Content Warning: Disturbing images of fictional crime scenes are shown and discussed below.
The series Hannibal explores the psyche of various serial killers, including Hannibal Lecter himself, but there is hidden depth behind each scene that the various criminals leave behind. Consequently, the context of every murder tableau in the critically acclaimed horror show is important for either character development or narrative exposition. There is a hidden meaning to be found in nearly every design that connects with the overarching story surrounding Hannibal.
Hannibal is based on novels by Thomas Harris, primarily Red Dragon which focuses on Hannibal's Will Graham. Due to his emotional and cognitive empathy, Will Graham s able to get into the minds of the killers that he is hunting and this allows him to deduce evidence at crime scenes that eludes trained professionals. Nearly every episode in Hannibal season 1 features a unique murder tableau as he is enlisted by Jack Crawford, the head of the Behavioral Science Unit, to hunt down murderer Garrett Jacob Hobbs amid working to profile other dangerous killers. To prevent himself from spiraling due to these crime scenes, Will undergoes therapy with Dr. Hannibal Lecter who spends the entirety of season 1 gaslighting him into believing he is a killer before framing his own murders on him. Will Graham does not discover that Hannibal is the Chesapeake Ripper until the season 1 finale.
The tableaux following season 1 become more personal when Will starts creating his own murder scenes to gain Hannibal's trust as a ploy to eventually catch him red-handed, but the bait Will is casting turns out to be more of a honey trap as season 2 slowly suggests that the pair are developing feelings for each other. The murder tableaux seen in season 3 are layered with ionate emotion and act as representations of character motivation and relationship development following the betrayals and intimacies Will and Hannibal continue to share throughout their turbulent companionship. Here is a look at the deeper meaning behind every murder tableau as seen in Hannibal.
Minnesota Shrike Antler Mount
The first tableau in the series Hannibal depicts a young college-age woman impaled by the antlers of a stag. The design belongs to Garret Jacob Hobbs (a.k.a the Minnesota Shrike) who is shown to kill women who resemble his daughter Abigail Hobbs. The Shrike’s tableaux are a method of respecting the corpses as a hunter respects the prey it kills for food and tools. There is an overarching theme in the show about respecting the dead by elevating them into art, which is the perfect reason for this tableau to kick off the story in "Apéritif." This tableau becomes the catalyst of Will’s macabre analysis work in the behavioral science field and the start of a deceptive relationship with a much more prolific cannibal than Hobbs, Hannibal.
Mushrooms, Angels, and Symphonies
The mushroom garden, angel wings, and violin chord tableaux are all examples of season 1 killer-of-the-week crime scenes. Each of them serves to reflect a Chesapeake Ripper as Hannibal is intertwined with Budge in his social life. The reason the violin motif is so integral is that Hannibal is secretly serenading Will through his own murders, paralleling Tobias using the violin tableau as a serenade.
The Wound Man
The FBI is thrown a curve ball in season 1 when Abel Gideon, a killer locked up for murdering his family, commits a crime identical to a Chesapeake Ripper murder years prior. The Wound Man is based on medieval surgical texts that demonstrate a variety of battle injuries. The tableau later serves as a plot device to indict Chilton for the Ripper murders when Hannibal frames him to exonerate Will. Hannibal's unique interests and hobbies are what eventually lead the authorities to him in season 3, so the Wound Man perpetuates the weakness in Lecter's killing method. He cannot help but express his infatuation with anatomy and classic sketches. It also gives introspection to Hannibal Lecter’s earlier murders committed in America.
Hives and Totems
The human totem pole and beehive murders contain lesser meanings to the overarching narrative of Hannibal than the rest, very much reflective of the killer-of-the-week focus season 1 gravitates towards. In season 2, Katherine Pimms is an acupuncturist who lobotomizes her patients before placing them in a field to become hives. A connection can be made to Jack Crawford’s wife Bella who is revealed to have Stage IV cancer and wishes also to “quiet the pain” as Pimms excuses her methods as doing. The Human Totem pole serves to exemplify how killers value their trophies. At the moment, Will is being manipulated by Hannibal and in a way, a connection can be made that Hannibal is molding him into his trophy.
The Eye of God
In season 2, James Gray captures people of varying ethnicities to create a colorful tableau that mimics a human eye. Will Graham is jailed for Hannibal's murders amid Gray's spree, so the purpose of this tableau is to showcase Hannibal's skills at crime scene analysis. While Hannibal helps Gray become part of his own mural, the audience discovers a vital aspect of Lecter's character. Gray states there is no God, as he created the eye to look up to the Heavens and discovered nothing to see, but Hannibal implies he does believe in God and that even evil purposes are gifted by the higher power. This tableau is the foundation for an escalating conversation about religion between Hannibal and Will whose shared "mind palace" becomes a chapel. While many characters think Hannibal believes he is god, this tableau proves he does not and instead enjoys mimicking God.
