Now that this year's Emmy buzz has been and gone, we can all go back to realising just how invalid the entire awards ceremony is when it fails to honour a show as demonstrably spectacular as NBC's Hannibal.
Following our season two post-mortem with showrunner Bryan Fuller, Digital Spy caught up with leading man Mads Mikkelsen last month to discuss season two's bloody and devastating climax, his ambivalence about the prospect of giving Hannibal a backstory, and the ongoing twisted love story between Hannibal and the object of his obsession, Will Graham.
At the time of our interview, Mikkelsen had "spoken a little" to Fuller about the direction of season three but was yet to see a script.
How did you react when you read the script for the bloodbath that was the season two finale?
I thought it was exactly what it was supposed to be - this is the climax of a big, beautiful piece of music that we've been playing for two seasons now. This is absolutely the climax, with the drums and violins and oboes coming in! It could not finish any other way.
What's going through Hannibal's mind when he stabs Will?
There's a tremendous amount of disappointment that's built up in Hannibal, throughout the last four episodes until the finale. They've agreed on how this is going to end: like one happy family, Hannibal and Will, and as a big surprise Abigail, will walk down this path of love and light! And when I know I've been betrayed by Will, obviously I'm disappointed, so the last standout between us is quite an emotional and quite dramatic goodbye.
At the same time, Hannibal has the ability to say, "That was a chapter of my life, and I'm moving on now," and for that reason he can step over Alana like that, look up into the rain and not really be looking at her. That doesn't mean that she didn't mean anything to him, it just means that he's moving on.
What to Read Next
Hannibal is so far from normal, and yet he does seem to have genuine emotion for people…
I think the way we've done it so far, and this is the way we're going to continue, is that he has never emotionally lied. There's no scene where he's been lying with his emotions. The thing is, he contains all the empathy in the world, but he's not at the mercy of his empathy. He controls it. He chooses when to be happy, when to be sad, when to be melancholic, but they are all true and honest feelings. The people [in that house] all meant a tremendous amount to him, but at the same time, they wouldn't listen! So there's got to be another family out there for him.
In the end it's Hannibal's craving for companionship that allows him to be tricked by Will, isn't it?
I think so, absolutely. He is tricked and yet at the same time, he would have expected it, he wouldn't have asked for less. If Hannibal were Will, he might have done the same. So in one way he's proud of him, and in another way he's disappointed in him.
As I say, I think Hannibal's quite honest and he just sees the beauty in harm, in a way nobody else does. For him, it is as beautiful as a birth. So obviously we're dealing with somebody who's not a psychopath in the classic sense - he has empathy, but he uses it to his own advantage.
It looks as though Hannibal and Will are going to be separated in season three. What's that like as a prospect?
Yeah, it's going to be strange. Obviously I look forward to seeing what's between me and Bedelia - I have a hunch it's going to be interesting! But I'm definitely going to miss Will, and hopefully he will crop up in either a dream or a nightmare, a mental relationship so that we can actually spend some time together again in the show.
Obviously we've been working together non-stop for two years, and we've created a relationship on-screen - and a work relationship as well - that we're really happy and proud of, and feel comfortable with. So hopefully we'll dig it up again, but I'm also ready for a new round with something else.
The season three premiere has been described as a pilot for a new show starring you and Gillian Anderson…
That is quite exciting! That means that Hugh is going to get a lot of time off. Well that's okay, he just had a little boy last year, so I think he needs it.
Bryan mentioned at Comic-Con the idea of doing a "surreal musical dance number" in Hannibal's mind. Are you game for that?
[laughing] Whatever Bryan comes up with is normally interesting! It can be over the line sometimes, but I won't shut it down. Yeah, if he can persuade Dr Chilton to be part of it, I'm fine with it - he can bring his little cane! And Raúl Esparza is a musical star, so I'll just need to background dance on that one.
We've heard hints about Hannibal's backstory in the show, but have you developed that more with Bryan behind-the-scenes?
Not a lot. We kind of decided a long time ago on this idea that he is a fallen angel. He can possess all the qualities that we see in an angel, but for the wrong reasons, so he's a twisted angel. And for that reason, I wasn't as interested as I could have been with other characters to know why he's doing it. I don't think there's a single reason why he is what he is.
There's nothing that happened in his childhood, no moment where it's like, 'That's why'. No, I don't think so. He's something else. There is no diagnosis on him. This is a specific character we will never see again, and so for that reason I think it can be too banal sometimes to say, 'This is why he's like this'. We'll try to avoid that, hopefully, when we go into his history, where we might just see some interesting things in his background, but no excuses for his character.
Will and Hannibal is often talked about as a love story - do you see it in that way?
Absolutely, I do think it's a love story. Not necessarily containing any physical love, at this point - you never know with Hannibal! But think it's a love story, and this is probably the one person for many, many years that Hannibal related so heavily to. He saw a mirror image of himself in this younger version, somebody that was ready to see the light, and not just Hannibal's light, but his own. So there was a lot of emotions and a lot of frustration and disappointment at the end of season two.
It's remarkable how much Hannibal gets past the censors in terms of gore and violence. Have there been any scenes that have shocked you, either when you read them or saw them?
Never when I've seen it - quite a few times when I read it. Mason Verger's face is definitely one, and the other is like 'So there's a man, coming out of a horse, with a little bird… okay!' But the thing is that everything is lifted up as a picture, it's a beautiful painting, it's in the spirit of Hannibal's love of fine art, so I think that they can get away with it. It's in your face, but it's not in your face in a realistic way, and for that reason I think we can get away with it. I would not enjoy it is as much if it tried to be Walking Dead in your face - that's a different show, which I by the way love, but it's a different kind of thing.
What's been your experience of the Hannibal fan community?
Mine has been limited to when Bryan sends me stuff, or Hugh, because I'm a person from the former millennium, I'm not even on Facebook. So I have no idea what's going on in that part of the world, other than what people tell me.
I couldn't make it to Comic-Con this year, and for that reason I said yes to Edmonton Comic Expo and another one, in the interest of meeting the Fannibals as they're called. I know it was crazy at Comic-Con, and hopefully it'll be just as wild in Edmonton!
Hannibal season two is released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 22.
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
