 3…

As the noose tightened around the Red Dragon, so too did it around Hannibal as the series was brought to a close. The (hopefully temporary) series finale of Hannibal was a bittersweet and satisfying conclusion to an excellent show. Appropriately titled ‘Wrath of the Lamb’, everyone was out to get Francis Dolarhyde and, in the process, get Hannibal Lecter killed as well.

With the finale beginning exactly where last week’s episode ended, no time was wasted resolving the Red Dragon storyline and moving forward. The first few minutes played out exactly as they did in the book as Francis spared Reba in order to fake his death and go after Will. This was very refreshing as the finale could have simply ended up as a ‘will he/won’t he’ scenario where the unspoiled audience had to guess whether or not he’ll kill Reba for most of the episode, giving the FBI enough time to track Francis down and save her. Though Rutina Wesley only appeared in this scene and briefly afterward, she gave a very good performance as Reba struggled to stay alive.

It was surprising just how much the finale strayed from the source material after the introduction. Nearly every story development afterward was original with a few nods, through either dialogue or action, to the book. It only serves to reinforce the notion that Bryan Fuller, while honouring the legacy of Hannibal Lecter, put the needs of his own particular story first rather than sticking strictly to the page. Though Francis did attack Will in the book, here it was to strike a deal as the two conspired to kill Hannibal.

It’s a testament to the character of Hannibal, and Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal of him, that even though the doctor has been in a cell for half of the season he’s still been considered a great threat to all the characters. The mere possibility of Hannibal escaping frightened nearly everyone to their core, but none more so than Bedelia. For someone who ran away with Hannibal and essentially acted as his accomplice, she was especially scared and angry at Will’s proposed plan to fake Hannibal’s escape, calling him reckless and thoughtless. Of course, any plan involving a fake escape, and letting Hannibal know about said plan, only gives Hannibal a chance to really escape so Alana and Bedelia had good cause to be frightened.

I do have some criticism regarding a few of the supporting cast. While it was great to see Chilton again, this time dressing down Alana and showing a darker side, it would have been fine if last episode were his final appearance. Because of this, we missed out on seeing Freddie Lounds one last time and her reaction to Chilton’s injuries, possibly even guilt over her involvement in the botched sting (though knowing Freddie, guilt is the last thing she’d feel).

We also never had a final moment between Molly, her son and Will before he initiated the escape plan. Given the fact that Will knew there was a good chance he may not have survived an encounter with Hannibal and Francis, a goodbye between them would have been nice. It could have been a loving encounter or, since Will was sinking deeper into a darker state of mind, he could have, as Hannibal would put it, shed his person suit and fully embrace his darkness.

Despite this, it led to a very exciting climax as Will and Hannibal faced off against The Great Red Dragon. The physical confrontation was very well choreographed and executed as it took everything Will and Hannibal had to take Francis down. Hannibal always wanted to share a kill with Will and it ironically took the betrayal of a killer he set on Will to do just that. It ended with a poignant moment between the two just before Will made one final, and possibly fatal, decision.

Each Hannibal finale has been crafted in such a way that it could be The End; Hannibal framed Will in Season One and Hannibal seemingly killed everyone in Season Two. Now it looks as if Will and Hannibal died together after Will forced the both of them off the cliff. This brings to mind another famous rivalry in fiction, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, and their fates as they tumbled over the Reichenbach Falls. Considering Hannibal and Will have their own twisted version of the Holmes/Moriarty relationship, this end was very appropriate. Whether or not Hannibal comes back through some means down the line, this was a great send off for both characters and a fitting end to an outstanding series. Though it must be pointed out, the post-credits scene showed Bedelia’s dinner table set for three people…

Ricky Church

The Wrath of the Lamb

Wir schauen Hannibal - Staffel 3, Folge 13
von Pfizze (Sven Pfizenmaier) - Veröffentlicht am 31.08.2015, 08:50
The Wrath of the LambRedaktion © NBC
The Wrath of the Lamb
Pfizze Sven Pfizenmaier FOLGEN moviepilot Team
I like to watch.
Schluss, Aus, Ende. Mit Hannibal ist es vorbei, sehr wahrscheinlich für immer. Doch The Wrath of the Lamb ist ein vollkommen würdiges Finale, das ganz wunderbar als Abschluss für diese Serie funktioniert.

Das Lamm ist böse geworden. Dass Will noch was in Petto hat, das wurde im Verlauf von Hannibal regelmäßig angedeutet und spätestens seit der letzten Folge dürfte jedem klar sein, dass uns im Staffelfinale nochmal was ganz Dickes erwarten wird. Und auch wenn bei The Wrath of the Lamb wohl kaum von einer wirklichen Überraschung gesprochen werden kann, so ist diese Radikalität, mit der Bryan Fuller und sein Team hier ans Werk gehen, doch extrem bewundernswert. Sie schrecken nicht vor den ganz großen Gefühlen zurück, dem Kitsch, der Prätention. Es gibt nicht viele Serien, die sich solch ein Finale erlauben können, doch hier funktioniert es reibungslos.

Eines der schönsten Dinge an diesem Finale ist, dass die sehr greifbare Vorstellung, nie eine vierte Staffel zu sehen, gar nicht mehr so schlimm ist. Nicht nur das, ich würde sogar so weit gehen, zu sagen, dass die Serie in genau dem richtigen Moment endet. Es ist gut möglich, dass Bryan Fuller die Absetzung der Serie vorausgeahnt hat und sich deshalb für solch ein ambivalentes Ende entschieden hat, um sowohl ein schlüssiges Finale zu haben, als auch die Möglichkeit, das ganze vielleicht doch noch mit einer vierten Staffel weiterführen zu können. So schade es auch ist, sich von dieser Serie trennen zu müssen, The Wrath of the Lamb ist ein mehr als würdiger Abschluss, der vermutlich ohnehin nicht mehr übertroffen werden kann.

Zunächst einmal ist endlich das passiert, was passieren musste, was die Serie über drei Staffeln so sorgfältig vorbereitet hat: Will (Hugh Dancy) und Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) sind vereint. Ihre Beziehung war zwar schon immer toxisch und voller Missbrauch, voller kranker Psychospielchen und gegenseitigem Verletzen, und doch war es für alle Beteiligten klar, in welche Richtung das hier gehen wird, auch wenn Will das zu Beginn der Episode noch nicht so richtig wahrhaben will. "Will. Tell me, was it good to see me again?", fragt Hannibal ihn von seiner Zelle aus, während Will sich schon auf dem Weg nach draußen befindet, sich aber nochmal umdreht: "Good? No." Das muss er natürlich sagen, weil er sich selber nichts anderes eingestehen kann. Immerhin hat er Familie und mit der ist er ja glücklich. (Umso bedauerlicher ist es übrigens, dass Molly (Nina Arianda) und ihr Sohn seit dem Attentat auf sie keine Szene mehr bekommen haben, vor allem in diesem Finale wirkt ihre Abstinenz etwas befremdlich.) Es ist ein klares, hartes Statement, das Will seinem Gegenüber entgegenschlägt, wobei jedem auch hier schon klar war, dass es sich um eine dreiste Lüge handelte.

Und dann flüchten sie einfach. Wie viel von der Befreiungsaktion von Hannibal auch Teil von Wills Plan war, das wird nicht so ganz klar, aber das spielt auch keine Rolle, denn als Hannibal vor ihm hält, die Beifahrertür öffnet, die Leiche auf die Straße schubst und ihn mit seinen einladenden, warmen Augen anschaut, da kann es für Will nur eine Option geben: Einsteigen, verschwinden. Was dann folgt, ist der emotionale Höhepunkt ihres bisherigen Verhältnisses. Francis (Richard Armitage) taucht auf und möchte die beiden umbringen, doch die tun sich zusammen und zeigen dem Roten Drachen, warum sie unter Insidern als "Murder Husbands" verkehren.

