Hannibal Review: “…And the Beast From the Sea” (3×11)

As Hannibal has adapted Red Dragon proper, it has been as consistently great as we’ve come to expect from the series, but it has also been something new: conventional. Up until now, this final stretch of episodes has been a fairly straightforward adaptation of the source material, and while it has been an undoubtedly skillful adaptation, it has also been something of a transliteration. Given the series’ earlier inventiveness—it’s willingness to subvert and sometimes wholesale alter the source material (a key plot point from Red Dragon, for instance, was exhausted some time ago)—these episodes can feel a little by-the-numbers, even if the quality itself hasn’t dipped.

Perhaps it is this sense of security that lends the middle sequence of “…And the Beast From the Sea” its palpable urgency. Dolarhyde’s attack on Will’s family, as prompted by Hannibal, is, in the novel, a final flourish, one that gives Thomas Harris’s story a typical thriller conclusion, which establishes Hannibal as a lingering, unkillable threat to Will’s well-being. By moving this sequence to the middle of the story, having it occur before Will and company even know who the Tooth Fairy is, Bryan Fuller has deftly moved us back into uncharted territory. The hunt for this new killer is distinctly more personal now. In terms of macro-narrative, the conflict between Will and Hannibal is now, once again, directly related to the plot of the season.

This is a sort of invention that we expect from Hannibal, and the sort that I hadn’t realized I was missing until that pulse-pounding chase through Will’s darkened house. We may know the general shape of things to come, but the emotional impact on our central characters is properly foregrounded once more. The big shift, the final narrative turn, will no longer bill the capture of Dolarhyde, or even his final, fitful attempt to harm Will as Hannibal’s surrogate—it will instead be the final shift of Hannibal’s relationship with Will, and on what note the show will leave their dynamic.

With that reshuffling in mind, the various pieces of the Red Dragon story fall into clearer relief. As Alana, Jack, and Will discuss Will’s run-in with Dolarhyde, which constitutes the first solid lead they’ve got. The focus is instead on Jack’s less-than-honorable approach to the investigation, as it becomes increasingly obvious that he is repeating the same mistakes that led Will into such a mess in the first place. When Molly takes a bullet, the consequences of Jack’s callous manipulation are all too clear. And yet—and Molly knows this—Will won’t say no anyway. He will always take Jack’s call. He will always go to Hannibal’s cell.

Alana’s arc, too, becomes more about playing the emotional fallout of the preceding series than it is about the particular plot mechanics at play now. When she strips Hannibal of his cell’s various amenities, she isn’t just punishing him for his interference in the investigation. She’s also inflicting on him the same indignities that he

has inflicted upon her, Will, Margot, and upon everyone he has ever come into contact with, to some extent or another. It’s no mistake that this scene, in which Alana’s staff strips Hannibal’s cell bare, is the first to explicitly confirm that the space was never real at all, just a figment of Hannibal’s imprisoned imagination. The constructed relationships between all of these people have collapsed, either under the weight of too much tragedy, or under the stress of being rent totally and purposefully asunder.

All of that brings us back around to Francis Dolarhyde, who in this episode begins his own conflict of identity. The Great Red Dragon begins to manifest itself as its own being, separate from Francis, and it calls into question for Francis his very sanity. This is new for Francis—for all he’s done. His sanity has never been in question. But how can he continue to murder, when he also feels this love for Reba? Hannibal’s solution, of course, is simply to feed the dragon elsewise—this was Hannibal’s solution to his love for Will, as well. In a way it’s a simple analogy: the Great Red Dragon is to Francis Dolarhyde as the Wendigo is to Will Graham. The common thread is Hannibal Lecter.

 

Stray Observations:

• Molly really is a badass. I love that in this adaptation, they’ve given her much more agency than she had in either the novel or in the film.
• There is a particularly great shot of Will confronting Hannibal—a clean line dividing them, Hannibal in a field of white, Will succumbing to darkness.
• Potential spoilers for the final two episodes: the major plot point of Red Dragon that has previously been exhausted is, of course, Freddie Lounds’s fiery wheelchair death, which was presented in season two as a ruse, but which in the novel leads directly to the discovery of Dolarhyde’s identity. Given that many of the newspaper communication games from the novel have been elided entirely from the show, I imagine that the conclusion will be markedly different from here on out.