Season 3, Episode 12:
The Number of the Beast is 666
To cope with his growing connection to the Red Dragon, Will Graham goes to Bedelia du Maurier for therapy. Hannibal Lecter continues to manipulate his jailers. And in their desperation to catch the Dragon, the FBI enlists the help of Freddie Lounds and Dr Frederick Chilton, with disastrous results.
Tropes
- Body Horror: Chilton having his lips ripped off, and then being given third degree burns all over his body, yet kept alive.
- Call-Back: Dolarhyde burning Chilton in a wheelchair is recognised as a reference to Will faking Freddie's death in season 2.
- Bedelia's description of Will's actions — particularly his "curiosity" — is almost word-for-word the same as Will's own profile of Hannibal's actions in the first season.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Chilton demonstrates that, for all his inflated ego and the ease with which he's manipulated by other characters, he's a decent forensic psychiatrist. His profile of the Dragon is dead-on.
- Homoerotic Subtext: It finally, finally graduates to full text when Bedelia tells Will that Hannibal is in love with him.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Dolarhyde has now fully become the Red Dragon, not showing any signs of his original personality.
- Large and in Charge: Dolarhyde and Chilton are shot to give the former this perspective, emphasizing his total control over the situation.
- Lip Losses: The lip-biting incident from Red Dragon is replicated, except with a different victim: this time, Francis Dolarhyde bites off the lips of Frederick Chilton and sets him on fire... but in a departure from the novel, he survives - though he's naturally left barely coherent and in great pain.
- Mythology Gag: Dolarhyde as in the source material kidnaps a character, lectures them while in a robe and using his projector, then sets them on fire in a wheelchair.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In Red Dragon, it's Freddie Lounds who gets abducted by Dolarhyde, and he doesn’t survive.
- Troll: Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal...
- What the Hell, Hero?: Making Chilton the Dragon's target inspires three. Will gets one from Du Maurier and, understandably, another from Chilton himself. Alana gets one from Hannibal, who accuses her of "professional discourtesy."
