Season 1 and 2 spoilers ahead! Only spoilers from Season 3 should be blanked out.
open/close all folders
Jack Crawford
See Main Characters
Beverly Katz
"I like having a big family; I was the oldest, so all the friction rolled down the hill."
Played By: Hettienne Park
A member of the Behavioral Science Unit, specializing in fibers. Beverly has a keen sensibility when it comes to piecing together fragments of evidence. And she never handles Will with kid gloves, a trait appreciated by Will.
- Adaptational Badass: In this version she's quite the markswoman.
- A Death in the Limelight: She's given a lot more screentime during the first four episodes of Season 2, helping Will in trying to prove that Hannibal is the Chesapeake Ripper, before finally getting killed off in "Takiawase".
- Alone with the Psycho: Finds damning evidence of Hannibal's guilt moments before he finds her.
- Asian and Nerdy: As a result of a Race Lift, she's easily the most tech-savvy of the group and in an iteration neither uptight nor uncool.
- Brutal Honesty: She does prefer logical and factual answers to tactful ones.
- Catchphrase: "Gotcha!"
- Cruel and Unusual Death: According to Will's imagining process, she was unconscious, but still alive, albeit frozen, when she was sliced in half down the middle. However, it's unlikely in reality the sawing process would have worked if she were not frozen solid, so she was most likely dead when Hannibal cut her up.
- Deadpan Snarker: Like her fellow BSU workers, but she has her fair share of sarcastic lines.
- Do Not Go Gentle: She stares down Hannibal with cold fury on her face and fights him all the way to the end.
- Exploring the Evil Lair: Her last, fatal decision when she breaks into Hannibal's house while he is away.
- Ironic Death: She is killed after procuring evidence that Hannibal is a murderer, when she notices wine dripping through the floorboards into Hannibal's basement. She goes down to the basement and is killed. In other words, Curiosity killed the Katz.
- Killed Offscreen: At the conclusion of "Takiawase", she finds Hannibal's basement, and then Hannibal finds her there.
- The Lab Rat
- Nice Girl: Downplayed. She may be friendly and helpful (particularly to Will when he needs it), but there's a bit of an
insensitive side to her. - Sacrificial Lion: Hannibal kills her and slices her up into slabs of meat, to the devastation of Jack and Will, among others.
Brian Zeller
Played By: Aaron Abrams
A member of the Behavioral Science Unit, Zeller uses his medical degree to determine causes of death in victims. His arrogance and competitive nature sometimes place him at odds with Will.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Zeller in the book is a bit if a nerd with thick glasses, going prematurely bald. In the series, he’s Tall, Dark, and Handsome.
- Competition Freak: In "Sorbet", we see him get into a distinctly childish argument with Will over who is right. In "Amuse-Bouche", we learn Zeller leaked the majority of information about Will because, as Freddie implied, there's "rivalry of who gets the collar".
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He can be a bit of a jerk, mostly to Will, but he's never as nasty as Freddie Lounds. He cares deeply about his colleagues and has a strong sense of personal honor. When Beverly dies, he can barely hold back the tears. Even if he's somewhat prickly at times, he has a heart. Later, when Will is proven innocent, Brian apologizes to him for not letting himself believe he wasn't guilty.
- Middle Child Syndrome: As Will points out to him, and not very kindly.
- Out of Focus: Brian does not appear in the first half of season 3, given the focus on the manhunt for Hannibal, rather than week-to-week crimes.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Doesn't appear in the first half of Season 3 as they're focusing on the hunt for Hannibal.
- Those Two Guys: With Price. In the first few episodes, they don't do/say much beside give annoyed looks when Will shows them up.
Jimmy Price
Played By: Scott Thompson
Price is a master of forensics and technology within the Behavioral Science Unit. He makes the most of his years of experience, and knows the importance of levity and wit in maintaining one's sanity on the job.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Not only is he a grumpy old man, as mentioned below, but Price in the books is a cadaverous 80-something covered in age-spots. Here he is a reasonably attractive, youthful-looking man in his late -50’s/early 60’s.
- The Alcoholic: Mentioned, but off-screen.
- Functional Addict: Cheerily admits as much in "Amuse-Bouche".Zeller: Recovering alcoholics, they crave sugar — don't take that personally, buddy.Price: Oh, I'm not recovering.
- Nice Guy: Nicer than Zeller at least. This is an inversion from the novels, where he is described as a Grumpy Old Man who, amongst other things, threw some nasty lab work at Clarice Starling primarily for the lulz.
- Out of Focus: He does not appear in the first half of Season 3, given the focus on the manhunt for Hannibal, rather than week-to-week crimes.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: He and Zeller don't appear in the first half of Season 3 because of the Hannibal manhunt.
- Straight Gay: Bryan Fuller
confirmed in a tweet
◊ that Jimmy is gay. - Those Two Guys: With Zeller. In the first few episodes they don't do/say much beside give annoyed looks when Will shows them up.
Miriam Lass
Played By: Anna Chlumsky
Miriam Regina Lass was an FBI trainee assigned by Jack Crawford to the Chesapeake Ripper Task Force, as they tried to track down the infamous serial killer during one of his active periods. Miriam was a highly intelligent profiler who, in her youthful zeal to solve crimes, sometimes flouted standard procedure. It is believed that Miriam was following her own lead in the Ripper case when she vanished; presumably murdered by the Ripper himself. Her tragic end has haunted Jack, her mentor, for years.
