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The following article contains themes of suicide, suicidal ideation, violence, animal death, and psychological abuse.
Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal (2013-2015) is undeniably dark and violent, which is no big surprise coming from a crime drama centered around a cannibalistic serial killer. This psychological horror series boasts complex character arcs, beautiful cinematography, and plenty of heavy themes even beyond murder and cannibalism. Drawing from Thomas Harris’ first novel in the series, Red Dragon, the show remains largely faithful to the source material with just a few key deviations (such as the choice not to explore Mads Mikkelsen's Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s backstory).
While it may be unexpected for a show of this nature to also be a tear-jerker, the NBC Hannibal series has hit fans right in the feels on plenty of occasions, and not just because the series was prematurely canceled before Hannibal season 4 could happen. Now, a full decade later, key players such as Mads Mikkelsen have indicated that there may yet be a chance for a Hannibal reboot season 4, but most fans are still recovering from these emotional moments.
10 Will Begs Hannibal To Tell Him The Truth
Season 1 Episode 11, “Roti”
Criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) suffers from an insidious case of encephalitis throughout season 1, causing him to lose time and experience hallucinations, seizures, and violent nightmares. Late one evening, a visibly distressed Will shows up to Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s (Mads Mikkelsen) home, feverish and disoriented.
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He tells Hannibal, “I’m having a hard time thinking. I feel like I’m losing my mind, I - I don’t know what’s real.” Will begs Dr. Lecter to tell him whether the apparition of the late Garrett Jacob Hobbs (Vladimir Jon Cubrt) sitting at Hannibal’s dinner table is truly there. In reality, the man at the table is Dr. Abel Gideon (Suzy Eddie Izzard). Despite Dr. Gideon’s presence, Hannibal denies anyone being in the room with them, telling Will, “I don’t see anyone. We’re alone. You came here alone. Do you remember coming here?”
In the 1981 Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon, Will Graham never suffers from encephalitis, and his relationship with Dr. Lecter is mostly tangential to the Francis Dolarhyde story arc.
This blatant gaslighting pushes Will over the edge into hysterics, and he makes a chillingly desperate plea to Hannibal: “No, please don’t lie to me!” This moment encapsulates Will’s feeling of utter helplessness as his very identity and sense of reality are swept away by Hannibal’s manipulation. Moments later, Will is overtaken by an encephalitic seizure.
9 Bella Attempts Suicide
Season 2 Episode 4, “Takiawase”
While battling terminal lung cancer, Bella reveals to Hannibal that she has overdosed. She tells him, “I didn’t want to die at home. I didn’t want Jack to find me. I didn’t want him to make that call, or be in the room with my body, waiting for it to become some ceremonial object, apart from him, separate from who I was. Someone he can only hold in his mind.” Hannibal disagrees with her decision; in past therapy sessions, he had attempted to talk her out of this choice. Bella replies, “I denied him a painful goodbye…and allowed myself a peaceful one.” Hannibal then flips a coin to decide whether to allow Bella’s death.
Bella Crawford also exists in the original source material, the 1988 Thomas Harris novel The Silence of the Lambs. She originally dies near the end of the novel as Jack is listening to her heartbeat, and there is no assisted suicide involved.
While Jack (Laurence Fishburne) and Bella’s relationship in Hannibal is a powerful depiction of what it feels like to watch a loved one battling cancer – or to battle it yourself – this scene in particular hits home. Bella’s reluctance to allow her disease to further traumatize her husband by displacing his good memories of her is both admirable and profoundly sad. Beyond the already heart-wrenching theme of her lung cancer, this scene also digs into some deeper ethical concepts, such as bodily autonomy, assisted suicide, and euthanasia, and the mental health struggles that frequently result from terminal illness.
8 The FBI Mourns Beverly Katz
Season 2 Episode 5, “Mukozuke”
Less than 24 hours after his wife Bella has attempted suicide, Jack Crawford arrives to investigate the murder of his colleague, Beverly Katz (Hettienne Park). His face is full of dread as he approaches the scene in the observatory, but this quickly melts to disgust and overwhelming sorrow when Jack takes in the sight of Beverly’s remains.
Beverly's corpse had been staged in one of the most gruesome Hannibal murder tableaus by the Chesapeake Ripper, her body sagittally dissected and pressed between anatomy slides. Laurence Fishburne gives a gut-wrenching performance in this scene, nearly collapsing into sobs.
The murder tableau of Katz's remains is based on installation art by Damien Hurst, namely Mother and Child Divided and The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.
Crawford breaks the news to her friends Brian Zeller (Aaron Abrams) and Jimmy Price (Scott Thompson) over a haunting montage of her abandoned desk and personal effects. There is a palpable sense of grief and loss from this scene. When told her friends should not be the ones to perform the autopsy, Price insists, “We’re not running away from what happened, Jack. Beverly wouldn’t.” When Will is informed of his friend’s death, no dialogue is audible. There is only the sound of running water as Will disassociates and struggles to find his mental calm.
