What actually happens
A swapped clock drawing and a surprise ear
Will Graham can feel what a serial killer feels, which helps the FBI and wrecks his sleep. Jack Crawford, who runs Behavioral Sciences, has psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter supervise him. Hannibal is secretly a cannibal and a serial killer, and he uses the job to push Will toward a breakdown. Across season one he helps Abigail Hobbs hide a body, serves organs from his victims to guests at a dinner party, and kills a patient and another killer in his own office. Will begins losing time. A scan shows advanced encephalitis, and Hannibal asks the neurologist to keep it from him. When Will draws a clock wrong, Hannibal later swaps the drawing for a normal one so that Jack will think Will is faking. In the finale Will wakes from a dream about hunting a stag, finds blood on his hands, and brings up an ear in the sink. He escapes custody, works out that Hannibal is the real Copycat killer, and nearly attacks him, but Jack shoots Will first. Will ends the season locked in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Copycat murders.
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Hannibal smells the betrayal on Will
Season two opens with Jack fighting Hannibal in Hannibal's home and barricading himself in the pantry, then jumps back three months. Will, in the hospital, wants to prove Hannibal framed him, and Alana Bloom is the only person who listens. Hypnotherapy helps Will remember Hannibal making him swallow Abigail's ear. At Will's trial a bailiff turns up mutilated in ways that mirror the Copycat murders, and Will concludes it was not the Copycat. Will is released and goes back to FBI work while secretly pretending to be Hannibal's ally. Hannibal takes on a new client, Margot Verger, who wants to kill her abusive brother Mason, and he encourages her. Randall Tier, a former patient who built a suit from fossilized skeletons, goes on a killing spree, and Will fights and kills him. Later Mason's men grab Hannibal, and Mason wants Will to be the one who feeds him to the pigs. Will frees Hannibal instead, and Hannibal talks Mason into cutting off his own face. In the finale Will and Hannibal plan to flee together, but Hannibal catches the scent of Freddie Lounds on Will and realizes he has been betrayed. Jack and Hannibal fight, Abigail pushes Alana out of a window, and Hannibal wounds Will and Abigail.
A Dante lecture to upstage a professor
Several months later Hannibal is in Paris, murdering a couple so that he and Bedelia Du Maurier can take their identities. They move on to Florence, where he gives a lecture on Dante to upstage a professor who challenged him. Will survives the stabbing and wakes in the hospital, where Abigail visits him. He later realizes he has been hallucinating her and that she died of her injuries. He heads for Italy. In Aukštaitija he visits Hannibal's childhood home, where Chiyoh looks after the place and a man is caged in the cellar, and she agrees to help him find Hannibal. Back in Florence, Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi, who looked into Hannibal two decades ago, learns that Mason Verger will pay millions for Hannibal's capture. Mason plans to eat Hannibal alive. Pazzi tries to get Hannibal's fingerprints and ends up dead. Police hired by Mason then kidnap Hannibal and Will. Hannibal talks Margot and Alana into freeing him.
Hannibal gives the next killer a home address
Three years after Hannibal's arrest, Francis Dolarhyde has become obsessed with a painting and murders happy families on every full moon and leaves mirror shards on their eyes and mouths. Jack talks a retired Will into helping. Hannibal, now locked in the Baltimore State Hospital, agrees to help catch Dolarhyde, while Alana, now the hospital's administrator, warns him to stay in line. Dolarhyde dates Reba and wakes up horrified that the Dragon has picked her as its next victim. He tells Hannibal he is afraid of killing her, and Hannibal gives him Will's home address instead. Dolarhyde attacks Will's wife Molly and her son Walter, who escape although Molly is shot. The scene people dread most comes in the second-to-last episode, "The Number of the Beast Is 666". Dolarhyde abducts Frederick Chilton and makes him look at photos of the murders. He bites Chilton's lips off, mails them to Hannibal, eats one, and sets Chilton on fire. Expect it near the end of the season.
The ending, explained
Dolarhyde sets his house on fire and appears to die in it while Reba gets out. Will visits Hannibal one last time and says he turned Hannibal down knowing it would lead Hannibal to give himself up. Dolarhyde turns out to have faked his death by killing another man, and he attacks Will. Will, Jack and Alana plan a staged escape for Hannibal to draw Dolarhyde out, and Hannibal agrees after Will asks him personally. Dolarhyde kills the guards during it, and Hannibal takes Will to the cliffside house where he once kept Abigail and Miriam Lass. Dolarhyde ambushes and wounds them both, and the two of them finish him off together after a brutal fight. Hannibal tells Will that this is everything he ever wanted for him, and Will agrees it is beautiful. Will then embraces him and pulls them both off the cliff. The finale leaves their fates unknown.
The post-credits ruling
Yes. A scene after the season two finale shows Hannibal on a French airplane with Bedelia Du Maurier. A second one after the series finale shows Du Maurier at a table set for three, with her leg amputated and cooked.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog dies, though one is seen hurt in an episode.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Hannibal scary?
Yes. Hannibal is a 6.5 out of 10, with medium dread that lasts about a night. It is slow psychological horror with some brutal, elaborately staged murders, and it has jump scares.
How does Hannibal end?
Will and Hannibal kill the serial killer Francis Dolarhyde together. Will then pulls Hannibal off a cliff in an embrace, and the Hannibal finale leaves their fates unknown.
Does the dog die in Hannibal?
No dog dies in Hannibal. A dog is seen hurt and whimpering in one episode, but it does not die. Other animals do die: a deer is shot and gutted in one episode, and a dead cat is shown in a cardboard box.
Is there a post-credits scene in Hannibal?
Yes. Hannibal has one after the season two finale, showing Hannibal on a plane with Bedelia Du Maurier, and one after the series finale, showing Du Maurier at a table set for three.
Who is the Copycat killer in Hannibal?
Hannibal himself. In the season one finale Will realizes that Hannibal called Garret Jacob Hobbs and is the real Copycat, and that Hannibal has been manipulating him since they met.