Hannibal bewegt sich mit diesem Kampf auf heiklem Gebiet, kommt jedoch damit durch, weil Francis bekanntlich das absolut Böse ist. Andernfalls wäre diese Sequenz noch sehr viel eigenartiger geworden. Es wird gestochen, geschlitzt, gebissen, geweint und vor allem richtig viel geblutet. Das Blut fließt literweise aus den Körperöffnungen, doch die Inszenierung von Michael Rymer lässt das alles sehr intim und emotional, nahezu erotisch aussehen. Das liegt nahe, schließlich entstand die Bindung zwischen den beiden trotz all den homoerotischen Untertönen niemals wirklich aus einer sexuellen Zuneigung im klassischen Sinne zueinander, sondern in einem weitestgehend psychischen, der eben auch etwas mit Mordfantasien zu tun hat. Insofern ist dieses gemeinsame Morden gewissermaßen eine etwas verschrobene, aber vollkommen gleichberechtigte Alternative zu dem herkömmlichen Geschlechtsakt. Sie ringen den Großen Roten Drachen nieder und liegen sich dann in den Armen, erschöpft und befriedigt - mit einem Blick auf die gemeinsame Zukunft, die natürlich nur tödlich aussehen kann. Sie stürzen gemeinsam die Klippe hinunter, Richtung Meer, für immer Arm in Arm.

Dass sie in den Tod stürzen, das steht selbstverständlich nur deshalb außer Frage, weil wir davon ausgehen müssen, dass es mit Hannibal, der Serie, nicht mehr weitergehen wird. Die abschließende Sequenz mit Bedelia (Gillian Anderson) suggeriert natürlich, dass beide überlebt haben und jetzt gemeinsam all die Dinge nachholen, die Hannibal von seiner Zelle aus nicht machen könnte, dass sie jetzt buchstäblich zu den Murder Husbands geworden sind. Unter den aktuellen Umständen müssen wir The Wrath of the Lamb jedoch als ein Serienfinale betrachten und ganz ehrlich: Als solches funktioniert das alles noch sehr viel besser.

Bedelia weiß, was Will vor hat, sie weiß um die Zuneigung, die er und Hannibal füreinander empfinden und dementsprechend kann sie sich auch denken, dass die beiden wiederkehren werden, um sie zu essen. Sie hat genug gesehen, um sich nicht die Hoffnungen zu machen, fliehen zu können und so tut sie das, was vielleicht wirklich so etwas wie ihre letzte Chance ist. Sie bietet Hannibal ein Versöhnungsgeschenk an, ihr Bein, frisch zubereitet und erstklassig in Szene gesetzt, ganz den Vorlieben ihres ehemaligen Partners entsprechend. Nun muss sie nur noch darauf warten, dass die beiden kommen, und dass sie zu zweit kommen, steht außer Frage, also deckt sie einfach für beide. So gesehen wäre es ein verstörend treffendes Ende, voller makaberem Humor, der die Serie schon immer ausgemacht hat. Den anderen ergeht es nicht sehr viel besser. Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) und Margot (Katharine Isabelle) wollen mit ihrem Kind über alle Berge fliehen und Jack (Laurence Fishburne) muss als FBI-Agent wieder ordentlich einstecken, er muss wieder einsehen, dass er versagt hat, dass er Will wieder falsch eingeschätzt hat, dass es wieder ganz anders kam als gedacht, wieder zu seiner Missgunst. Sie alle werden niemals mehr zu ihrem normalen Leben zurückkehren können, denn Hannibal bleibt für immer Teil ihres Lebens, auch wenn er leblos im Meer herumtreibt.

"See, this is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us." - "It's beautiful."

Notizen am Rande:

- In einem Interview mit der Vox redet Bryan Fuller unter anderem ein bisschen über diese Episode. In seiner Erklärung zu der Endszene scheint es jedoch nicht so, dass er eine zweideutige Interpretation beabsichtigt habe. Laut ihm sei es offensichtlich, dass Hannibal und Will überlebt und Bedelias Bein abgetrennt und serviert hätten. In einem anderen Interview sagt er sogar ganz deutlich, dass er die mögliche Theorie, dass Bedelia ihr eigenes Bein abgeschnitten hat, überhaupt nicht bedacht hatte. Ist mir aber egal, ich mag das Ende so lieber.

- Die Kollegen von Entertainment Weekly haben einen Rückblick auf die Anzüge geworfen, die Hannibal so im Laufe der drei Staffeln getragen hat.

- Ich weiß, einige von euch werden Hannibal noch sehr lange hinterhertrauern. Hier habt ihr den passenden Soundtrack dazu.

Hannibal Series Finale Review: The Wrath of the Lamb
Review Kayti Burt 8/30/2015 at 1:32AM

Hannibal’s series finale doesn’t disappoint, with a perfect ending for the dysfunctional love story between Will and Hannibal.

That was a near-perfect ending to a near-perfect show. Hannibal finished out its series about the dysfunctional relationship between a cannibalistic serial killer and his FBI profiler in what felt like the only way it could have: with the two main characters murdering another serial killer together. The dysfunctional killer that slays together, stays together — or, in this case, falls off of a cliff to their probable deaths in one another’s bloody arms.

The elements that were so great about this episode — namely, the interaction between Hannibal and Will and, to a lesser extent, the interaction between all of the characters who have been here since the beginning — highlighted just how relatively little Francis Dolarhyde’s motivations and moves mattered to the emotional core of this story. When it comes down to it, he was a plot device to bring Will and Hannibal back together in the most intimate of ways: his murder.

If Dolarhyde and Reba hadn’t been characters from the much-loved and much-adapted source material, it’s hard to imagine them having such a prominent role in this half-season. Hannibal has always made a point of fully characterizing its killers, and has mostly been the better for it, but we spent a lot of time with Dolarhyde in these last six episodes, and I’m not sure if it was worth it. As this ending proves, Dolarhyde is never as interesting as when he is bringing Will and Hannibal back together again.

That being said, the opening sequence that ended with Reba pulling a key from around the neck of a faceless corpse, then crawling her way out of Dolarhyde’s burning home was nerve-wrackingly terrifying. Later, Dolarhyde’s kidnapping of Will and later prison-break of Hannibal was exciting, too, but was an impatient appetizer to the main course. “Going my way?” Hannibal coolly asks after pulling up to Will in a police car and pushing a corpse out of the passenger seat to make room for Will. And isn’t this what Hannibal has always done? Facilitate a murder, push the corpse out of the way, and ask Will to come along for the next murder escapade? This is the Hannibal the intensely loyal Hannibal show base has shown up for over the past three seasons, and what has been somewhat lacking in a still compelling and beautiful season 3.

But what this series finale will no doubt be long-remembered for is its final act, which saw Hannibal and Will running away together to Hannibal’s remote cabin in order to lure Dolarhyde out. “My compassion for you is inconvenient,” Hannibal tells Will. No doubt Will, even if he doesn’t have the right word for the exact love-like emotion he feels for Hannibal amidst all of the anger and betrayal and hate, feels similarly. “I don’t know if I can save myself. Maybe that’s just fine,” Will admits both to Hannibal and himself. Hannibal doesn’t seem to have a problem with what he seems to know is coming: “No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend.”

Hannibal always has a sense of foreboding about it, its characters a begrudging awareness of what’s to come. But it simultaneously understands that what’s going to happen has never been the point. Unlike so many prestige dramas, Hannibal has never confused the perk of a stylish plot with the awesome narrative power of sentiment. Hannibal may make a show of its style, but it has never forgotten about the necessary substance: the relationship between Will and Hannibal. That substance is steeped in messy sentiment.

The final act of this episode was mesmerizing because it served the Will/Hannibal relationship so well. Dolarhyde showed up for Hannibal’s becoming. Will showed up for Hannibal’s. But, as always, it was Hannibal who got what he wanted. He has always showed up for Will’s becoming, and he finally got it in their co-murdering of Dolarhyde, which plays here like a James Bond intro sequence, complete with original song and kaleidoscopic transitions. It ends with Will becoming the thing Hannibal always wanted him to be — in Freddie Lyon’s provocatively eloquent tabloid phrasing: his murder husband.

As much as Will is flinging himself off of that cliff in Hannibal’s arms to rid the world of Hannibal and because he doesn’t see another choice, he is also flinging himself off of that cliff in Hannibal’s arms because he wants to be there. He wants to be with Hannibal. “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him,” Bedelia characterized their relationship earlier in the episode, and it’s true. If this season was about the messy aftermath of the Will/Hannibal breakup, as showrunner Bryan Fuller has characterized it, then said breakup was largely unsuccessful — or at least realistically fitting in the sense that these two people are unable to let go of one another.

