*SPOILERS*

Let me start out by saying that The Silence of the Lambs is my favorite movie of all time. So I put off watching this show for 2 years in fear that it would ruin the Clarice character even more than Julianne Moore did. I was overjoyed to see them not even touch her (aside from some references to her in the Miriam Lass character). Additionally, I found Hugh Darcy's interpretation of Will Graham to be far more endearing than Edward Norton's. They strayed from the original material with the Freddie Lounds character, who in Red Dragon is a man. This was a brilliant move, Freddie was scheming and borderline psychotic without adding to the relative sausage fest that would have ensued had they stayed true to the source. They also used Freddie to help deliver the writer's plethora of sexual innuendos. My favorite character, though? Bedelia, and not just because I'm a huge X-Files fan. I found myself becoming impatient at the gap in the second season that she's away after she wisely "peaces out." For this reason, as well as Alana Bloom's character development (which I will touch on in a second), the first 6 episodes of the 3rd season were my favorite of the series. in fact, I think a spin off is in order: "Hannibal and Bedelia's European Adventures." My theory is that Bedelia is in fact the most twisted character in the series. Most would argue that that award should go to Hannibal, and rightly so, he's a sociopath, but Hannibal knows exactly what he's doing, and is fairly open about it. Bedelia on the other hand is either lying to herself, or has effectively tricked every character that she's come into contact with (including Hannibal) that her "dark passenger" (dropping a Dexter reference) is a product of peer pressure and professional curiosity as opposed to an all encompassing darkness akin to (but more controlled then) Hannibal's. I sincerely hope that Bedelia's feast in the closing seconds of the finale is her own doing, rather than Hannibal's revenge. In a perfect world, eating her leg is an act of compensation for the adrenaline vacuum that Hannibal left her when he ended the chase by jumping off a cliff. Now onto Bloom. I thought she sucked in the first two seasons, so naive. Not stupid, but certainly a narrow and fairly sunny world view (an interesting thing to have in her line of work). Her being the only real female character (Kats died) up until Margot was introduced became rather trying on my patience. I mean, really Alana? Jack got with the program. I understand that she had more history with Hannibal than Jack did, but good lord, she literally had to be pushed out a window to figure out what was really going on. In season 3, though, she did a complete 180. Alana 2.0! and I loved her. Baddass, decisive, a sense of humor drier than Arizona, it was awesome to see. I think the wardrobe shift to the "modern noir" genre helped with her transformation into basically a mobster hellbent on revenge (she used Mason's money to pay off the cops, remember?) Mason Verger was the perfect Hannibal bad guy. Creepy, twisted, and totally crazy. His relationship with Margot was instrumental in the writers teaching their audience to truly hate him, not begrudgingly, but "he got what was coming to him when he ate his own face" kind of hatred. Like the TV.com reviewer, I preferred the first half of the season and honestly could have watched the Hannibal/Bedelia, Vergers/Alana, Will/his own insanity dynamic for at least an entire season and possibly even a movie. In fact, somehow throw Bedelia in the final Verger show down scene and I'd put that DVD right next to The Silence of the Lambs on my shelf.