10 Things You Learn Rewatching Hannibal

10. Jack Crawford Is One Tough Guy

Throughout the books, films and television series combined, there are very few people who have met Hannibal Lecter and survived to tell the tale. One notable exception is Barney, an orderly at the facility holding Lecter after capture, in The Silence Of The Lambs.

According to Hannibal (2001), Barney survives by simply being courteous and polite to Lecter, a life lesson to us all if ever there was one. Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) is polite enough, yet as the lead investigator into Lecter's murders, conflict was inevitable. However, something before unseen happened during this story: Crawford fights Lecter and survives – twice.

Crawford first takes on Lecter at the beginning and end of season two (same fight over two episodes), in a brutal kitchen set knife fight, leaving both half dead and Crawford hiding in the fridge with a piece of glass protruding from his neck. Incredibly, Crawford survives the attack. The second time sees Fishburne going full Morpheus and taking on Lecter mano-a-mano in a Florence library during season three. This time Crawford drives an antique hook into Lecter's leg and puts his face through some glass display cabinets for good measure.

No one claims to have taken on the cannibal in a fistfight and survived, no one but Crawford.