The best series finales are the ones that have a firm comprehension of what the show has been about. This may seem like a low bar to jump, but too many television show writers rooms worry about one-upping themselves or making some grand, precedent-less proclamation with their swansong. Hannibal has always known what it is about: the dysfunctional love story between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. And that is what we got. That is what Hannibal and Will got: “This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.” “It’s beautiful.”

And, though it might have been a perfect ending, that doesn’t mean it felt like enough. In an era of ubiquitous adaptations, Hannibal stands apart as the rare example of a story that dared to dream beyond the original. Forget Anthony Hopkins. Mads Mikkelsen is Hannibal Lecter now. And, despite the nightmare-inducing horrors of this fictional world Bryan Fuller has created, I am sad to leave it behind.

5/5

“Hannibal” Review: THE WRATH OF THE LAMB
Posted on August 31, 2015 by Abigail Villarreal in Articles, Reviews // 0 Comments

Saturday night, Fannibals worldwide gathered in unison around their televisions (or computers) to witness the final installment of our beloved Hannibal. Since the announcement of Hannibal’s cancellation, the finale has been anticipated with both dread and excitement. Excitement to see what becomes of Francis Dolarhyde and the “Murder Husbands” duo. What fate was in store for the Verger-Bloom family and the ever-sophisticated Bedelia De Maurier? Would Jack Crawford make it out of another season finale alive? What of Freddie Lounds and Reba? As much as we all were dying to know, it was bittersweet to hear “Previously on Hannibal…” for the last time on NBC.

It was believed by many nothing could top Hannibal’s season two finale “Mizumono”, however “The Wrath of the Lamb” did just that. Throughout season three, there have been mixed reviews from the fanbase; overall positive but still somewhat critical of the pacing and development of certain characters and relationships. It seems the final episode has put most concerns to rest. I have seen tons of fans and online entertainment sites absolutely raving about how incredible the finale was. Personally, I believe it couldn’t have been better.

“The Wrath of the Lamb” opens where the previous episode left off; Dolarhyde has just revealed to Reba that he is in fact the psychopath who’s been murdering families. Reba, who most likely regrets so much, is understandably terrified. Even the viewers were probably quivering in their seats at Armitage’s sinister commands and Wesley’s trembling motions, obeying every word. Dolarhyde, in a test of trust, asks Reba to lock the front door. Of course she fails because why would you lock yourself in a house with a man who believes he’s a dragon and has murdered people in the name of said dragon? He forces her to go through specific motions; putting the key around his neck and feeling the gun he has in his hands, which sets her up to believe the following events are legitimate. The emotionally charged scene perfectly displays the exceptional talent of Richard Armitage and Rutina Wesley, convincing you this insane man really loved the blind woman he worked with and fought the Dragon inside him with every ounce of his strength to keep her alive. Still, he strikes the match and it slowly descends to the ground, igniting Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.10.10 AMthe gas soaked floor. “Oh, Reba. I can’t stand to watch you burn,” Dolarhyde says before he grabs the gun and we watch Reba scream in terror as a gunshot is heard, flesh flying onto her. The camera then tracks backward through the giant hole in Dolarhyde’s head, convincing us, for the time being, the Dragon is indeed dead. The flames engulf the house while Reba desperately grabs the key from the dead body and crawls her way out.

When we return from the opening credits, Reba is describing to Will Graham what happened. He tells her he’d like to come visit again and Reba once again proves her resilience, cracking a joke about what a charmer she is. Will, seeing the pain in her face, reassures her that Dolarhyde cared about her; that he wasn’t a freak, but a man with a freak on his back and there is nothing wrong with her. Of course Reba already knows this because she knows who she is and what she wants. She tells Will she is wary of people who foster dependency and feed on it because the blind attract them. Will responds with “not just the blind,” which leads into the next scene featuring he and Dr. Lecter. Throughout the seasons, we’ve seen Hannibal’s intense manipulation of Will to foster dependency. Perhaps this entire adaptation has centered around Hannibal trying to convince Will of his true nature and that he needs Hannibal. However, Will is very much not blind. So, yes, not just the blind, Reba.

We join Hannibal and Will in a church, which eventually transitions into the extremely elegant but barren jail cell we’ve become familiar with. “Ding-dong, the dragon’s dead,” Will boasts to Hannibal. Upon the revelation that it was suicide, Hannibal expresses disappointment, wishing Will could have killed the Dragon himself. However, Dr. Lecter is very satisfied with the fate of the poor Dr. Chilton, burnt to a crisp, recognizing that Will manipulated Dolarhyde. Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.14.18 AMWill denies it. Hannibal moves on, telling him his life at home won’t be the same. “When life becomes maddeningly polite, think about me.” In retaliation, Will Graham approaches the glass wall separating the two, laying a hand on it, and reveals he in fact tricked Hannibal into turning himself in by rejecting him. Before Will walks out, Hannibal asks if it was good to see him. “Good? No.” Boom, mic drop.

To the surprise of those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, Francis Dolarhyde, very much alive, assaults Will Graham when he returns to his motel. After a glass of water to the face, Will comes to tied to a chair, the Dragon himself sitting directly across from him. Apparently feeling a bit audacious, the first thing Will says is, “you didn’t break my back,” which is the threat Dolarhyde gave him via Chilton in “The Number of the Beast is 666.” After an ominous conversation about sharing, Dolarhyde tells Will he wants to meet Lecter. Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.18.05 AM 1We are left to assume they conspired together as we shift scenes and are momentarily granted some comedic relief from our favorite team of sassy scientists. Zeller and Price, in the unique, hilarious way they always do, break it down, explaining to Jack Crawford and Will how Dolarhyde faked his death. Will goes on to convince Jack to use Hannibal as bait to lure the Dragon and suggests they “fake” an escape.

Once again we are served an overwhelmingly frank scene between Bedelia and Will Graham. The former bride of frankenstein advises Will of the danger this fake-an-escape plan entails. Hannibal is always two steps ahead of everyone, in case no one has learned by now, and he won’t easily be caught a second time. However, Will reveals he doesn’t intend Hannibal to be caught a second time; this is his becoming. He kindly tells her she’d better get out of town because meat’s back on the menu. “Ready or not, here he comes,” Will warns, leaving Bedelia to waver in her normally confident disposition. Boom, mic drop.

Dr. Chilton finally makes an appearance now; a conversation with Alana Bloom that essentially consists of him telling her off. She wants to remind herself what Hannibal is capable of, but Chilton sets her straight, informing her that this is what she and Will Graham are capable of. Even after everything he’s been through, including a vivisection, getting shot in the face, having his lips bitten off, and being burned alive, the resilient Dr. Chilton is always capable of serving up a heaping serving of sass. Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.27.57 AMAfter her visit with Frederick, Alana visits the devil himself to tell him of the offer they have for him, faking his escape to lure the Dragon, which he tentatively agrees to. In one of the most chilling conversations I’ve ever seen on this show, Hannibal takes the opportunity to menacingly and outright threaten her life as well as her family’s, telling her she died in his kitchen when she chose to be brave. If I were her, I probably would have peed a little. Or a lot. And cried. Afterward, a conversation between Will Graham, Alana Bloom, and Jack Crawford reveals that their actual plan is to kill both Lecter and Dolarhyde. Because, you know, their plans to kill Hannibal have worked out in the past.

Will Graham must now visit Hannibal and personally ask him to be Dragon bait, as requested. Lecter describes the end of their last conversation as a “mic drop” which was truly bizarre to hear him say. Now Will must come pick it back up (awkward). He admits to Hannibal that he needs him, basically telling him everything he wants to hear. Will even says please. And now, my friends, is when shit starts to hit the fan.

