'Hannibal' Season 3 SPOILERS - Chilton Lives, Returning For 2015 NBC Episodes: Bryan Fuller Reveals New Plot Details At San Diego Comic-Con Panel

According to the 2014 San Diego Comic-con panel for NBC's brutal horror thriller Hannibal, the upcoming season three episodes will take place a year after the second season finale and some characters believed to be killed off are set to return! In fact, the presence of actor Raul Esparza confirmed the return of Dr. Chilton! More spoilers for Hannibal are below, so please proceed at your own discretion!

Series creator and head writer Bryan Fuller held little back when speaking to fans at the Hannibal panel this week at Comic-Con. He explained that this upcoming season would be the manhunt for Dr. Lecter after the events of season two's bloody finale.

"We are on track with the original plan with the one exception of condensing what was to have been Season 3 and Season 4 all into one season now," he said. "So, the first half of the season will have its finale that reaches a climax and wraps up that story in a great way, and then we start a new story, and then that will have its own climax at the end of the season. Two separate stories that'll have two finales and so you get two seasons for the price of one."

Fuller also added: "We're writing for Eddie Izzard to return in a flashback scene."

So what else can we expect? Using the previous Lecter mediums (the films and the books) as an outline, we know who is involved but will surely be surprised by how Fuller uses them.

"There's a run of episodes where we have quite a few cool characters coming from the literature," Fuller revealed. "So, in the second episode, we introduce Commander Pazzi, who was played by Giancarlo Giannini in the Ridley Scott film, in episode 3, we introduce Lady Murasaki and in episode 4, we introduce Cordell ... There's going to be a lot of fun Easter eggs for those who are big fans of the books, knowing that those characters are going to be leaping from the page onto their television screen."

(via Deadline)