[Spoiler Warning]
When it was first announced that NBC is canceling
Hannibal, a critical darling with a very specific but passionate fanbase, it was made clear by showrunner Bryan Fuller that alternative options are being explored for the extension of the series. But as
Constantine fans are well aware, sometimes there are no options and, as time passes, extension is looking less and less like a possibility. This means that the finale of the third season would not only have to wrap up the current storyline but also act as a series finale in case renewal becomes impossible, and what better way to do that then to have Will Graham embrace his dark side and seemingly kill both himself and Hannibal Lecter?
Throughout various interviews, Bryan Fuller has talked in depth about the series, its finale and the possibility of continuation. The following are the highlights of the rather lengthy interviews.
Bryan Fuller answers: Was Will Graham truly intending to die with Lecter?
"[Will] gets so fed up with the machinations of the relationship and that he’s just like 'f**k it, I'm done with you, I’m walking away.' And yet, as he states in the finale, that was all a ruse to get Hannibal to turn himself in. And then when Will is pulled back in to the Red Dragon arc, he’s asking Bedelia, 'is Hannibal in love with me?' and Bedelia is saying 'is this a 'can’t live with him, can’t live without him?'' And essentially it is, and that’s sort of the conclusion Will comes to at the end, 'I can’t live with him, I can’t live without him. This is the scenario where the least amount of people can die,' meaning, 'the two of us.'
"I think when Hannibal says, 'This is all I ever wanted for you; this is all I ever wanted for both of us,' Will is forced to acknowledge that what they just experienced was actually a beautiful thing. He lingers on that feeling of, 'it was beautiful and I will desire it again, and I will be chasing this feeling.’ And as he said to Hannibal earlier, ‘I may not be able to save myself, and that’s just fine.' I feel like we were very honest with the audience in terms of saying exactly what Will does at the end — we said it a few times."
On the relationship between Will Graham and Hannibal:
"It was a love story from the very beginning - it was romantic horror. One of the reasons that I really wanted to do the project is I really wanted to investigate the depths of male friendships -- the intimacy and the power and the loss of self you experience in a brotherhood camaraderie. That was the thing that fascinated me the most and was the root of the story that I wanted to tell.
"In my personal experience, friendships I’ve had in my life have been every bit as intense as relationships I've had that have been sexual, so there's an aspect of that where nothing quite hurts as badly as a friend betraying you. In an infidelity, that type of betrayal between lovers, you understand the human nature and that the heart wants what it wants, and the draw of sexuality and the temptation of that, so you get how human nature is the betrayer in that situation. When it comes to a friend and it’s not about genitals, it's about the souls, it cuts much deeper.
"We felt we had to keep it genuine to the tone of the relationship as we've been telling it in the series, and even in that moment when Will asks if Hannibal is in love with him, and Bedelia [Du Maurier] says, 'Of course he is!' Even in that moment, it's not quite dipping into the physical passions that would be the case if they were both homosexual. But I feel one is ominisexual and one is heterosexual and there's a lot of influence going back and forth. There was a fine line from that #Hannigraham fan fiction in terms of this actually being a homosexual relationship, and what is authentic for the characters in that final moment."
Did Bryan Fuller feel pressure to wrap things up in case the finale is the final episode of the series?
"I think it has more of a series finale vibe to it because the show is canceled. [Laughs] I think if you were watching it [thinking] that there was going to be a fourth season, there would be a different interpretation of events and an excitement of, 'Oh God, how are they going to paint themselves out of this corner?' The intent to end it in this manner never changed the trajectory of [wanting to do] a Season 4.
"We're always looking for a way to end a season in a way we could end the series. We never knew we were coming back. At the beginning of season 3, NBC was talking to me about new development, and that was a pretty big indicator to me that they weren't planning on picking up a Season 4. So I wanted to be sure we had an ending for the story we were telling, but also leave room for a continuation of the tale of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham should we get the option to tell more of it."
On the Siouxsie Sioux song,
Love Crime, used in the finale:
"It was written specifically for the show, and when I heard it, I was like, 'We have to put it in the finale.' [Hannibal composer] Brian Reitzell knew I am a huge Siouxsie Sioux fan and have seen her in concert more times than any other artist in my life. Siouxsie Sioux and David Bowie are kind of like the mom and pop of my musical tastes. We asked and she said, 'actually, I haven’t been inspired to write in a really long time, but this show inspires me and so yes, I’ll do it.'
We talked about the love story, that it was a love story between Will and Hannibal and the song should be a love theme, and she wrote 'Love Crime.' I can’t articulate what an incredible honor it was to have Siouxsie Sioux step out of retirement — she hasn’t released a single in eight years — to write a song for Hannibal."