While Hannibal is being transferred, Francis Dolarhyde shows up in a police car. Suddenly, you get the feeling this may not all be part of the plan Alana and Jack made. Dolarhyde proceeds to run the van containing Hannibal and Will off the road and shoots the police officers; he takes off right after, leaving them to their own devices. A strangely unalarmed and confident Hannibal tells Will not to worry, hops in a police car, drives up to Will, and casually asks, “going my way?” Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.32.50 AMThat night, Jack Crawford shows up to the scene of the crime, assesses that everyone is very much in danger, and we see the stunningly attractive Verger-Bloom family leaving their castle and boarding a helicopter. Smart move. Meanwhile, Hannibal and Will have made their way to one of Hannibal’s secluded homes. They stand on a cliff side, an eroding bluff, as Hannibal divulges to Will that this is where he took Abigail Hobbs as well as Miriam Lass.

The episode is coming to a boil now as night has fallen and Hannibal is preparing two glasses of wine for himself and Will. Hannibal asks Will of his intentions, which are to watch the Dragon change Lecter. “Save yourself, kill them all,” Hannibal says to Will as he hands him a glass and pours a red wine. Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.40.30 AMWill tells him he doesn’t know if he can save himself and the two share a long look before Hannibal walks away, pouring himself a glass as he quotes John 15:13. Suddenly, Will makes it known that Dolarhyde is watching them to which Hannibal replies “ I know.” As he begins to raise his glass of wine, a bullet shatters the bottle, having gone through Hannibal to do so. The entire window breaks as Hannibal falls forward and Dolarhyde makes his grand entrance. With Hannibal bleeding on the floor and Will standing by sipping his wine, the Dragon begins setting up his camera, telling Lecter he is going to film his death and that watching it won’t be as wonderful as the act itself. He pulls out a knife and the apogee of the finale has begun.

Dolarhyde stabs Will Graham in the face, lifts him up, and tosses him out the window. Following after his victim, he and Will have it out briefly before Hannibal enters the fight, jumping onto Dolarhyde’s back, the knife left in Will’s chest. He easily throws Lecter off and sends him rolling across the ground. The Dragon stalks forward, his imagined wings spread open, and he grabs Hannibal by the neck, lifting him up as he did to Will. Will, driven to protect Hannibal, takes the knife out of his chest and aggressively stabs Dolarhyde in the back. The Dragon is temporarily able to get them both away from him, hitting Will in the head and kicking Hannibal to the ground. Hannibal sees an axe and grabs it. At this moment, “Love Crime” by Siouxsie Sioux and Brian Reitzell begins playing and one of the most passionate events I’ve ever seen happen on a television series occurs.

Together, Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham murder Francis Dolarhyde. Hannibal strikes him with the axe and Will stabs him; close-up shots exhibit blood sensuously gushing from Dolarhyde and the knife penetrating his body. As Hannibal and Will wounded-ly move around their prey, their eyes connect in the most carnal way I have ever witnessed between two people murdering together. Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 5.51.09 AMHannibal then leaps onto Dolarhyde’s back again, ripping his throat out with his bare teeth as Will plunges the knife into him and tears open his stomach. The Dragon falls to the ground, finally defeated, blood pooling below him like wings. “Love Crime” swells as Will observes the blood on his hands. “It really does look black in the moonlight,” he says before reaching out to Hannibal, who helps him to his feet.

Standing at the cliffside, drenched in blood, Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham become extremely intimate in a powerful way only they can. “See, this is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us,” are the final words Hannibal give to Will. Panting and almost whimpering, Will stares deeply into Hannibal’s eyes and, with a soft laugh, utters words the good doctor has been waiting to hear:Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 6.01.34 AM 1 “It’s beautiful.” Will Graham gently grabs at Hannibal’s shoulder, tenderly resting his head upon his chest. In an almost euphoric state, Hannibal leans into the amorous embrace and Will wraps his arms around his friend. Together, they fall off the eroding bluff and into the ocean, an ending no one was expecting. After the credits, if anyone was still able to function well enough to comprehend it, we see Bedelia De Maurier with one of her legs cooked and ready to be served at a large dining table that has two other plates set out. Judging by the terrified look on her face and the way she grabs that fork, it’s probably safe to assume our murder husbands survived the fall and are ready to have a meal together.

Now, let’s take a moment to put this scene into context with the entire series. Although the show has ended prematurely, the events of the past three seasons have very much accumulated to this, the apex. Fuller’s adaptation of the Harris novels has taken many liberties, including the expansion upon the relationship between Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. The novel doesn’t give us much in regards to their history, so the possibilities were endless. Fuller’s version of events has focused on the long, slow build of the bond between the cannibal and the empath, and it’s been about the seduction of evil. NBC Hannibal’s Dr. Lecter has often been compared to the devil himself by both Fuller and Mads Mikkelsen. With the constant presence of Lecter’s evil influence and manipulation, it’s not surprising that Will Graham finally succumbed.

Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 6.01.40 AM

As the seasons have progressed, we’ve seen extraordinary development from Will. Unsuspecting for the majority of the first season, he is easily undone by Hannibal. His increasing instability allowed him to be trapped in the devil’s snare. In the second season, roles are reversed as Will, completely aware now, is chasing the devil. However, in his chase, Will begins to transform into something much darker. By the end, it’s unclear as to where his loyalties lie (although in season three it’s revealed he was going to run away with Hannibal). Up until this point, Will Graham has struggled between good and evil, his empathy allowing him to dive so deep into the mind of killers, it changes him. In “The Wrath of the Lamb” everything is made clear and we finally see Will’s transformation completed. When Will says “it really does look black in the moonlight,” to me it was the pinnacle of his becoming. This is when Will accepted his true nature as Hannibal would have it. He gave in, he killed with Hannibal, and it was invigorating. Intoxicating. It was beautiful.

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Hannibal has gone above and beyond in the exploration of an intimate relationship without sexualizing it, which is not something you see often on television. Hannibal’s seduction of Will was every bit as intimate as a romantic relationship would be. They shared a connection so deep, it transcended corporeal existence; a metaphysical bond if you will. The ending was true for the characters in their final moments. Anything beyond an affectionate embrace was not needed to convey the love and the intensity between these two men, although affectionate may be an understatement.

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The last ten minutes of “The Wrath of the Lamb” are perhaps the greatest ten minutes of anything I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing on my television and I am beyond satisfied. Overall, a job well done to the cast and crew. Thank you for three beautiful, artistic, soulful, passionate seasons. I have the greatest hopes Hannibal will be picked up somewhere along the line, but for now, I am happy with the ending we received. The journey has been incredible and the legacy this show has left behind will never erode.

Richard Armitage wowed audiences during Saturday night’s Hannibal finale where his character, The Red Dragon, went out with a bang.

Most film connoisseurs know Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal Lecter), Hugh Dancy (Will Graham), and the rest of the talented cast can act and then some, but many didn’t even know who Richard Armitage was before he starred as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde. In his twisted mind, the crazed man
thought he was the mythical Red Dragon he had seen in a painting, but the media knew him as The Tooth Fairy, and it didn’t make Francis happy.
Throughout Season 3 of Hannibal, Richard Armitage proved that showrunner Bryan Fuller made the right choice when he cast him as Dolarhyde. According to the 44-year-old British actor, he had the liberty of making the character his own, and boy, did he go above and beyond.

Regardless of the inevitable ending to his run on the cancelled NBC show’s finale, viewers were entranced by the transformation they saw before their eyes during the second half of Hannibal. Armitage not only wowed audiences on Saturday night, but seemed to be the focus of much discussion any time he was on-screen, because he was usually doing things we don’t see on TV every day.
When we first met Francis — the character based on Thomas Harris’ novel, Red Dragon — he was almost benign, and Richard Armitage did a masterful job making us feel sorry for him instead of hating Dolarhyde for slaughtering entire families by acting out delusional fantasies.
Then he meets blind co-worker, Reba McClane (Rutina Wesley), and their budding relationship in turn makes audiences feel even more compelled towards liking The Red Dragon. For the first few episodes, Richard Armitage managed to almost convince that, perhaps, he could be reformed by what he felt for Reba. However, when he reminds himself he is meant to be the brutal serial killer, Dolarhyde shows his true, terrifying colors.

