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"Dolce" is the sixth episode of Season 3, and the thirty-second produced hour of Hannibal. It aired on July 9, 2015.

Plot[]

Bedelia Du Maurier and Hannibal Lecter sense their time in Florence is coming to an end, while Jack Crawford questions Will Graham's loyalty. Hannibal plans for his final stand. Back in the States, Mason Verger hungrily makes plans for Hannibal's capture, while Alana Bloom and Margot Verger makes plans of their own for Mason.

Synopsis[]

Will arrives in Florence where he meets Jack and they discuss how to proceed in the search for Lecter. Their first stop is the house where he was staying as Dr. Fell. Dr. Du Maurier has stayed behind after coming to an agreement with Hannibal to support each other's stories. Altering her own responses by shooting heroin, she clings determinedly to her identity as Mrs. Fell, even though Will and Jack both know her as Du Maurier. Back in Baltimore, the Vergers and Alana go over the bounty for Lecter. After it's confirmed that Pazzi has been killed in pursuit of Lecter, Alana suggests that they may need an entire department. Margot leaves to make arrangements. Mason asks Margot what she wants and she reminds him that he took away her ability to have children. He raises the possibility that she could still have a child with him. Afterwards, Margot has a sexual encounter with Alana and asks her if she knows how to harvest sperm. An inspector from the police headquarters in Florence comes to interrogate Du Maurier and speaks to Jack about Lecter's history in America. Will goes to a gallery where he meets Lecter. The two men have a civil discussion, but when they leave Will takes out a knife to kill Lecter. Before he can do so, Chiyoh shoots him from a nearby roof with a sniper rifle. Lecter takes Will to another hideout and removes the bullet. Jack tracks Will to where Lecter is keeping him and attempts to free him. Lecter ambushes Jack, slitting his Achilles' tendon and tying him to a chair at the dining table. He begins to cut into Will's head with a cranial saw. Before he can get far the policemen bought off by Mason enter. Will and Lecter are both brought to the Verger home.

Extras[]

  • Mason’s line about Margot weaponizing her uterus and waving it around like a loaded pistol originated in a deleted scene from “Tome-wan,” which is on the Season 2 DVD and Blu Ray. 
  • The creative genesis for the Alana/Margot relationship is the audio commentary for “Naka-Choko,” wherein Bryan Fuller speaks about the backlash in the fan community to Margot having sex with Will. Caroline Dhavernas then asks whether we will see Margot have lesbian sex on the show and volunteers herself. Fuller had the DVD producer delete a portion of the commentary track to remove potential spoilers once he decided to pursue the storyline, although the edited version still includes Fuller saying, “Margot and Alana. You heard it here first.”
  • Giorgio Lupano, the actor who plays Inspector Benetti, was originally going to play Sogliato, but his schedule did not permit him to take the role. 
  • The piece playing when Jack enters Sogliato's apartment is a setting of “Ave Maria" composed by Patrick Cassidy, who composed “Vide Cor Meum” for the 2001 film Hannibal. Cassidy debuted this piece at the 2011 unveiling of Martón Váró's sculpture of The Annunciation in Ave Maria, Florida. To date, it has not been released on record, but can be heard here.

Book to Show[]

