Spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Hannibal ahead.

After the bloodbath of the Hannibal Season 2 finale, the question isn’t just what new characters are going to show up for Season 3, but what characters from Season 2 will even make it out alive for the next chapter in the Bryan Fuller-produced series.

Fuller, speaking with TV Guide, promised that Season 3 would remain faithful to the events of ‘Red Dragon,’ the Thomas Harris novel that forms the backbone for the series, but don’t go holding out hope that our heroes will survive Hannibal’s bold and bloody escape:

“We are staying very true to in the incident in the novel with Will and Hannibal and it’s very basic outcome… There’s going to be an impact from what’s happened here. It’s safe to say that not everybody survives. Everyone that’s laying there breathing could be breathing their last breaths. It doesn’t go well for all of them.

“One of the wonders of this season is: Will Alana survive and will Jack Crawford survive? Will Abigail Hobbs survive? Those are things that are going to be revealed very slowly at the beginning of Season 3.”

Ouch. I’m surprised Fuller’s even offering hope for Abigail’s survival: the troubled daughter of the Minnesota Shrike, Abigail was corrupted by Hannibal before seemingly being killed near the end of Season 1 (and losing her ear in the process). It would be strange to bring her back only to kill her off again, but then, that was the real horror of Hannibal’s actions in last week’s finale: he’d put the lives of everyone Will cared about in doubt as the quartet of Will, Alana, Jack, and Abigail bled out in Dr. Lecter’s home.

How will Dr. Lecter – last seen relaxing like it was nothing on a plane with Gillian Anderson’s Dr. du Maurier – figure into next season? He won’t be the only long-term killer facing Will, given that Fuller plans to introduce the as-yet uncast Francis Dolarhyde, the killer who plagues Harris’ Red Dragon.

And he won’t be alone, according to Fuller, who says that the next season will be a juxtaposition of story elements across multiple books:

“Season 3 is going to be a lot of fun because it’s going to be taking a lot of disparate elements from the novel ‘Hannibal Rising’ and the novel ‘Hannibal’ and mashing them up together as part of the thrust of the season. It’s going to be fun to bastardize two novels into one sort of Frankenstein season. I will brace everybody right now: We’re significantly changing the ‘Hannibal’ origin story from ‘Hannibal Rising.’

The books won’t necessarily be in sequential order. We’ll be hitting elements of each of them except ‘Silence of the Lambs’ in the next season. My hope is that not only do we have a completely different Hannibal Lecter story in Season 3, but we will meet some of those great characters like Francis Dolarhyde and Lady Murasaki and weave them into the world in a unique way.”

Lady Murasaki is Hannibal’s step-aunt who teaches a young Mr. Lecter the finer points of etiquette in ‘Hannibal Rising.’ Since the series hasn’t really done flashbacks up to this point, it’s likely we’ll see an older version of the character in season three.

[Source: TV Guide via ScreenRant]