It was heartbreaking to see Francis turn from the almost loving partner to Reba, to someone who terrorized her and used her for his nefarious scheme. Wesley is equally brilliant in the finale, and we feel really sorry for her predicament. Falling in love with “D” was a bad idea.
Following the Twitter feed on Saturday nights was always interesting, especially when Fuller or executive producer Martha De Laurentiis shared some interesting insight. We heard how Richard Armitage was instructed to move in that last, heartbreaking scene and he delivered, and then some.
[*]


This was a multifaceted and physically demanding role for Richard Armitage. He didn’t just have to play one character, but two, and we saw the incredible transformation, especially in the latter episodes, when The Red Dragon fully manifested itself. One of the things that Armitage was able to master was the lisp, for which he studied videos of real people with cleft palates extensively and even came up with plastic piece for his mouth to make it more realistic. Who does that?
If you didn’t know Richard Armitage before he starred in Hannibal, you certainly know who he is now. What did you think of the series finale?

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/2381005/richar ... qQvvCdS.99

Horror TV Shows. Hannibal Star Richard Armitage Knows How To Cause Panic

Richard Armitage as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal season 3
Richard Armitage as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal season 3

Actor Richard Armitage fascinated audiences in Hannibal season 3 finale! He plays the role as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde on the TV show. Time ago, he said he had the liberty of making the character his own, and throughout season 3, he has proved his talent. Humble person, one he said that he doesn’t think actors need to go on pedestals. “I don’t buy it. I think it’s a weird thing. It’s like you become someone else, like stepping into another universe.” However, he deserved a huge ovation on Saturday’s night. Don’t you think so? Tell us your opinion about Hannibal season 3 and about English actor Richard Armitage!

Richard Armitage as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal season 3
Richard Armitage as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal season 3

Yareah quote of the day is by Richard Armitage because we admire detailed actors and hard work.

“I try to be quite a detailed actor. People were really picking up on that. Even if it was just a flicker of the eye or something, they got it.”

Hannibal season 3 has received critical acclaim, especially for the performances of the lead actors: Hugh Dancy as Will Graham as well as Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. However, on June 22, 2015, NBC canceled Hannibal because of low ratings. Difficult to understand but life is unfair!

Anyway, congratulations to the cast and to Richard Armitage. We were astonish when his character went out with a bang!

“You can spend a bit of yourself when you give yourself to a character. At the end of a job, you have to remind yourself who and what you are.”

** Hannibal is an American psychological thriller–horror television series developed by Bryan Fuller for NBC. The series is based on characters and elements appearing in the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.

Enjoy your day, Yareah friends. Art is everywhere and up to you!

Hannibal Redefined How We Tell Stories on Television
By Matt Zoller Seitz Follow @mattzollerseitz

Hannibal - Season 3
Good-bye, old friend. Photo: NBC
And so, in the end, Hannibal was a love story all along, and a doomed love story at that.

The third season ended like prior seasons, with a wrap-up that could double as a series ender if it came to that; and since, apparently, it has come to that — with NBC deciding not to carry a hypothetical fourth season of this international co-production, and thus effectively ending it — we should marvel at this climax’s majestic, well, finality. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) join forces to defeat the fearsome disciple/rival serial killer Red Dragon (Richard Armitage) in a super-slow-motion mano a mano: silent, gorgeously protracted, scored to an original Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin song titled “Love Crime” (what else!). As Hannibal’s showrunner Bryan Fuller put it in a Vulture interview — in metaphoric language, which, like so many Fuller observations, renders additional critical commentary superfluous — Will and Hannibal were “like two jackals bringing down a rhinoceros.”

The recent craze for CGI-rendered blood has been a problematic new development for some horror purists, but pixel crimson has never looked as extravagantly sensuous, or felt as aesthetically right, as it has on Hannibal, a series that takes place entirely in dream space. It has a truly painterly texture, a brazen unreality that tickles the senses even as it completes the show’s vision, which is as romantic as it is horrific. Blades enter flesh, skin and tendons are severed, and the blood doesn’t just spill, it jets, sprays, arcs, like acrylic slung at a canvas. The finale’s director, Michael Rymer (director of some of the most aggressively visual episodes of TV drama, especially on Battlestar Galactica), stages it as a death dance, a loving showcase for bodies in motion that never forgets its immediate narrative goal of neutralizing the Red Dragon even as it pushes its true purpose — expressing the twisted, yet perversely pure love between Will and Hannibal — into the foreground. Their bond is brotherly but also romantic and (somehow, powerfully) sexual. This battle is its long-delayed consummation: the sex scene between Will and Hannibal that has been repeatedly imagined in so much fan art, or, to quote Fuller again, a coded “three-way” — one of many imagined by this censorship-flouting network series — wherein “you eliminate the third [participant] and get to business with the two who matter.” Will’s necessary and also eager participation in a killing (he’d only been a passive accessory before) is the sex act Hannibal has been urging him toward, as seen in the dream image (Will’s or Hannibal’s? We don’t know) of the two in a church, Hannibal dressed in a seersucker jacket with a Windsor-knotted tie. “I was rooting for you, Will,” Hannibal says. “It’s a shame: You came all this way and you didn’t get to kill anybody.” He’s not a virgin anymore. He gave it up for Hannibal.

Will and Hannibal’s final moment is a mutual recognition of the loving death-grip they’ve been locked in since season one. It takes place on the edge of a cliff (the right spot for a cliffhanger), backed by a glassed-in home significant to Hannibal’s own history, but also redolent of so many great thriller climaxes, including North by Northwest and, of course, Michael Mann’s Manhunter, a very different take on the same material. They embrace: Will rests his head on Hannibal’s chest, Hannibal puts his chin atop Will’s head, and then they go over the edge. The camera moves in, after a respectful moment, to look down. The final shot (not counting, of course, the post-credits stinger with Gillian Anderson’s Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier serving a Hannibal-styled feast) is a vertigo-inducing overhead shot of the surf crashing into a suggestively V-shaped cove. It is one of the great final shots in TV history. To quote the good doctor himself: “I believe this is what is known as a ‘mic drop.’”

This is as good a place as any to repeat that I’m as surprised as anyone by how much I grew to love this show. I’m on record stating that I never had much interest in serial-killer stories. Except for the occasional outlier (such as Manhunter and parts of The Silence of the Lambs and a few of the images in The Cell) I found most of them either ostentatiously stupid or morally reprehensible: a tactical evasion of real-world evil rather than a useful way of reimagining it in terms of a fable. It wasn’t until Bryan Fuller’s adaptation, which presented itself as a dark fairy tale from minute one, that I willingly immersed myself in Thomas Harris’s fiction. It is about the capacity for evil, and how evil is a stultifying word that closes off understanding, and how empathy really is the flip side of sadism and connected to it, and also about the fragility of order — how it can be tipped very easily into chaos by people like Dolarhyde, or Hannibal, who recognize the fragility, see the thin skeins of twine holding “order” aloft, and play them like guitar strings. They are out there. They may not be as physically imposing as Dolarhyde or as cultivated and smug as Hannibal, but they are out there. As my colleague Greg Cwik points out in his brilliant recap of the finale, via a Herman Melville quote:

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.”

The sophisticated aesthetic developed by Fuller (and his many collaborators, whose ranks include a number of visually oriented directors and a few veteran cinematographers, such as Guillermo S. Navarro, who shot numerous Guillermo del Toro films and directed the 11th and 12th episodes of season three). The aesthetic is the reason why, despite being the most gruesome drama ever aired on network TV, Hannibal never felt unacceptably brutal to me. It is, no question about it, ultraviolent, but not in the manner of a cheap slasher film. It is ultraviolent in the manner of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill and The Fury, and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange (which Hannibal quotes by scoring Jack's beating of the doctor to Gioachino Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie") and touchstones of religious painting, such as Tintoretto’s 1565 painting of Christ’s crucifixion. It is “studied” in the best way, i.e., thoughtful, considered. It is concerned mainly with exploring what violent actions mean (to us, and to the story) rather than simply attempting to replicate the physical experience of suffering (although it does that, too; every wounding and death on the show is viscerally jolting and also often carries an emotional charge).