- The Ace: The reason why Jack selected her in the first place.
- Broken Ace: The trauma of her imprisonment left her quieter and terrified of the Ripper. She immediately has a panic attack when she sees Chilton, who she had been conditioned to think was the Ripper, and shoots him in the face.
- An Arm and a Leg: Hannibal amputated her arm to leave for the FBI. She gets an electronic prosthetic after she is found.
- Break the Cutie: If the recording is anything to go by. It's later shown she's been stored by Hannibal in a pit after her amputation, for presumably almost the entire time she was missing.
- Bunker Woman: A well, but same trope. She is abducted and held hostage by Hannibal.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: It's heavily implied Hannibal spared her so she would erroneously identify Chilton as the Chesapeake Ripper.
- Chemically-Induced Insanity: Hannibal drugs and holds her captive to trick her into identifying Chilton, who had nothing to do with her, as her abductor.
- Composite Character: She is a combination of Clarice Starling (rookie FBI agent) and Catherine Martin (abductee imprisoned in a well), two characters owned by MGM and thus unavailable to the producers.
- Damsel in Distress: Hannibal secretly holds her captive in a squalid pit until Jack rescues her in "Futamono".
- Fate Worse than Death: Hannibal didn't kill her as was assumed, although it may have been preferable. Instead she was drugged and psychologically tormented and conditioned over the course of two years to have a violent fear response to Fredrick Chilton (of all people), and lost an arm purely so Hannibal could taunt Jack with it.
- Gone Horribly Right: Jack hired her to help him find the identity of the Chesapeake Ripper. Well, she did. And then the Ripper found her right back.
- Not Quite Dead: Jack finds her in "Futamono".
- Sanity Slippage: As Will points out, having Hannibal messing with your mind for two years isn't going to leave you very stable.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: She illegally looked through the private medical files of the Ripper's victims because she believed the Ripper was a surgeon and had treated at least one of them.
- She Knows Too Much: Hannibal kidnapped her as soon as she realized that he was the Chesapeake Ripper.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Clarice Starling. And ironically Catherine Martin, what with being trapped at the bottom of a pit (in her case a well) by a psycho.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Played With. While Jack seems to think the reason she was killed was to hurt him and she is later used to get under his skin, it turns out her death was because she got way too close to figuring out who the Ripper actually was, and it actually had nothing to do with Jack except tangentially. Instead it comes off more as Collateral Angst for Jack. Also, she turns out to not actually be dead.
- Thrown Down a Well: She's kept prisoner in a narrow well-like pit in the ground.
- Walking Spoiler: She discovers Hannibal's secret and is attacked. Jack finds her much later in a pit, the only surviving victim.
Kade Prurnell
"There is a general desire to see this go away quickly and quietly."
Played By: Cynthia Nixon
An official from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, who has been sent to handle the fallout from Will Graham's arrest.
- Adapted Out: Is the TV counterpart of Paul Krendler, but never appears or gets involved when Hannibal is adapted as the first half of Season 3.
- By-the-Book Cop: While Jack allows his agents legal leeway in their investigations, Kade is the complete opposite. Come the Season 2 finalé, she indirectly gets Jack seriously injured or killed by revoking his authority (for using illegal and questionable methods), and then her rule following means she underestimates Hannibal and allows him to slip out the country.
- Captain Ersatz: Kade is based on Paul Krendler, an antagonist from the novels who was introduced in The Silence of the Lambs. Since the producers don't have the television rights to the film, Kade is, like many other characters, a lawyer-friendly re-imagining... not to mention an anagram of the original character.
- Commander Contrarian: While Jack can be this to the other characters, Kade acts as an Obstructive Bureaucrat version to Jack through Season 2.
- Foil: To Jack Crawford. Jack is willing to stretch outside the boundaries of the law to catch killers, whereas Kade is iron-clad in following procedure by the book.
- Gender Flip: To Paul Krendler.
- Good Is Not Nice: She carries out her investigation in the name of ethics and the law, knowing full well that it could cost Jack his job. However, she performs her job without malice, doing what she believes is fair and ethical.
- Hero Antagonist: Her investigation could easily cost Jack his job and find Will guilty of crimes he didn't commit. However, Kade is simply carrying out the law by investigating possible ethics violations and Will's alleged crimes. She shows no malice toward any of the people involved in her investigation, even flat-out stating to Alana that she and her office would greatly prefer if this whole situation just quietly went away, and says to Will she's trying to save his life because he will be proven guilty and sentenced to death if he pleas innocent.
- Later, she suspends Jack from duty because she believes he's gone too far in his efforts to capture Hannibal, forcing Jack to go vigilante and take Hannibal alone.
- Iron Lady: Is clearly feared and respected among the FBI ranks.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Kade's only priority is ensuring the investigation is over as quickly and painlessly as possible. Later in "Mizumuno", she suspends Jack from active duty and calls off his strike team against Hannibal believing he's not in sound mind to make judgment, and is in fact coercing Hannibal into murder to defend himself.
- Spanner in the Works: A rare working-against-good version, calling off Jack's strike team and severely damaging his efforts to take down Hannibal.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Does not suffer Krendler's fate in the first half of Season 3, which adapts Hannibal.