On the post credits scene:
"[The post-credits scene with Bedelia] was very intentionally setting up another season of the story. It suggests that Hannibal survived, that's the main thrust of it. I guess I should correct that to say that it suggests that at least Hannibal survives. I’m always up for more Gillian Anderson, as much as I can get, however I can get it, so we would’ve seen what happened before and after that stinger in season four. She's sitting at the table with her leg on the table and she's looking absolutely terrified, and she grabs the fork and hides it under her napkin and waits for whoever's going to return. This woman still has some fight in her. We don't know if Hannibal is indeed serving her her leg, or is it Hannibal's uncle Robertus, or Lady Murasaki, or is it Will Graham?"
Frederick Chilton’s continual bad luck:
"We wanted to burn somebody in a wheelchair again, since we had played that gag in the second season, quite intentionally holding onto the thought that that was going to be the inspiration for how Chilton was going to be killed, or attempted to be killed in the third season, in our homage to South Park. 'Oh, no, they killed Kenny, you bastards!' What I loved in the book is that Freddie Lounds lived for a short time after the burn, after being burned alive. And I felt like, 'well, let’s do that with Chilton.' Let's just keep him alive, so if we ever do Silence of the Lambs years from now, with the success of skin grafts, we'll see a Dr. Chilton that is still as feisty as ever.
"There are miraculous leaps and bounds in grafting technology these days, so I always imagined that if we ever got around to Silence of the Lambs, we would see him back control of the institution with a scarred face. There's something so haunting about a scarred Chilton flirting with Clarice Starling in the manner that he does in the book. 'Baltimore can be a really fun town, if you have the right guide.'"
What is next for Hannibal? Are there plans for Season 4 or
The Silence of the Lambs?
"Martha De Laurentiis is looking into financing for a feature film. The Season 4 that we were going to tell is such a restart and reimagining that I still hope in some way that we get to tell a version of that, if not Silence of the Lambs itself, as a miniseries. I would love to return this cast to the big screen from whence they came, and Hannibal Lecter to the big screen, from whence he came. It seems perfectly symmetrical.
"The story of the fourth season, which is a rebranding of the Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter relationship, was very exciting. I looked at it and said, 'This was actually the most interesting aspect of this story.' So I regret we weren't able to tell that. But who knows what the future may bring? The intent to end [the season] in this manner never changed the trajectory of [wanting to do] a Season 4.
"I actually was really excited about exploring the Margot [Verger]/Alana [Bloom] relationship and how they were going to dismantle all of the Verger slaughterhouses and turn them humane. She was going to completely undo the evils of her family with Alana, like a Joan Crawford sitting at PepsiCo’s table saying 'don’t f**k with me, fellas.' I was really excited about that story for Alana and Margot and seeing more of them, and also seeing what it would be like for them to realize that Hannibal might be coming back into their orbit.
"This is an arc for a season that I want to do and we can either do it in Season 4 or we can do our version of Silence of the Lambs in Season 4 and then get back to it in Season 5. But I really feel like it organically goes in Season 4, before any sort of Silence of the Lambs arc, because there’s a lot to address and a lot to unpack. So I stand by this ending as the appropriate ending for Season 3, whether it was going into a Season 4 or whether it was ending where it stood.
"I'd love Ellen Page [to play Clarice Starling]. I think she would be a great Clarice - but I also love the idea of casting somebody who's not white in that role. Having race play a factor in Clarice's background, in a way that race plays a factor in everybody's background, I think that would be an interesting exploration of the character.
"You know, there is a plot point in the novel Hannibal that has not been in any of the [film] adaptations. And so, it's important for me to protect that and hopefully be able to tell it one day. Of course, the Fannibals are so smart and know the books so well that I'm sure it won't be too big of a stretch to figure out exactly what it would be.
"[The studio] explored Kickstarter for a film. They’ve talked about traditional financing. So there are conversations still ongoing and I'm mainly curious how the audience will react to this finale and whether the audience will say, 'Okay, great, you scratched our back. We’re satisfied. That feels like an appropriate ending and we’re done with the story now.' Or if the audience is going to say, 'I want more of Mads Mikkelson and Hugh Dancy and their mindf**kery.'"
Full Interviews:
Variety
IGN
TV Line
Hitfix
Digital Spy
Seattle PI
Synopsis
The dark and haunting series HANNIBAL returns for a third season, revealing the fates of characters hanging in the balance, and the continuing psychological cat-and-mouse games they face.
After the shocking events of the Season 2 finale, Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) is on the run in Europe - accompanied by his psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson) - sporting a new identity, but servicing the same insatiable appetite. As the lives of Will (Hugh Dancy), Jack (Laurence Fishburne) and Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) converge toward Hannibal again, each with their own motivations to catch him once and for all, their deadly dance turns in startling and unexpected ways.
In the second half of the season, Jack implores Will to help him catch a new threat, a serial killer preying on families, known in the press as the Tooth Fairy, but self-proclaimed as The Great Red Dragon. The hunt may force Will to turn to an unwelcome source of insight - his old adversary, Hannibal.