Beverly Katz Cross Section
Beverly Katz attempts to help Will prove his innocence in season 2 by breaking into Lecter's house to look for evidence. She is discovered by Lecter in the act and murdered. The tableau of Beverly Katz is blatantly stated to represent how she cross-examines crime scenes as a forensic analyst. Though horrific, Will Graham's profiling of the scene highlights Hannibal's respect for Beverly in her career and life, as he cleanly depicts a visual representation of how she breaks down tableaux herself. It also hints at an underlying sentimentality in Hannibal the show hasn't explored.
Justice is Blind (Judge Davies)
The murder tableau of Judge Davies is a personal message from Hannibal Lecter to the courts, but also Will Graham. Davies rejects his defense of Will at Will's trial and consequently kills and displays him to showcase the notion that justice is not only blind, but heartless and mindless too. The deeper meaning behind this tableau reveals Hannibal's feelings for Will Graham which are spiraling towards a peak in season 2 when he realizes he'd rather have Will Graham free than locked up because he misses his unique company. This is as much a love poem for Will as Matthew Brown's rendition of the Minnesota Shrike's stag tableau was, since Hannibal states to Will in season 2 episode 3 "Hassun" about Brown's crime, "This killer wrote you a poem. Are you going to let his love go to waste?"
Poisonous Flower Tree
Hannibal uses a city councilman in his cherry blossom tree tableau where every organ he takes for consumption is replaced with a poisonous flower. Will warns Jack that Hannibal will be hosting a dinner party next time the Ripper kills and he does. However, the flowers in the victim's stomach could have an underlying meaning aside from mocking Jack. The tableau contains Belladonna which could translate to Jack's love for his wife Bella and a chain of oleander replacing the intestines potentially foreshadows where Will is stabbed in "Mizumono." A couple of the flowers displayed are claimed to be aphrodisiacs which could reflect Hannibal's seductive manipulation of Alana.
Will Graham's Tableaux
Randall Tier's death is an act of self-defense but reveals in Will's shameless and brutal representation of a cave bear that he empathizes with Tier's dysphoria. The tableau is meant to represent both Will's deception and his temptation to become the killer Hannibal wants him to be. Freddie Lounds' tableau rears his deception back on track since it is a calculated ploy, but the design of Freddie's pseudo-corpse being shaped like the Hindu God Shiva still harbors heavy implications. When he profiles the scene for Jack, Will states that the killer has a benefactor who ires his destruction. That implies these killings are a part of a courtship, according to Alana. Will and Hannibal are courting each other mutually under the guise of allegorical tableaux, even while Will is deceiving him. These displays are figuratively both flirtations and are the stepping stones to their romance.
Hannibal's Broken Heart
Jumping to season 3 finds Will searching for Hannibal in Florence after his betrayal left him only with a stomach wound and the ghost of Abigail Hobbs. Hannibal fled from Baltimore at the end of "Mizumono" and replaced Will with Bedelia for his new life in Florence, but is dissatisfied now despite his well-earned freedom. The heart tableau he displays in the Norman Chapel is crafted from the remains of Antony Dimmond, a man who undoubtedly resembles Will Graham. It represents Hannibal's broken heart and damaged love for Will along with how he hasn't gotten over him despite his best efforts. Will describes the tableau when he profiles the scene as, "A valentine on a broken man."
Fire Fly Man
When Will visits Hannibal's childhood home, he creates a tableau out of the man who supposedly killed Hannibal's sister Mischa. He makes an intricate firefly design knowing it will likely not be found and without instigation which implies this tableau as the start of Will's "becoming." It is a hint to the audience that Will can commit dark acts much like Hannibal can, yet on his own . In a sense, Mischa's murder is avenged by the design positing that the tableau is a hidden gesture of respect and endearment to Hannibal from Will.
The Primavera
The Primavera tableau is the only time the series shows a murder from Hannibal when he was under the moniker "Il Mostro" in Florence. It was created in his youth during the period he would ire the original Primavera at the Uffizi Gallery. It reveals deeper context to Hannibal's iration of fine arts and also tips Will off to where Hannibal is hiding. In modern-day, Hannibal is seen sketching the Primavera but imposing Will and Bedelia into his rendition instead. The painting represents love, marriage, sensuality, and fertility which are all concepts that connect to Will and Hannibal's narrative of being fathers to Abigail before her death and falling in love with each other by the end of the show.
The series Hannibal has gained critical acclaim for its beautifully elevated cinematography and eccentrically complex dialogue, but the show is truly memorable for the unique murder tableaux put to screen. The scenes are not merely created for shock value because they contain an underlying meaning that reflects either the conflicts of characters in the show or the overarching themes. Hannibal will go down in history as one of the most original horror series ever conceived and that is due in great part to the interesting tableaux it is known for.
