We were very tricky in that in terms of selling an origin story that was not necessarily a story, but a reference. That’s how we walked that very fine line.

And I suppose that’s where Lady Murasaki comes in?

That’s another shift we took. We were originally setting down Lady Murasaki when we were plotting out the third season, what to do and how to approach it. We had crafted what the character needed to do in terms of the story and understood how this character would have reacted to the events in her life, and as we were casting it became clear that a lot of what we were planning to do with the character hinged on a less mature woman. If she were sophisticated and mature as a human being she may not have been party to certain events that happen in the series, so we made the decision—particularly when we learned that Tao Okamoto was interested in the role—that, well, there’s another character in the book who is actually a much, much, much younger character, somebody who was much younger than Hannibal even, when she met him and that is Chiyo, Lady Murasaki’s attendant. So we replaced Murasaki with Chiyo and the plan would be to introduce Murasaki in a fourth season, should that come to pass.

Do you have a clear idea of how you want to end the show overall? You know that ‘drop the microphone’ moment from Hannibal at the end of season two, do you have that for say, three seasons down the line in mind?

We have another ‘drop the mic’ moment at the end of this season. Once again, we approach this show always working under the assumption that every season is our last season. We have an ending to this season that is shocking and striking and sad and earned, and we also have a way to un-paint ourselves out of that corner should there be a fourth season.