Will (Hugh Dancy) asks Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) if the Tooth Fairy has contacted him, and Hannibal sardonically responds, "How so, personal ads? Writing notes of admiration on toilet paper?". In the "Red Dragon" novel by Thomas Harris, the Tooth Fairy actually does contact Hannibal by writing a note of admiration on toilet paper; he chooses toilet paper as his stationery because it will dissolve rapidly should Hannibal need to destroy the note. In the note, he also tells Hannibal, if he would like to correspond, to respond to him in the personal ads of the National Tattler tabloid, depicted on the show as the blog TattleCrime.
The "Two souls..." lines Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) quotes to Will (Hugh Dancy) are from the tragedy "Faust" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, considered by many to be the greatest work of German literature.
The half face mask Francis Dollarhyde (Richard Armitage) wears while invading Will's (Hugh Dancy) home resembles the one used by Tom Noonan, also playing Dollarhyde, in his Red Dragon persona in the film Manhunter (1986).
The black leather jacket worn by Richard Armitage here is almost identical to one he wore as Lucas North in MI-5 (2002).
Episodes 8-12 of the third season are named after the various iterations of William Blake's Red Dragon watercolors.