[1] In Red Dragon, Graham is introduced as an intellectually gifted and highly esteemed former FBI profiler who has the ability to empathize with psychopaths, to the detriment of his own psyche.
During the events of Red Dragon, Graham reluctantly comes out of retirement to find and apprehend a serial killer known as "The Tooth Fairy," requiring him to confront and seek assistance from the incarcerated Lecter.
His empathy manifests as the ability to assume the point of view of criminals and psychopaths so he can vividly construct the mentality and motives of such individuals, even with limited data.
This level of insight makes him adept at tracking down violent criminals, but also leaves him extremely disturbed; he fears that he understands psychopaths because he is one himself.
FBI agents and Maryland State Troopers arrive and arrest Lecter, and Graham spends months recovering in a hospital.
In 1980, Graham is living with his wife Molly, whom he met a year after the incident with Lecter, and her son Willy in Sugarloaf Key, Florida.
His former boss, Jack Crawford, persuades him to come out of retirement and help the FBI catch a serial killer nicknamed The Tooth Fairy, who had murdered two families on a lunar cycle, the first in Birmingham, Alabama and the second in Atlanta, Georgia.
After studying the crime scenes, Graham consults Lecter, now institutionalized in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, on the case.
Lecter only taunts him, however, and later sends Graham's address to the killer, Francis Dolarhyde, in code, threatening the safety of his wife and stepson.
The family are moved first to a cottage owned by Crawford's brother, but Molly later decides to take Willy to stay with her late first husband's parents in Oregon.
After linking him to a film developing company, Graham, Crawford, and FBI agents arrive at Dolarhyde's home to arrest him, only to find that the killer had set it on fire with his blind girlfriend, Reba McClane, inside, apparently shooting himself as part of a forced suicide pact.
However, Dolarhyde's apparent suicide is revealed to have been a ruse; he shot a previous victim in the face, fooling McClane and the policemen at the scene into thinking he was dead.
Soon afterward, he receives a note from Lecter sardonically wishing him "a speedy convalescence" and hoping Graham "won’t be very ugly", which Crawford destroys.
The film also changes the ending of the novel: in Manhunter, Graham saves Reba McClane (Joan Allen) from Dollarhyde affirmatively attempting (albeit reluctant) to murder her, and kills him in a tense standoff.
He left field work due to stress and lives alone in Wolf Trap, Virginia with several stray dogs he adopted.
Graham and consulting psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter are enlisted by Special Agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) to hunt serial killer Garrett Jacob Hobbs (Vladimir Cubrt), the "Minnesota Shrike".
They attempt to shield her from Crawford, who suspects she aided her father's crimes, and from predatory tabloid reporter Freddie Lounds (Lara Jean Chorostecki), who wishes to exploit her story.
[9] Graham briefly pursues a romantic relationship with his friend and colleague, Dr. Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas), but she turns him down because of his instability.
Throughout the season, Graham's sanity deteriorates from the toll of more murder cases and undiagnosed encephalitis, causing sleepwalking, hallucinations, fugue states, and mild seizures.
Lecter manipulates Graham to exacerbate his symptoms until it appears that he murdered and disposed of Abigail in a state of psychosis after realizing she helped her father choose and stalk his victims.
[12] At the start of the second season, Graham is institutionalized at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, under the care of Frederick Chilton (Raúl Esparza).
While preparing to stand trial, Graham insists to his skeptical former colleagues that Lecter is the real killer, while pulling strings from the confines of his cell to expose him.
[14] Graham returns to work and reconciles with Hannibal, asking to resume his therapy sessions to understand his own dark side better.
They also acquire a mutual enemy in Mason Verger (Michael Pitt), a wealthy sadist whom they both despise for emotionally and sexually abusing his twin sister Margot (Katharine Isabelle).
He does nothing to stop Lecter from "encouraging" Mason – to whom he has given hallucinogenic drugs – to cut off pieces of his own face and feed them to Graham's dogs.
Lecter stabs and cuts open Graham's belly with a linoleum knife, and explains that he faked Abigail's death to protect her from arrest.
Graham goes to the Brooklyn Museum to see the painting, and encounters the killer, Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage), who attacks him.
[25] To steer Dolarhyde away from his family, Graham decides to enrage him by giving an interview to Lounds in which he says "The Tooth Fairy" is ugly, impotent and the product of incest.
[26] In the series finale, "The Wrath of the Lamb", Dolarhyde apparently commits suicide, and Graham comforts the killer's girlfriend, Reba McClane (Rutina Wesley).
[26] As to whether it was a part of the initial plan to portray their relationship as romantic, Fuller stated: "No, it naturally evolved because I guess I was absorbing so much of Mads and Hugh's performance, which felt like it was growing in intimacy, and it would have been inauthentic not to address it.