And it pays equal attention, sometimes greater attention, to emotional violence, showing how characters (usually Hannibal, but not always) coolly scrutinize their targets, then push certain buttons to ensure a particular outcome that’s often destructive for all involved. The physical violence represents a continuation of emotional violence. This is made clear in many subplots throughout the series, but especially in the reimagining of Red Dragon/the Tooth Fairy in the back half of season three, with Hannibal and Will (individually, but also in tacit collaboration) contriving to slag Francis Dolarhyde as a disfigured, sexually inadequate freak in order to draw him into the open, knowing full well that it’s a cruel and inaccurate description, and beneath them as psychologists and human beings. (In Michael Mann’s 1986 version of the story, and in the novel, they insinuated that Francis was homosexual. Fuller realized this was unwelcome and unnecessary as well as ugly-retro, just as they realized that Dolarhyde’s necrophiliac rape of his female victims was no longer necessary to get across the idea behind his murders, violating the image of a “perfect” nuclear family.) You can see the same care exercised in the way that Hannibal manipulates Bedelia (and how she allows herself to be manipulated) in Italy, and in the many ways that Will’s FBI boss, Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), insinuates that Will is himself behind actions that were originally envisioned, or at least suggested, by Lecter. The word psychodrama is thrown around indiscriminately in criticism (I’ve been guilty!), but here, more so than in a lot of dramas, it fits. Hannibal’s understanding of human psychology, while admittedly expressed in a knowingly stylized and grotesque way, is as sound as that of Mad Men’s or In Treatment’s.

If you read this piece with no experience of the series (and really, why would anyone do that?) you might assume that Hannibal is entirely grim, a parade of perversity, suffering, and gore. It is that. But it’s also quite funny, and somehow in a way that never trivializes the momentousness of the psychological and physical violence. No series, Twin Peaks included, has quite managed to be as deadly serious but also as winkingly ludicrous, so that you can’t easily separate one mode of presentation from the other. The show is an outrageous joke that’s not funny at all, and a horror show that’s very funny, at the same time, without contradiction. (Dreams are funny/not funny that way.) As Hannibal, Mads Mikkelsen gives the sort of performance that would be called “delicious” if a 1940s ham character actor gave it, but there are many moments (particularly reaction shots of Hannibal listening to patients, or to Will) when he seems to be truly feeling the pain of others, even as he thinks about how to increase or top it, as well as moments of serene acceptance or sly amusement. The bromance between him and Will is a joke but not a joke; it’s powerful, just as the relationship between Will and Jack, and Hannibal and Bedelia, Mason Verger (Joe Anderson) and Margot Verger (Katharine Isabelle), and Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) and Margot, who leave the story as co-parents of their Verger baby, which Alana carried. In every scene, there is always humor to relieve the excruciating tension. Some of it veers toward outright camp — particularly the season-three scenes involving Verger, who sounds (as Anderson plays him) like Richard Nixon eating peanut butter, refers to the risen Jesus as “the Riz,” and fantasizes his mortal enemy Hannibal laid out on a banquet table, naked and honey-glazed, and crows, “Transubstantiation!”

There is an elated, intoxicated quality to every frame of this amazing show. So much of Hannibal’s look and feel is what critics who prize linear, foursquare iterations of plot and character would term “excessive” or “pretentious” or, God forbid, “arty.” And there are ways in which such complaints are hard to refute. No reputable psychiatrist would hold sessions in an almost-dark room, as Hannibal Lecter and Bedelia Du Maurier tend to do. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a plague of serial killers who all seem to be auditioning for a spot in a hip art gallery, arranging corpses and pieces of corpses into sculptures and murals and mixed-media installations. Nothing on this series is “realistic” in any sense that means anything. In fact, there are moments when it seems to be channeling German expressionist dream films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu and The Hands of Orlac or The Last Laugh, or Surrealist features such as Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus and Luis Bunuel’s L’Age D’Or and The Exterminating Angel, and the dream sequence that Salvador Dalí created for Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, and the animated psychotic break that Saul Bass cooked up for Hitchcock in Vertigo.

Everything is exaggerated, distorted, reframed so that it feels at once figurative and real. Hannibal’s childhood chateau looms against a purplish sky at night like Dr. Frankenstein’s castle from a 1930s Universal horror film (there are numerous Frankenstein allusions throughout the series equating Hannibal to Frankenstein and the other serial killers under his sway as creatures that he “created” to some degree). When Will is thrown from the back of a moving train by Chiyoh (Tak Okamoto) and the camera dollies back and back, the caboose is clearly a set filmed against a green screen, and the pop-up-book quality accentuates the eerie certitude of her act. The whole Italian arc is production-designed and photographed to emphasize artificiality: Italy and Europe not as the actual places, but as fantasies of Italy and Europe, rather like the Europe presented by Lars von Trier in The Element of Crime and Zentropa, both of which are framed as dreams occurring, respectively, in a drug haze and under hypnosis. The show is a palace of dreams, and we are strolling through it.

This Surrealist-Expressionist film lineage continued on TV, but to a severely limited degree, given the medium’s “don’t scare the advertisers” edicts. You can see it on such series as Miami Vice (the first season of which has a similar feel, especially in its silent-with-music montages; check this out) as well as Twin Peaks and The X-Files and moments from The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. But Hannibal pushes it further. The whole series occurs in this mode. There are no breaks, no relief. Many TV programs have staged excellent, convincing dream sequences, but they were carefully set apart from the main story by signifiers that told us “this part is broken off from reality, you needn’t take it literally.” Hannibal doesn’t do that. What it does do is closer to this description of Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou, by Jonathan Jones: “To tell a story on screen, you create a physical world that serves your purpose. But in ‘Un Chien Andalou,’ the physical world is thicker, more resistant, more alive (and more dead). Instead of smoothly setting off the characters' desires and fears, it becomes an opaque field of desire and terror in itself. The events that can happen in such a world are full of passion, comedy, horror; it's just that they never get resolved and tidied up by narrative explanations. There are people in the film, but it is not 'about' them — it is about us, our reactions, our disgust and perversity.” (Francis’s filmed images of murder have a 1930s experimental-movie quality, which, given the creative team’s cultural literacy, has to be deliberate.)

But while it is accurate to sum up Hannibal as a 39-episode dream, that description doesn’t go far enough. Because it’s not just staging dreamlike or “weird” situations, it’s routinely adopting the points of view of certain characters — not in a particular episode, or in a self-contained sequence, but in a scene, or in part of a scene.

When Francis Dolarhyde imagines himself as the Red Dragon, there are individual shots that show him completely transformed into something like the creature he worships in William Blake’s painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun. Very late in the series, after the incarcerated Hannibal has tried to psychologically manipulate Will into thinking himself a potential serial killer on par with Francis (something Hannibal has been attempting to do, to varying degrees, since season one), an episode starts with similar images that we assume are from Francis’s point of view, but these are ultimately revealed to be Will’s, in a session with Bedelia. The Florence church scenes from the early part of season three recur throughout the final leg of the story. They’re presented as fantasies of Hannibal’s while he’s in lockup, shorn by Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) of signifiers of dignity, including his books and a proper toilet. It is also subtly indicative of Hannibal’s simultaneous wish to mock God and become a god himself by manipulating mere mortals. The church scenes also recur as fantasies (shared, perhaps?) by Hannibal and Will, who are far from Florence by that point. There, the church is a place of mental peace and fulfillment. It seems paradisiacal or heavenly or utopian, and there is no hand-holding explanation for the function that it serves: The show just assumes we’ll figure it out and not be confused, and it’s correct in assuming that we can.

Ditto the crime-scene imaginings of Will Graham. In Manhunter, Will (played by future CSI front man William Petersen) stands amid the mayhem after the fact, speaking his speculations into a tape recorder. The dramatization of atrocity occurs mainly in his face and voice, and via the droning synthesized score, and in our imaginations. But on Fuller’s show, Will is an imaginative (visually active) participant, actually performing the deeds he’s attempting to visualize, including pulling a small child out from under a bed and killing him (off-camera) with a pistol shot. We are implicated in a way that other horror films rarely attempt — for good reason, because few horror stories are capable of achieving the precise tone that Hannibal nails in episode after episode, making situations psychological and viscerally real (Will is suffering, visibly suffering, in these sequences) but also stylizing them in order to provide enough distance for the images not to seem trashy and exploitive. They are real and not real: imaginative projections of Will’s empathy for both killer and victims.

