Bryan Fuller's Hannibal was known for featuring grotesque crime scenes that bordered on cinematic marvel, but one of these murders was too intense for television and had to be cut from its intended episode.
Hannibal adapted another point of view from Thomas Harris' novels that focus on serial killer, psychiatrist, and cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). Anthony Hopkins played the iconic role in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs and won an Academy Award for his performance, as did Jodie Foster, who played FBI trainee Clarice Starling; Starling was absent in Fuller's Hannibal series, as the creator struggled to obtain the rights to her character from MGM. By shifting the focus to Hannibal's character and including other characters from Harris' novels, such as Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), the story - which took place before The Silence of the Lambs - allowed audiences to see the true brutality of Dr. Lecter, a facet that was shown in a lesser capacity in Jonathan Demme's iconic film.
Beginning in season 1, the crimes of a serial killer who was dubbed the "Chesapeake Ripper" came to the FBI's attention - later, it would be revealed that Hannibal was behind these murders. Elegantly staged, the crime scenes that Hannibal left for Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), Will Graham, and other members of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit were delightfully macabre and boundary-pushing for network television. However, gory as watching humans being prepared for culinary delicacies by the cannibal and the discovery of these crime scenes were, one particular idea Fuller had for a murder pushed too far for NBC, and didn't make the cut.
Hannibal: The One Murder The Network Wouldn't Show
In season 1, episode 11, "Rôti", journalist Freddie Lounds (Lara Jean Chorostecki), who specializes in pulpy crime reporting - and is something of a thorn in Will Graham's side - happens upon a crime scene that isn't done by Hannibal. Instead, this particular murder is done by Abel Gideon (Eddie Izzard), who is an escaped serial killer. After escaping, Dr. Gideon starts targeting his former psychiatrists and murdering them in a way known as the "Colombian necktie"; this is where someone's throat is slit and the tongue is pulled out through the incision made across the throat to hang freely. While this is arguably gruesome - especially for network television - Fuller's original idea, which he spoke about in 2017 with EW, was even worse.
According to Fuller, Lounds was still meant to discover Gideon's victim, Paul Carruthers. However, instead of finding Gideon in the process of attaching the tongue to his newest victim's neck, she would unintentionally aid in said victim's death by simply flipping a light switch. The light switch connected to a ceiling fan, which in turn was attached to the doctor (still very much alive in this version); flipping the switch would cause the fan to spin. From there, the motion of the fan's blades would disembowel the doctor, killing him in a gruesome, shocking fashion. Understandably, this was cut, as it reads more like an extreme death scene from the Saw movies or one of Jigsaw's torture traps. Fuller stated that the decision wasn't just due to the level of gore, however. "We would have pushed back if we also hadn't been told that financially we didn't know how we could afford to produce such a gag, because you have intestines swinging around a ceiling fan," said Fuller.
Even so, Fuller did manage to get some incredible inventive murders in the show, such as the "human cello" in season 1, episode 8, "Fromage". In that episode, a victim is found on a stage, his vocal chords exposed, treated, and body positioned in a chair so he could be played like a cello. Hannibal was a visceral treat for fans of Harris' books, The Silence of the Lambs fans, as well as general horror fans and crime drama lovers. Despite the show airing its series finale on NBC in 2015, Fuller still has hopes to resurrect the show for season 4.