From the chaos that ended season two, how long ago did you know how we’d pick up in season three? Was it planned out well in advance or after the finale?

It was well-planned, knowing partway through the season, that we would leave everybody for dead. So about that time in season two, it seemed the direct way for three would be to pick up directly where we left off, but that wouldn’t be interesting enough for me, so I loved the idea of a time jump where we go with the “victor” of the battle in season two and follow his exploits without knowing who he’s laid to waste. That just felt like it was a fun deviation from what would be expected. So, episode four is actually the episode that picks up right after the finale and explains how everybody got to where they are in the first part. I love non-linear storytelling. I think there’s an opportunity to tell a tale with “emotional logic” as opposed to “plot logic.” This is where this character is emotionally and intellectually and their behavior is going to be informed by what they’re feeling as opposed to what the plot is telling them to do.

I wouldn’t say that’s new in season three, would you? It strikes me as a tenet of the show entirely.

Absolutely for this show. I felt in approaching this material for the umpteenth time that the well had been gone to frequently. In order to tell a different kind of story in a different kind of way, and avoid slipping into restrictive parameters of the current procedural, it was necessary to find other elements to enhance over the “killer of the week.” That’s why over the first two seasons the “killer of the week” structure really became a thematic umbrella under which we told a metaphorical story between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

There must have also been pressure to cinematically approach the saga of Hannibal Lecter in ways that Mann and Demme didn’t, for example. I’ve always felt the show had a deep visual language. What were some of the cinematic influences—television or film—for those choices?

There are so many. For the first two seasons, there were a lot of David Cronenberg body dysmorphia elements that were fun to explore. It’s always shocking to see the body transformed into something other than the vehicle for our minds. Any time that happens, it’s disturbing and disorienting, and makes you question your being and how you function. So that was a huge element of how we told the crime procedural story.