Season three could easily have been broken into two mini-seasons or mini-series (Italy and the Red Dragon arc), and there are points where the second feels very much like a follow-up to the first, but Fuller and his collaborators have planted many lines of dialogue and images in the early section that recur in the second, so that on rewatch, they feel like pieces of an intricately conceived whole. The architecture of images is ingenious. Sometimes the Italy arc seems to be foretelling events that happen later (Hannibal’s lectures on Blake in Florence being the most obvious example). Some of the most dazzling moments in the Red Dragon arc bring back images from an earlier episode in a different context, so that they have different meanings or associations. My favorite example of this is the series of flash cuts that occur after Will and Hannibal kill Francis: We see flashbacks to Francis’s burning scrapbook (the frame itself seeming to burn and curl as the character’s soul is released and his torments ended) and, most strikingly, a shot of Francis, seen from the back, standing before a burning mass of celluloid film strips arrayed in a starburst pattern. This is a visual callback not just to Francis’s film fetishism (which included a moment where he seemed to swallow a projector beam and “become” the record of his atrocities) but also to the sequence of Will visiting the Jacoby home, where FBI forensics officers had mapped the spray of blood jets with suspended strings.

These daring structural flourishes bring Hannibal closer than any commercial series to embodying the phrase “a novel for television.” A novel is not merely a novel because it is long. It is a novel because of the freedom it takes, or can take, in telling its story. It can adopt different points of view and slip back and forth between past and present, not just from chapter to chapter, but within the context of a page, a paragraph, even a sentence. Hannibal makes almost every other TV series seem aesthetically impoverished in comparison because it takes these freedoms and actually plays with them, to make the story and its telling more surprising, confounding, and multilayered. (One of the best examples are the sex scenes, which are shockingly explicit, in that you always know exactly what the characters are doing with each other physically, but also figuratively, smearing and doubling body parts into prismatic tangles of limbs and whirling graphic patterns.)

Anyone who makes scripted television should look at this series and think about ways to apply Hannibal’s experiments in tone, point of view, image, and sound to non-horror material, because what it’s doing is not innate to the horror movie, but to the most sophisticated third-person omniscient novels. It is literary and cinematic at the same time, in such a way as to suggest that one mode can be the continuation of the other, without falsifying or oversimplifying the uniqueness of either form. It represents a major step forward in scripted TV’s artistic evolution.

Hannibal is dead. Hannibal is the future.

Hannibal: the thrill is the terror, and the terror is the thrill
Mon Aug 31 2015, 09:39pm | 2 comments

hannibal
Everyone is talking about the season finale — which may well be the series finale — of Hannibal, and fair enough: it was shocking in a lot of different directions. But I’m still trying to parse the very existence of this series. Nothing to me is as shocking as the fact that it is a thing at all.
I’ve only seen Season 3, and I confess: the only reason I watched is because it features Richard Armitage. I think he’s amazing, and I worry that he is not being offered the sorts of roles that take advantage of his presence, which is considerable and rather ominous but not something there’s a lot of room for in our hidebound pop culture. I needn’t have worried in this case, because his Francis Dolarhyde — the serial killer who fancies himself a Great Red Dragon — is a weirdly delicate and very chilling combination of pathos and rage, of vulnerability and power (scary, terrible power), of (on our part) fascination and repugnance. I renew my contention that Armitage is amazing, and I hope to see him in more roles like this.
Except… are there other roles like this? It is astonishing to me that Hannibal is a product of American network television. It would be astonishing if it were the product of HBO or Showtime, or the BBC. But NBC? Never. I’ve never seen anything like this; it is so far outside the bounds of our hidebound pop culture that it defies categorization. Is it horror? Is it fantasy? Is it drama? It’s all of those, in whole new ways, and more. I cannot even decide if I like it… and that’s a very rare reaction for me to have to any television or film. (I may not always know why, at least at first, but I am usually pretty confident in saying, “This is good and I like it” or “This is bad and I don’t like it.”) Hannibal is beautiful about the ugliest of things; I do not know how to react to cannibalism being rendered as luscious food porn; is it okay that my mouth waters while my stomach turns? It is the goriest, bloodiest thing I’ve ever seen on TV, and even that’s beautiful too, but never in a pornographic way, or at least not like cheap exploitative horror movies are. It’s like the Blake painting that obsesses Dolarhyde: riveting and horrifying, riveting because it’s horrifying.
But even that’s nothing. TV has never been surreal like this before; probably Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller’s own Pushing Daisies (which I adored) comes closest, but it’s still nowhere near how Hannibal depicted characters living so wholly in their own heads and brought us so totally into their perspective, without ever having to explain what it was doing. The first time we saw Hannibal dressed in a fine suit and sitting in a beautiful Italianate chapel listening to choral music, I thought, Wait, wasn’t he just arrested at the end of the last episode? And then FBI consultant and criminal profiler Will Graham walks in, and I instantly got it: this is where Hannibal is in his head. Not in a glass cage, but somewhere far away and very peaceful. Hannibal isn’t one world but many worlds, one for each of its major characters, and lures us in with a power that is so groundbreaking that it’s like Fuller has invented a new way to tell stories visually. I feel like Fuller has pushed television into a new paradigm… but I also don’t see how it will be easy to anyone to imitate him (though I suspect some will try) in the same way that, say, the invention of the sitcom was easily copied.
And then there’s the fact that this entire story is basically a romance between Mads Mikkelsen’s Hannibal and Hugh Dancy’s Will. Not a romance of the body — it’s not sexual, except there is a frisson of that there, too, which is made even more palpable by the fact that they hardly ever, can hardly ever actually touch and often aren’t even physically in the same place — but of the mind and the soul. And it’s perverse. Completely perverse. Because Hannibal is a monster, a machine, a predator out of the deepest, most atavistic dark, and Will is not, even though he has a sort of empathy with killers that allows him to understand them and so catch them. It’s perverse — completely perverse — listening to Will and Hannibal’s “wife,” former therapist Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), discussing, in tones mostly of rapture though with a thrill of terror underneath, whether they are both in love with Hannibal and how he will certainly one day kill and eat them.
But this is the most perverse thing of all: Hannibal makes none of this feel perverse. The thrill is the terror, and the terror is the thrill. As I watched, half my brain was telling me that this is repulsive and this is disgusting, and the other half was being seduced by it, wondering at its romance and its passion.
This is rather upsetting to me, and mostly why I can’t decide if I love Hannibal, or if it’s evil. Is it a wrong thing if it’s both?
I will go back and watch Seasons 1 and 2 to help me decide…

LOVE CRIME
→ SEPTEMBER 4, 2015 Note: Full spoilers for Hannibal: Season 3 follow.
Season 3 of Hannibal began on the heels of an incredibly audacious, jaw-dropping Season 2 finale, that left nearly every major character except Hannibal himself possibly dead, as the bad doctor fled the country accompanied by Bedelia. You couldn’t have a bigger “What’s going to happen next?!” scenario, which no doubt led to frustrations when the season began and answers were not exactly being quickly delivered. More so, while Hannibal has always been an unusual, often esoteric, dream-like series, all of those aspects were dialed up to the Nth degree in the first three episodes of the season. It was at this point a lot of people, including big fans of the show I knew, began to voice some notable displeasure with how the story was going…
…but I was not among them. I loved this material. No, by its nature, it wasn’t Hannibal at its most thrilling. But it was still highly evocative, compelling stuff, delving into the frame of mind of characters like Hannibal, Bedelia and Will Graham and their new lives in Italy, more order includes – while slowly revealing who’d survived that night in the house. I have to say, the answer to that question being “Everyone except Abigail” did diminish what had happened to a certain extent, but still, these episodes were showing there was plenty of consequence and fallout from that oh-so bloody night in Hannibal's house, beyond the injuries sustained.


