Hannibal Season 3, Episode 11
"...And The Beast from the Sea"
Original airdate: August 15, 2015
Writers: Steve Lightfoot, Bryan Fuller
Director: Michael Rymer
Cast: Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Richard Armitage, Laurence Fishburne, Rutina Welsey
So much of Hannibal is about the uncharted territory of one of pop culture's greatest monsters. Bryan Fuller and his writing team built their series on the scaffold of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, but for the first and second seasons, and even the first half of the third, they were only echoes of Harris and previous adaptations. Here in the home stretch of the show, many of those freedoms are gone, as the adaptation of the Red Dragon story pushes the series into more and more familiar territory.
In that way, "...And the Beast from the Sea" might be the toughest needle to thread of any episode this season (except perhaps the finale, which we'll get to), so how does the show get around that and keep things unpredictable? By making this a story about the Murder Husbands fighting, of course.
Will begins the episode knowing full well that Hannibal sent him into a trap at the museum last week, when the Red Dragon roughed him up, ate a priceless William Blake painting, and just generally caused mayhem. Jack and Alana, when Will breaks it down for them, see the same connections, just as Will realizes that they'd always intended for him to go to Hannibal and gain these kinds of insights. Will is once again fully wrapped up in one of Jack Crawford's schemes, even calling him "Jack Crawford: Fisher of Men." For Will, Jack has become a dark messiah not unlike Hannibal, but sometimes you have to dance with the one that brung you.
Back in the Dragon's world, things are coming apart quickly, because Dolarhyde is very aware that his murderous alter ego would rather exist in a world without Reba. In another of their clandestine phone calls, which Dolarhyde imagines taking place face-to-face in Hannibal's office, he tells his would-be mentor that "It wants her," this kind and loving influence in his life that's finally softened him, made him feel like a person rather than a vessel for a monster. Hannibal, ever the helpful therapist, suggests that perhaps the way out of harming Reba is turning the Dragon's attention to another set of victims, and wouldn't you know it, the guy who tried to stop Dolarhyde in the museum happens to have a family.
So the Dragon returns to the hunt, stalking the grounds of the Graham family's secluded compound, making note of the dogs, the movements of Will's wife and stepson, then watching the footage he's shot back at home, with Reba reclined beside him, completely unaware that she's snuggled up with a murderer casing his next family annihilation. Richard Armitage plays these moments beautifully, struggling to be the man who can have it all but very aware that he may have to make some sacrifices, sooner rather than later.
While Will visits Hannibal and rages, Dolarhyde plots the next Dragon hunt, poisoning the family dogs in such a way that Molly Graham (Nina Arianda) is convinced it was her fault for buying cheap, pre-made dog food. The dogs are fine, but while they recover at the vet, she decides she won't tell Will out of sheer embarrassment, which means he never gets the clue that his family is in danger. The stage is set.
And once it's set, director Michael Rymer leaps into the tension of Dolarhyde's assault on the Graham household, complete with silenced pistol, black clothes, and a sheer mask reminiscent of the one we see the Dragon sport in Michael Mann's Manhunter. He's efficient, smart, and whisper-quiet, but Molly Graham has imagined this scenario a thousand times. Without the crush of the family's many dogs, the house is almost silent, so when she hears movement, she immediately knows what's happening, and manages to sneak away with Walter. Dolarhyde figures out their plan just fast enough to shoot and wound Molly as she drives away, but the Grahams have all survived…for now.
At the hospital, Hugh Dancy gives what might be his best performance of the season so far. He's furious, understandably, but he's also deeply worried, not just that his wife and son will be forever scarred (physically and otherwise) by their encounter, but that the family he fought so hard to build will simply crumble. He feels it when he sees his stepson, who urges him to kill the Red Dragon, but he feels it more when he sees Molly. Their conversation is not quite a breakup, and not quite a full recommitment, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. Will feels his world unraveling, and worse; he feels the old madness calling again.
In his failure to destroy the Grahams, Dolarhyde takes solace in his ongoing transformation, but also realizes he now has a terrible sacrifice to make, beat into him (literally) by the spirit of the Dragon. He breaks up with Reba, so he won't kill her. He can't explain this, of course, but he's at least able to say a version of it, and she's at least able to understand that he's being straight with her. The way Armitage plays Dolarhyde, as a man who could so easily have tipped into absolute kindness rather than absolute evil in the right environment, is often as heartbreaking as it is terrifying.
For his part in all of this, Hannibal's about to pay dearly. Alana's figured out that the calls from "his lawyer" are actually from the Red Dragon, and threatens him with the loss of every privilege he has left unless he agrees to let the Feds trace the call. Hannibal agrees, but as Dolarhyde describes on the phone exactly how he had to let Reba go, and the turmoil he's going through, Hannibal breaks and declares, "they're listening." Jack and his team trace the call to Hannibal's old office, but they get no further than that, and fingerprints they've managed to lift along the way still aren't turning up an ID on the Dragon. Alana strips everything from Hannibal, even his toilet.
And here is where we depart from the narrative so carefully laid out in Red Dragon, the basic bone structure on which this episode rests. When Molly talks to Will about how she feels in the wake of the attack, she talks about Hannibal like he's Will's aggrieved ex, and when Will confronts Hannibal, Hannibal behaves as exactly that. Will goes crude and angry, calling Hannibal and Dolarhyde "crazy sons of bitches," but before he can continue his tirade, Hannibal cuts him off and admits to everything before asking "How's the wife?" If there is a secret to the drama of Hannibal as a series, it's in the performances Mikkelsen and Dancy weave together in times like this one. Despite everything, despite all the betrayals and the violence and the simple impish masochism of it all, Hannibal still has moments when it seems like he might be worth trusting, and Will has moments when it seems like he wants to trust.
So, with his wife recovering in the hospital and his friends all ready to damn Hannibal yet again, Will instead looks closer. The Dragon, Hannibal says, "craves change." He quotes Faust, describing the two souls within Francis Dolarhyde, talks about building a new body, othering his old self, becoming something new. It's a rich, rich vein, which we'll get into more soon, and Will cannot resist. He can see the Dragon in his mind's eye now, and like the Stag, he must follow where it leads.
Next Time: "The Number of the Beast is 666"
