Harvey Dent:(holds up coin): You live. (Flips coin over) You die.
The Joker: (Smiling): Now we're talking.
Hannibal Lecter sits in his chair staring at his patient. She is Bella Crawford, wife to Jack Crawford, who is Hannibal's friend, his boss, and his unknowing pursuer. Bella is dying of lung cancer, and she has just informed Hannibal that she has taken a lethal overdose of morphine, and is about to die. This is not really a surprise, after all Hannibal all but told her take this action earlier in the episode. "Death is not a defeat, but a cure." As Hannibal considers her unconscious body, he picks up a coin that Bella had given to him as a parting gift. He considers it, and then casually give it a flip. Its heads, his decision is made. He will save her life against her will.
Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Hannibal, says he portrays the character as if he were Lucifer himself. He will meticulously influence someone to take on action, then will deliberately sabotage them, just so that he might witness the chaos that will cause. His actions to those around him seem cruel and arbitrary, like the flip of a coin. When Bella awakes to find herself very much alive she is furious at Hannibal. She doesn't understand how he could do this to her. During their earlier conversation she and Hannibal discuss the resurrection of Lazarus, and Bella laments that she doesn't know anyone in her social circles who has the power of life or death. Hannibal smirks at this insight. He knows that she is wrong.