7 Peter Bernadone's Animals Are Released
Season 2 Episode 8, “Su-zakana”
Undeniably one of the saddest episodes of the show, “Su-zakana” follows Peter Bernardone (Jeremy Davies), a kind-hearted animal lover with a traumatic brain injury who has been accused of murder. It is later discovered that his social worker Clark Ingram (Chris Diamantopoulous) is the true killer who has orchestrated a plan to frame Peter for his crimes.
In stark contrast to his role in Hannibal , Chris Diamantopoulous has voiced the Disney character Mickey Mouse since 2013.
After getting too close to revealing the truth, Peter makes the heartbreaking discovery that Ingram has released all of his beloved pets and even shot the very same horse who caused his TBI, sending him into a state of overwhelming grief and panic. Ingram took advantage of Bernardone’s vulnerable state and staged everything down to the most minute detail. Peter is later found sewing Ingram into the horse’s corpse (mirroring Ingram’s own crime) in one of the most shockingly brutal and gory Hannibal scenes.
Peter Bernardone's character is named after the Catholic patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi, whose full name was Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone.
Will identifies heavily with Peter, telling him, “What was done to you was cruelty for cruelty’s sake.” Peter replies, “I think he deserves to die,” and Will tells him, “But you didn’t deserve to kill him.” Bernardone’s loss of innocence and stability is not only devastating to watch in such a wholesome character, but it also drives home Will’s own rapid decline as he succumbs to his violent urges.
6 Margot's Forced Sterilization
Season 2 Episode 11, “Ko no Mono”
Throughout the show, Margot Verger (Katharine Isabelle) undergoes constant physical and psychological abuse by her deranged brother Mason (Michael Pitt), and childhood sexual assault is heavily implied. The most repugnant incident occurs when Mason arranges to have Margot forcibly sterilized to prevent her from producing a Verger heir.
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Margot’s abject horror as she lies on the exam table, disoriented and hyperventilating, is the most chilling shot of the series. Mason tells Margot, “They’re going to find something wrong with your lady parts, Margot. Or so the record will state. The doctor will advise me that it’s best if they take…everything.”
In the Thomas Harris novels, Margot Verger is a body builder and has been in therapy with Dr. Hannibal Lecter since she was a child.
Psychological abuse as well as loss of autonomy and identity are themes central to the series on the whole. Fuller draws parallels to Will Graham's own character arc in those of several supporting characters, including the character of Margot Verger, which was changed for the TV show, for one important reason. Witnessing Margot's haunting loss of control over her own body (not to mention her claim to her family inheritance) is one of the darkest scenes of this already twisted show.
5 Hannibal Is Exposed As The Chesapeake Ripper
Season 2 Episode 13, “Mizumono”
In season 2, as he begins to succumb to Hannibal's influence and emerge as a killer in his own right, Will Graham murders Randall Tier and then tabloid journalist Freddie Lounds (Lara Jean Chorostecki) upon her discovery of Tier's remains. Following Lounds' death, Will calls to warn Hannibal of their impending capture, which leads to a bloodbath at the Lecter residence as well as Will’s horrified realization that Hannibal did not flee. The Hannibal season 2 finale is the most poignant – and difficult to watch – of the series, capturing the heartbreak and fatal mess that follows Dr. Lecter's manipulation.
In the opening scenes of Red Dragon (2002), Dr. Lecter stabs Will Graham in his library when he realizes the criminal profiler has uncovered his cannibalistic nature. The season 2 Hannibal finale draws heavily from the source material - Hannibal even uses a curved blade similar to the Spyderco Civillian referenced in the 1999 Hannibal novel.
Unleashing his feelings of rejection, Hannibal stabs Will, telling him, “I let you know me, see me. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.” As Will bleeds out, Dr. Lecter says, “You can make it all go away. Put your head back. Close your eyes. Wade into the quiet of the stream.” This indirectly references Hannibal in Red Dragon (2002), when he says, “I don’t want you to feel any pain (...) It’s so gentle, like slipping into a warm bath.” This dichotomy of concern and violence highlights Hannibal’s haunting but failed attempts at maintaining his humanity.
4 Bella’s Assisted Suicide
Season 3 Episode 4, “Aperitivo”
Following her long battle with terminal lung cancer and resultant suicide attempt, Jack Crawford eventually decides to honor his sick wife’s wishes, filling a syringe with morphine and injecting it into Bella’s IV. There is a tender moment as he climbs into bed beside her and kisses her forehead as she passes. Later, as Dr. Alana Bloom (Catherine Dhavernas) stands in their bedroom helping to choose Bella’s funeral garb, Jack tells her, “Bella's dead. That should change the view from these windows. It's not right if the view stays the same. It’s not right.”
Jack Crawford and Bella Crawford's actors (Laurence Fishburne, Gina Torres) were married in real life during the filming of Hannibal.