  • This episode continues the show’s loose adaptation of the novel Hannibal.
  • Jack and Will’s dialogue about how Pazzi could have gotten a warrant but instead became a bounty hunter comes from narration in the book.
  • Will’s line that Hannibal was attracted not to the torture exhibit but to the crowd comes from narration in the novel.
  • Hannibal’s drawing of Florence is similar to the one in his prison cell in The Silence of the Lambs, which was done from memory and includes the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo as he mentions in the show.
  • Mason’s father being a pioneer in livestock production, and calling meat a people business, comes from narration in the novel. Mason previously referenced these lines in “Naka-Choko” and “Kō No Mono,” respectively.
  • In the book, Mason plans to feed Hannibal to his pigs. Since the show already used this plot point earlier, the writers invented Mason’s new plan to eat Hannibal himself.
  • Cordell's culinary acumen is an invention of the show.
  • Mason’s “transubstantiation” line calls back to “Aperetivo,” and initially comes from narration in the novel Hannibal as Mason hatches his plot.
  • The episode loosely adapts Chapter 37 of the novel, when Mason learns that Hannibal has killed Pazzi and escaped. In the book, this occurs through a phone call from Carlo. Mason crab-walking his hand to reach the phone button is a detail from this and other chapters in the book. Mason answers the phone the same way he does in the novel (“I’m here. Tell me”). Margot speaks a censored version of Carlo’s “shit will fly” line from the book, and the subsequent dialogue about whether Pazzi was dirty and worrying about the authorities tracing Pazzi back to Mason also come from Mason and Carlo’s talk. The show deviates from the book beginning when Carlo’s response that he has to take care of himself changes to Alana saying Mason “took care of Pazzi.” 
  • Mason’s “dead dago” line comes from slightly later the book. Mason saying he has little interest in the expensive piece of meat twitching at the end of the electrical cord comes from narration when Mason sees the video of Pazzi hanging. 
  • Alana’s line that Hannibal could disappear too well leaving Mason with nothing was spoken by Pazzi in “Contorno” as well, and originates from Pazzi’s thoughts in the novel.
  • Mason buying the entirety of the Questura is an invention of the show not present in the book
  • Bedelia’s dialogue saying she learned about Hannibal from the mute postures of the dead comes from the Prologue to Hannibal Rising, as does her line about Hannibal turning from the teat and entering the world. Will’s reference to the “hot darkness” of Hannibal’s mind also comes from the Prologue.
  • Bedelia imitates Hannibal’s brainwashing of Miriam Lass, which itself was based on what Hannibal does to Clarice Starling near the end of the novel Hannibal. Will mentions scopolamine and midazolam as two of the drugs on the table. These are two of the drugs Hannibal steals from the hospital in the novel, while planning his brainwashing of Clarice.
  • Margot’s line about cleaning up and starting over is spoken by Mason in the book, in a rage after Hannibal’s escape from Muskrat Farm, and moments before Margot kills him.
  • Mason and Margot’s “Santa’s lap” dialogue is mostly paraphrased from the book, with the added reference to Mason having taken away Margot’s ability to procreate (which is an invention of the show). The show reverses the characters’ perspectives somewhat: in the book, Margot is begging Mason for his sperm, and Mason proposes that she “buy” a Chinese baby because they’re cheaper than shoats (Margot acknowledges that adoption is a good thing to do, as in the episode, and says she and Judy might do that too). In the book, Margot speaks the line about she and Judy wanting “a Verger baby, our own baby” and also the reference to Mason’s “viable sperm” — both of which were spoken by Mason in “Kō No Mono,” and again here. Mason’s dialogue about being good to a child and going to parenting classes is spoken (much less ironically) by Margot in the book.
  • Hannibal draws Will and Bedelia’s faces into the Primavera. This calls to mind his using Clarice’s face for his “crucifixion watch” sketch in The Silence of the Lambs, and the drawing of Clarice’s face on a griffon’s body he sends her in Hannibal.
  • Hannibal’s line, “If I saw you every day forever...” comes from the novel Hannibal, where he says it to Clarice when she comes down to dinner in the gown he selected for her near the end of the book.
  • Hannibal echoes advice Jack Crawford gives Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs when she is furious at Chilton for moving Hannibal and ruining her plan: “Now’s the hardest test—not letting rage and frustration keep you from thinking.” (Hannibal adds forgiveness as well.)
  • In the books, Dr. Alan Bloom (a male) and Margot Verger are never seen meeting. Margot has a girlfriend named Judy Ingram in the novel, and Alan Bloom has a wife in the book Red Dragon. In the show, Alana doubles not only for Judy, but also for Margot’s friendship with Barney during his time collaborating with the Vergers in the book.
  • Inspector Benetti is named in tribute to a character in the 2001 film adaptation of the novel Hannibal, Agent Franco Benetti. The show’s corrupt version of Benetti shares little with the film character beyond the name and employment with the Questura: in the movie, Benetti is a very young man who helpfully (albeit slightly flirtatiously) cooperates with Clarice, sending her surveillance videos.
  • Benetti’s line about close attention being brought to bear on Dr. Fell comes from narration in the novel about the Questura investigation into Pazzi’s death.
  • Benetti claims that the man convicted of the Il Mostró killings died in jail. In the novel Hannibal, the suspect Girolamo Tocca has his conviction reversed and is freed. Likewise, all of the real-world men convicted of the crimes have been released, due to reversed convictions, completion of sentence, or for medical reasons.
  • The episode skips over a large portion of the book, jumping largely past Part III (“To the New World,” which lent a couple of sequences to the show, including Clarice/Alana’s strategy for hunting Lecter in “Contorno,” and Mason and Margot’s “baby” dialogue in this episode), and entirely past Part IV (“Notable Occasions on the Calendar of Dread”) and Part V (“A Pound of Flesh”) to the events of Part VI (“A Long Spoon”), substituting Will for Clarice.
  • The dinner sequence is a loose and abridged adaptation of Chapters 99-100 of the novel, when Hannibal serves a drugged Clarice pieces of brain from a still-living Paul Krendler. Notably, at this point in the novel, Clarice ends up in Hannibal’s “care” after she is shot and he takes her to a secret hideout, much like Will in the show. All of Hannibal and Will’s dialogue about taste and smell up through the line about dinner being more engaging than theater come from Hannibal’s dialogue in the book. The “You never ask, it spoils the surprise” exchange also comes from dialogue with Clarice in this sequence. The exchange about the “parsley and thyme infusion” is between Krendler and Hannibal in the novel. In the novel, Hannibal uses the autopsy saw on Krendler at the table, just as he does with Will on the show.
  • Hannibal saying he does not indulge much in regret and listing the things he would have liked to have done in Italy comes from his thoughts in the book (the show replaces his last item, cooking for the Widow Pazzi, with wanting to show Will Florence).
  • Benetti’s dialogue about having in his hand the photos taken for Dr. Fell’s state work permit comes from narration in the novel when Pazzi receives these items (albeit in his book the photo does resemble Hannibal, further confirming his suspicions).

Cut Scenes[]

  • According to the audio commentary, an early draft of the script had the Will/Hannibal reunion occur in the Palazzo Capponi. Sogliato (before the decision was made to kill him off earlier in the season) is hiding inside the iron maiden throughout the scene.
  • In the script, as Hannibal and Will walk by the Uffizi, both Will and Hannibal slide knives into their palms, indicating that they are each planning to kill one other. The final edit shows only Will palming a knife.
  • The script set the beginning of the fourth act in a drug-induced vision of Hannibal’s Baltimore dining room, with Hannibal and Will uninjured, wearing coats and ties. Director Vincenzo Natali instead conceived the surreal sequence as seen in the episode.
  • An early draft of the script had a fight scene between Jack and Chiyoh in the elevator, which the writers decided was ill-advised. 
  • On the audio commentary, Fuller reveals that at one point, there was a plan to have the autopsy saw appear to Will (in his drugged state) as a Cronenberg-esque squirming firefly pupa in Hannibal’s hand.

Navigation[]

Season 3 Episodes

AntipastoPrimaveraSecondoAperitivoContornoDolceDigestivoThe Great Red DragonAnd the Woman Clothed With The SunAnd the Woman Clothed In Sun... And the Beast From the SeaThe Number of the Beast is 666The Wrath of the Lamb

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