Hannibal: Hugh Dancy's Favorite Scene From The Series

Here's Hugh Dancy's favorite scene from the Hannibal TV series. Will Graham was the protagonist of the first Hannibal Lecter novel Red Dragon, which was published in 1981. Graham was a profiler with a talent for getting into the minds of serial killers, though digging into such darkness takes a toll on his psyche. He was responsible for apprehending Lecter and enlists his help to catch the "Tooth Fairy" killer. William Petersen played Graham in the first adaptation, Michael Mann's excellent Manhunter from 1986.

Edward Norton then stepped into the role for 2002's Red Dragon adaptation, which served as a prequel to Anthony Hopkins' take on Hannibal. Hugh Dancy is the third actor to play Will Graham, taking the part for NBC's Hannibal. The show is something of a reinvention of author Thomas Harris' work, with season 1 seeing Graham as a patient of renowned psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) - who is, of course, a secret cannibalistic killer. Hannibal really dived into the psychological mind games between the two, while also suggesting the two men shared a powerful - if destructive - love for one another.

Related: Hannibal: What Beverly Saw In Lecter’s Basement Before Her Death

Hannibal lasted for three seasons, with its devoted fanbase still hoping for a fourth. The season 3 finale took the concept of a cliffhanger to new heights, with Will and Hannibal - having killed the Tooth Fairy together in a brutal fight - embracing after the deed is done. Will, who realized he enjoyed the act of slaughtering someone with Hannibal a little too much, plunges himself and Lecter over the edge. In a post-mortem interview on the finale with EW in 2015, Hugh Dancy also shared his personal favorite sequence from the show.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise as it would probably be the scene that tops the list for most viewers, but Dancy's top moment comes from the season 2 finale "Mizumono." Towards the latter half of the second season, Will had led Hannibal to believe they may have a future together - though he was really setting him up for arrest. Towards the end of the episode, Hannibal bests everyone, leaving Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) and Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas) for dead, while revealing Abigail Hobbs - a teenage girl Will had rescued and grown close to - was still alive and a protege of Lecter's. Hannibal wanted to surprise Will with the reveal, but the heartbroken killer nearly guts Will instead before slitting Abigail's throat. Says Dancy of the harrowing scene:

"I think what that had — not dissimilarily to the very final scene of this season — was a quality where after all of the extraordinary, operatic, slightly hyper-real scenes — where the violence is all very orchestrated — that [kitchen scene] was just brutal. What made it brutal was that he was being so psychologically sadistic, basically. So it was kind of fun. Like the end of this season, it really felt like, even though it was just violence, it felt like a very fitting conclusion to that inner story we’re also trying to tell between Will and Hannibal."

The finale of Hannibal's "Mizumono" is one of the most iconic of the entire series, and its easy to see why Hugh Dancy would pick it. As the actor stated, it has the heightened, operatic feel of the best of the show, in addition to some stunning reveals. The consequences of this episode also rippled throughout the third season, with the final moments of that season being something of a twisted mirror to the kitchen sequence.

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Next: Where To Stream Hannibal After It Leaves Netflix