The most touching part of Jack and Bella Crawford’s relationship is a montage of parallel scenes following her death: Jack dressing himself for Bella’s funeral as her body is simultaneously seen being prepared. There is a cut to their wedding day, an allusion to the white dress in which he buries her, and another parallel is drawn when Bella walks down the aisle to him and Jack kisses her on her forehead.
3 Hannibal And Will Reunite
Season 3 Episode 6, “Dolce”
After 3 seasons of death, psychosis, and suffering, viewers are finally given a Will and Hannibal reunion scene full of wholesome (and romantic) content. This entire scene is waterworks-worthy as it marks their first conversation since the big fight scene of Hannibal season 2 finale, “Mizumono.” Upon seeing Will sit beside him in the gallery, Hannibal says, “If I saw you every day forever, Will, I would remember this time.” Later, Hannibal asks Will, “What is the difference between the past and the future?” to which Will replies, “Mine? Before you and after you.”
The quote, "Y ou entered the foyer of my mind and stumbled down the hall of my beginnings," is likely a reference to Hannibal's mind palace, which is heavily explored in the Thomas Harris novels, and briefly referenced in Hannibal season 3 when Will visits a cathedral in Italy he knows to be a mental landmark for Hannibal.
As an honorable mention: the following Hannibal quote didn’t make the final cut, but in the original script for the gallery reunion, Hannibal tells Will, “I believe some of our stars will always be the same. You entered the foyer of my mind and stumbled down the hall of my beginnings.” It is unclear whether this conversation is a true representation of his feelings given that he pulls a knife on Hannibal shortly thereafter. However, with Will’s history of trying to kill Hannibal, this does not necessarily preclude genuine affection.
2 The Great Red Dragon Attacks
Season 3 Episode 13, "The Wrath of the Lamb"
The season 3 arc is drawn directly from Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. It follows Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage), a serial killer fixated on William Blake’s Red Dragon, whom he believes is possessing him. Dolarhyde has fallen in love with his coworker Reba McClane (Rutina Wesley), but abducts her when he suspects she has discovered his secret. Francis tells McClane, “I wanted to trust you. You felt so good.” She replies, “So did you, D. I love it. Please don’t hurt me now.” Dolarhyde ultimately has mercy on Reba, staging his own death before setting the house on fire.
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In the aftermath of her escape, Reba tells Will Graham, “He shot himself. I put my hand in it,” but as she was blinded at age 2 by diphtheria, she was unaware the corpse from which she removed the key was not Dolarhyde’s. While Francis Dolarhyde’s crimes are undoubtedly horrific, his character reads as a very disturbed individual struggling with severe childhood trauma and unmanaged Dissociative Identity Disorder. Francis’ arc with Reba is gut-wrenching, as it shows the humanity he was capable of and how things may have been had he received help.
1 Hannibal And Will's Reichenbach Falls
Season 3 Episode 13, “The Wrath of the Lamb”
Having worked together to bait serial killer Francis Dolarhyde (also known as the Great Red Dragon), Hannibal and Will escape to a beach house. Despite knowing Dolarhyde is tracking them, they share a quiet moment over a bottle of wine – the calm before the storm. Hannibal jokes, “Save yourself, kill them all?” To which Will replies, “I don’t know if I can save myself. Maybe that’s just fine.”
"S ave yourself, kill them all," is a direct quote from the 2002 film (and 1981 novel) Red Dragon. In the source material, however, Hannibal instead says this to serial killer Francis Dolarhyde via a coded message, prompting him to attack Will Graham. This begs the question of whether Hannibal also arranged Dolarhyde's attack in the season 3 finale.
Moments later, Will and Hannibal are brutally attacked. After taking down the Red Dragon together, there is one final reference to Garrett Jacob Hobbs, as Hannibal embraces Will and says, “See?” Dr. Lecter goes on to say, “This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us,” to which Will replies, “It’s beautiful.”
The two share a blood-soaked embrace before tumbling off the cliffside in the still-unresolved season 3 Hannibal finale. This final scene signifies the depth of the transformation Hannibal has perpetrated in Will. Graham evolves out of moments like those seen in season 1 episode 5, “Coquilles” when Will says “It’s getting harder and harder to make myself look,” to now finding beauty and euphoria in killing – and perhaps even in his own death.
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Hannibal
Created for TV by Bryan Fuller, Hannibal is a TV adaptation/reimagining of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon novel. The show follows the exploits of FBI criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and their perpetual game of cat and mouse that unfolds over the series. When a string of murders in Minnesota requires a brilliant mind to crack the case, Will Graham is called in to investigate - but due to the intimate and terrifying nature of the crimes, he is appointed Dr. Lecter to act as his psychiatrist. The truth of Dr. Lecter is that he is Will's target - but to complicate matters, he's the only person that can truly understand him.
Release Date April 4, 2013
Seasons 3
Directors Bryan Fuller
English (US) ·