Best Hannibal Episodes ranked

Jack devises a plan to apprehend Hannibal, while Hannibal prepares for his departure. Will makes his decision, and it results in devastating consequences.

Will hatches a cunning plot to slay Francis Dolarhyde, using Hannibal Lecter in his ploy. Bedelia voices concern about the perilous plan as Will continues his game with Hannibal, though Will may have to face his darkest fears.

Captured in Italy, Hannibal and Will are brought to Muskrat Farm, where Mason awaits.

During a therapy session, Will shares a vision of how he would kill Hannibal. Meanwhile, an increasingly impatient Jack brings in a surprise witness to help Will catch Hannibal.

Freddie Lounds finds Beverly's sectioned corpse; Will meets the copycat killer and orders him to kill Hannibal. Gideon overhears this and gives Alana the chance to save Will from becoming a murderer.

A city councilman's body is found intertwined with a tree; Jack crashes Hannibal's dinner party to investigate Will's suspicions; a revelation shocks everyone.

Jack and team discover the truth of Freddie Lounds' disappearance. Hannibal shows Will how much Abigail reminded him of his sister.

The FBI is called in when a dead body is discovered, the skull converted into a beehive. Meanwhile Beverly Katz finds a clue about the mural killer that sends her down a deadly path.

The BAU team narrows in on the origin of the discarded bodies from the soupy crime scene, working to discover the killer's artful plan, while Will Graham begins an artful plan of his own from within the asylum.

Will is released from Chilton's Asylum, while the discovery of Miriam Lass gives Jack new hope in finding the Chesapeake Ripper.

Will's willingness to go to dark places strengthens his bond with Hannibal -- and garners Jack's attention; Hannibal gives Margot advice about her brother's violent nature.

While Will continues to assert his innocence, Hannibal and Jack try to come to terms with the fact that he's in jail; Kade Purnell visits Will.

The FBI enlists the help of Dr. Fredrick Chilton in hope of drawing Francis Dolarhyde into an ambush; Will's empathy for Dolarhyde impacts his psyche.

Jack and Will along with Chiyoh arrive in Florence with different agendas for Hannibal while Detective Pazzi gets close.

Following his strange trip to Minnesota, Graham is taken into custody by Crawford for the probable murder of Abigail Hobbs. They find her severed ear in his kitchen sink and her blood under his fingernails. Alana is left devastated by the arrest and is determined to find the cause of Graham's dementia, despite Crawford's insistence that there is no underlying cause. She has him draw a clock when he tells her that Dr. Lecter had him perform a similar test, and the results solidify her belief that there is a physical explanation for Graham's instability.

Bedelia and Hannibal feel their time in Florence is coming to an end; Jack questions Will's loyalty.

Lecter's patient Franklin Froideveaux worries that his friend Tobias may be a psychopath, but Franklin's growing obsession with Lecter is what concerns the latter more. Graham investigates the murder of a Baltimore musician who had his throat opened and a cello neck inserted through his mouth. Graham, with Lecter's guidance, interprets this as one killer serenading another. Graham's mental stability deteriorates further when he begins having auditory hallucinations of animals in pain and when his romantic feelings for Alana Bloom are rejected.

Jack Crawford risks his job by going against the FBI's directives and revealing to the court that it was his hand that pushed Will to his limit.

Following an offhand comment by Graham, a comb left in the chamber of Georgia Madchen, who accidentally sparks a fire inside her hyperbaric chamber and is burned to death. Angered, Graham deduces that several recent murders were all the work of a copycat patterning after recent serial murders, and that Georgia was killed because she may have remembered the face of whoever had killed Dr. Sutcliffe.

Beth LeBeau is found murdered, having drowned in her own blood as a result of her face being cut into a Glasgow smile. Graham's mental state continues to sharply decline; he loses hours at a time and when a vivid hallucination causes Graham to contaminate the crime scene, Lecter refers him to a neurologist, an old residency colleague, Dr. Sutcliffe.

A nurse at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane is brutally murdered by a patient, Dr. Abel Gideon, in a manner reminiscent of the "Chesapeake Ripper", who hasn't committed a murder in two years, the same number of years Gideon has been incarcerated. While Graham tries to discover whether Gideon truly is the Ripper, Crawford receives a phone call, apparently from the real Ripper, who plays the recorded voice of Miriam Lass, a trainee Crawford had consulting on the Chesapeake Ripper case two years previously when she suddenly disappeared.

Will assists the investigation into a woman's body found inside a horse, while Alana frets about Will's intentions toward Hannibal. With the clock ticking, Will and Hannibal race to protect a witness they believe to be in great peril.

Hannibal has been imprisoned for three years at the Baltimore State Hospital when a new villain emerges in one Francis Dolarhyde. Jack reaches out to Will to help him track down the brutal serial killer.

Dr. Abel Gideon escapes from custody and begins targeting the psychiatrists who attempted to treat him, displaying their bodies with a Colombian necktie. While Alana Bloom is put under protective custody, Gideon kidnaps Dr. Frederick Chilton and lures Freddie Lounds into a trap, forcing her to write an article about him. Meanwhile, Graham's undiagnosed Encephalitis drives his temperature up, causing severe hallucinations.

After the devastating bloodbath at Lecters home Hannibal establishes a new life for himself in Italy along with the company of his own psychiatrist Bedelia.