There’s really no getting around the fact that with “The Great Red Dragon,” Hannibal has become an entirely different animal. While it’s always had elements of adaptation to it, especially in the beginning of this season, which drew largely from the novel Hannibal, the series has mostly told original stories with the occasional twist on or wink at the source material. The spirit, rather than the letter, of Thomas Harris’s published work, has been followed to this point.
No longer: “The Great Red Dragon” is a near word-for-word adaptation of the first several chapters of the novel Red Dragon, and it is great. It likely goes without saying that it’s far better than Brett Ratner’s film of the same name, but what’s truly excellent here is the way that the episode enriches the source material, expanding upon it in new ways owing to the larger context that the preceding episodes have built up.
For instance, we open immediately on a close up of Richard Armitage as Francis Dolarhyde, discovering his namesake on the cover of Time magazine. It is such a thrill seeing this moment recast with the show’s visual aesthetic and Brian Reitzell’s phenomenal score. We’ve been introduced to countless killers-of-the-week by now, and Dolarhyde is efficiently, thoroughly, and wordlessly established. On the one hand, the show takes advantage of shorthand, as we know the character already. On the other, the images and sounds tell us all we need to know anyway.
In fact, the episode is largely an exercise in returning us to the original format of the show. Jack Crawford recruits a reluctant Will Graham to investigate a case that only he can crack, despite the protests of those close to Will. Alana Bloom and Frederick Chilton trade barbs. Agents Zeller and Price return (FINALLY) and are sassy. And at the end, Will must go to Hannibal for assistance, just as Hannibal always knew he would. They’re all familiar beats, but the characters have been through so much. Three long years have passed since Hannibal was locked away; the context is all different. Whether or not Will should help Jack is a central conflict of Red Dragon, and it has been in Hannibal as well. But it’s remarkable how much more weight their reunion carries, now that the backstory has been dramatized.
It’s a recognizable adaptation of a familiar story, but it is chock full of the inventive flourishes we’ve come to expect from Hannibal. Following Dolarhyde’s introduction, a stunning, wordless sequence plays out of Hannibal’s capture and imprisonment. His reminiscences, like Will’s so often do, take place in his mind palace, and he pictures himself in the church in Florence, listening to a cherubic choir boy singing some version of “Hallelujah,” when really he is stuck in his sterile cell. Alana’s conversation with Hannibal is a nice example of the show enhancing the source material, playing off Alana’s expanded role and her history with Hannibal. She knows he’s not insane, and so does he—but that’s the plea he scored anyway.
Very little actually happens in “The Great Red Dragon” beyond what we’ve already summarized. It’s very prefatory, setting up the final arc of the show. We’re deftly introduced to Dolarhyde and to Molly, Will’s wife of an indeterminate amount of time, who feels like a fully realized character more or less immediately. That’ll be important down the road, of course, but it’s appreciated here as well.
More than anything, “The Great Red Dragon” serves to recalibrate the series following the carnage not just of “Digestivo,” but basically of everything since “Masumono.” It does so spectacularly. One of the episode’s final sequences is a good, old-fashioned crime scene investigation, just like in the early, more procedural days of the show. The swinging pendulum returns at last as Will re-enacts Dolarhyde’s crime, and he finally says that line that has, perhaps unexpectedly, become a catchphrase among fandom: This is my design. It’s awesome. A moment equivalent to Batman suiting up, and yet the feeling of awesomeness makes the audience inherently complicit in what Jack is doing to Will. We know the damage this work is doing to him; we shouldn’t be so jazzed to see it in process. But then there’s that killer shot of him standing over Mrs. Leeds, with the bright red strings of “blood” spray fanning out behind him, becoming illuminated, and it looks too beautifully composed to be concerned for very long.
Stray Observations:
- Next to Molly, Will doesn’t have to sleep on a towel. How’s that for “show, don’t tell”?
- Will’s reunion with Hannibal echoes for a moment that hallucinatory encounter in Italy.
- Hannibal and Chilton discuss the former’s cooking: “And when you last made it for me?” “The blood was from a cow, only in a derogatory sense.” Hannibal is still the stealth-funniest show on TV.
- Chilton promised himself he would never use colons in his book titles because, of course, he did.
- “A snaggle-toothed son of a bitch.” I don’t know why Laurence Fishburne’s delivery cracked me up here, but it sure did.
- NBC isn’t even bothering with previews for upcoming episodes anymore, if you needed any further writing on the wall.
Michael Wampler is a graduate of The College of New Jersey, where he completed both B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature. He currently lives and works in Princeton, NJ while he shops around his debut novel and slowly picks away at his second. Favorite shows include Weeds, Lost, Hannibal and Mad Men (among many more). When not watching or writing about television, he enjoys reading, going for runs, and building his record collection.