The 13 Best ‘Hannibal’ Episodes From The Gory TV Series


“Hannibal” never should’ve worked on broadcast television.

When it premiered a decade ago on April 4, 2013, NBC’s take on Hannibal Lecter (masterfully played by Mads Mikkelson) must have been Standards and Practices’ worst nightmare.

Each episode presented audiences with brutal, blood-drenched killings that were artfully rendered, as if they were paintings sprawled across the ceilings of cathedrals. Bodies were skinned to look like angels, mounted like deer antlers, fertilized as flower beds, hollowed out as human beehives. Creator Bryan Fuller and his executive producer, the late Martha De Laurentiis, repeatedly redrew the line for how much blood could be spilled on TV before your local news aired at 11 p.m.

For good measure, “Hannibal” also set the standard for exquisitely filmed culinary creations that looked good enough to eat –– until you remembered where the chef was sourcing his meat.

Looking back, the boundary-pushing series was far better suited for HBO, or a cable network like FX or AMC. Streaming might have taken a chance on the built-in IP from Thomas Harris’ novels, but Netflix had only just premiered its first original series, “House of Cards,” two months earlier. The concept of a streaming service was still in its infancy.

And yet, “Hannibal” managed to survive three perfectly portioned seasons on broadcast — a lot longer than most of its characters.

At its core was the emotionally charged relationship between gifted FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Mikkelson’s distinctive Hannibal, a serial killer and cannibal who serves as Will’s therapist before slowly inducting him into his murderous worldview. Attempting to wrangle Will’s fragile mental state are his boss, Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), and his friend Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas), an FBI psychiatrist..

The series never attracted the attention of the Television Academy for Emmys, nor did it set Nielsen ratings aflame. But it cultivated a devoted fanbase, known as Fannibals, who still beat the drum for a revival long after the series finale ended with a bloodied embrace and a cliff dive.

In honor of its 10th anniversary, we’ve ranked “Hannibal’s’ 13 best episodes, which is no easy endeavor for a show crafted with the precision of a scalpel. Like any good meal, this ranking is guided by the palette, and may vary by reader.





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