Emotions heighten as 'Hannibal' takes flight into new surroundings

Dressed in a tux and reciting Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" in perfect Italian, Hannibal Lecter is showing off his refined taste to its fullest amid Europe's discerning high society.

So begins the third season of NBC's "Hannibal" on Thursday, Bryan Fuller's stylized origin story of one of pop culture's most notable fictional cannibals, played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.

Hannibal is hiding in the open with a new name in Florence with his former psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), after an explosive Season Two finale that saw him attack his confidante Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and seemingly leave him for dead.

"We had been telling the story of Hannibal Lecter, foreigner in America, so far, and now we transition the story," Fuller said.

"He's returning to more familiar settings to lick his wounds. It allows us to explore the emotional bandwidth of his character and see him pining for his friend Will."

Fuller's "Hannibal," which premiered in 2013, explores the origins of author Thomas Harris' "Silence of the Lambs" character Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and culinary connoisseur with a secret taste for human flesh.

The NBC show incorporates a crime procedural with an emotional exploration into the mind of a calculated, but not necessarily cold-blooded killer.