The pace meanwhile picked up considerably around episode four (a more, by Hannibal standards, straightforward flashback episode showing what happened soon after the Season 2 finale) and then went into overdrive, as Jack had an amazing rematch with Hannibal and Mason Verger’s plan to get revenge kicked into gear. A high bar was set by Michael Pitt as Mason in Season 2, but Joe Anderson adeptly stepped into his shoes (and mutilated face) in Season 3, bringing his own take on Mason’s witty, macabre insanity.
The biggest misstep during this point, and for the entire season -- and perhaps entire series? -- was the newly-introduced Chiyoh (Tao Okamoto). On paper, meeting this woman from Hannibal’s past, who could give Will a window into the young man Hannibal once was and what shaped him, was interesting. But onscreen, Chiyoh was a bland, un-engaging presence. She felt undefined and murky from beginning to end, and even her random acts of violence – which including shoving Will off a train and then shooting Will (Poor Will!) – didn’t ever lead to her fully coming together as a character. Hell, it turned out she didn’t even know the full story on what happened with Hannibal and his sister, if Hannibal is to be believed, so what she told Will (and us) was questionable. On a show packed with great characters, Chiyoh just didn’t work, unfortunately.

Meanwhile though, that aside, things got increasingly exciting, leasing to the standout “Digestivo”, which wrapped up the Mason Verger story once and for all in a thrilling, intense hour of television. A lot happened here, to the point that this felt like a season finale – which was not coincidental, given the show was about to leap ahead three years and into an entirely different story.
Given this ended up being the final season of Hannibal – at least in its current form, and almost certainly as any sort of regular, 13-episode a season series – I’m incredibly grateful Bryan Fuller decided to move up his plan to make Red Dragon the Season 4 storyline and put it into the second half of Season 3 instead. Not only did it mean we did get the show’s version of the original Hannibal novel depicted, but it also essentially meant we got two seasons in one this year.

And wow, was this version of Red Dragon awesome. Yes, it streamlined some aspects – we didn’t get any of the Dolarhyde flashbacks (one tiny glimpse aside) and Will’s role was altered, to some extent. But this was creepy, intense storytelling through and through, with Richard Armitage bringing just the right mix of scary and semi-sympathetic as Francis Dolarhyde, a murderous, delusional monster who was at war with the potentially loving man somewhere deep inside him – a war amplified as Dolarhyde fell for the blind Reba (a strong Rutina Wesley), even as “the Dragon” was coming to life within him, compelling him to kill.

This storyline also allowed Fuller to bring characters like Jimmy, Brian, Freddie and Chilton back into the story, all of whom got nice moments - well "nice" may not be the right word for Chilton, but he sure got some riveting moments, as he came face to face (and mouth to mouth) with the Dragon in a horrific manner.
Of course, the center of this show has always truly been the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham and has given them a far more intricate, layered and complicated dynamic than they typically had in the Red Dragon novel (or other films), where Will met Hannibal a couple times, figured out he was the killer and was nearly killed while catching him. That meant this version of Red Dragon couldn’t help but feel different than others – even early on, when the story beats were pretty much sticking to the source material, what was driving Will forward felt notably altered thanks to all he’d gone through in this series beforehand. So yes, Will’s actual deductive skills are not used as much here as in the novel when it comes to tracking down Dolarhyde, and his relationship with Molly is essentially a hollow one he can’t really go back to - not because of anything wrong with her, but because of what he’s gone through. Yet the story still resonated so much because we were seeing how Will was affected by once more interacting with Hannibal and the simultaneous urge to join forces with him and determination to put an end to Lecter, once and for all.

Why the Season 3 Finale Works as a Series Finale

In the midst of this, the rather obvious fact that Hannibal’s obsession with Will was a form of falling in love with Will was finally articulated – as was the idea that a part of Will returned those feelings, even while he knew Hannibal was a monster himself. This back and forth had long been fascinating and it felt appropriate to finally be upfront about it here. What was also great was that this Hannibal was a fully dimensionalized, multi-faceted character in a way no other version had been before – we saw so many sides of him, including the caring side that manifested with Will or even Abigail… even as he murdered Abigail and tried to kill Will!
Hannibal: Series Finale Review
We understood Hannibal better than ever, yet Fuller commendably never tried to redeem him. He was never going to change who he was. And that’s a big reason the ending was so satisfying, as Will pulled them off that cliff together. It was, on one hand, a culmination of the strange love story between the two – as the “murder husbands” were united, having killed Dolarhyde together. But Will also knew this was it. If he let Hannibal go, or live at all, he would kill again – he’d promised as much while threatening Alana. And Will might eventually cross even more lines in terms of the crimes he was willing to commit himself. So it had to end… which it did, in an emotionally stirring, “yes, this feels exactly right” manner that was, as always, perfectly played by Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen.

While Hannibal Lecter will no doubt be seen again in some form – the character is now too iconic to be ignored by Hollywood for too long – it’s possible this will be the last review I’ll be doing of this particular incarnation of the cannibalistic killer. Fingers crossed that’s not the case, and Bryan Fuller is able to continue this story down the line but if the thirteen episodes of Hannibal: Season 3 were the end, they were an excellent goodbye. Even the lingering questions from the end, including who had taken Bedelia’s leg and was about to sit down with her, feel like there is a satisfactory answer… Yes, Bryan Fuller has made it clear he didn’t intend she did that to herself, but if there is never more Hannibal, it’s easy to simply watch that scene and decide, well, but what if she did do it to herself? Having succumbed to Hannibal’s mind games (and her own dark impulses). And we can wonder how Will and Hannibal might have survived that fall, but if we get no more, well, then the didn’t survive, and that moment on the cliff between Will and Hannibal, and Will’s final choice, is the completely appropriate way to wrap up this excellent series.

Bryan Fuller on Hannibal's Finale and the Future

More Hannibal would be wonderful, to be sure. But if not, what a gift we were given with the 39 episodes of the series that we saw.

Small Screen: Hannibal: Season 3 review
Posted by Oliver England Date: October 01, 2015in: Review, Screen, TV Episode Blogs

There was a sourness that hung over NBC’s psychological thriller Hannibal as it moved steadily into its third season. There had been talk for a while of falling ratings and, despite a good showing for the finale of season two, there was an element of inevitability to the whole matter. Sure enough, shortly into the third season we were met with the tragic news that the series would not be renewed for a fourth.

For the entirety of season three it felt as though the show’s creator, Bryan Fuller, was acutely aware that his creation was coming to an end, and so decided to indulge himself. The results were a mixed bag.

For those unaware, Hannibal is a prequel to Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, although the final few episodes encompassed the novel. It follows Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), a criminal profiler, in his attempts to outwit his greatest foe: the titular Dr Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). The third season saw Hannibal on the loose in Florence, assuming the life of one of his latest victims, while his former friends over in the states – aided by Lecter’s previous victim Mason Verger (Joe Anderson) and Florentine inspector Rinaldo Pazzi (Fortunato Cerlino) – attempted to finally bring him down.

Admittedly it was this half where the show was at its weakest, slowly trudging through recycled images and body horror with some tedious exposition at the start to create something very artistic (particularly when Hannibal’s gorgeous set design is coupled with the views of Florence) but ultimately insubstantial and really quite dull. What was once thought-provoking became repetitive fast as the series struggled to kick itself into gear. Upon the introduction of Mason Verger, however, the tension and unsettling tone returned and continued until the mid-season finale which was just as explosive as one would hope.

The second half could have been another show altogether; vastly different in tone (more reminiscent of Hannibal’s first season) and, in a way, much more mature. Where the season’s first half saw Fuller throwing around ideas and playing with thoughts that did not always turn out so well, the second half was controlled, well-paced and almost always entertaining. This is because the second half of the series was based on Red Dragon and followed the plot relatively closely, although there were various changes which were, for the majority, good decisions.Richard Armitage took on the role of Francis Dolarhyde and did a great job of conveying both the tragic and terrifying sides of the character, while Mikkelsen’s Lecter continued to be just as unnerving even behind his trademark mask. Although some may claim the second half was too similar to previous Red Dragon adaptations Fuller’s trademark style shone through, elevating the series and delivering a finale that was short, but most definitely sweet.

Despite a wonky start and some throwaway subplots, what is likely the final series of Hannibal finished on a high note with strong characters, thought-provoking visuals, tense action scenes and a wonderful ending.