Amazon Prime’s Hanna
Season 1, Episode 3: “City”
Directed by Jon Jones
Written by David Farr

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Friend” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Father” – click here
Jacobs (Andy Nyman) is talking with Sophie (Rhianne Barreto) and her family, trying to find more info by claiming he’s there on behalf of Hanna’s (Esme Creed-Miles) mother. Of course we know the dangerous truth.
Meanwhile, Hanna’s headed into Berlin. It’s a lonely city by herself. She gets by with food from the trash and makes friend with a hungry dog. She ends up fighting a dude before her father turns up. Erik (Joel Kinnaman) and his daughter are finally reunited. She tells him about the Moroccan rendition facility escape, Sophie’s family. For the time being, the father-daughter duo are safe. They’re taken to a hideout where Erik’s old army friends await their arrival. Hanna’s had a taste of what it’s like to live a normal life, so it’s harder for her to go back into seclusion this time. Dad says “when this is over” they’ll be able to live like normal. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

We did dark things…
Things that have a habit of haunting you.

Marissa (Mireille Enos) is on Erik’s trail. She and Carl Meisner (Justin Salinger) are on the ground in Germany arranging a team of soldiers. Naturally Erik and his military pals have anticipated all this and they’re leaving under cover of night. They hit an arms depot for weaponry. Hanna’s left in the van listening to music (“Window Licker” by Aphex Twin). She spends the time dancing like in the club with Sophie, reliving a brief moment when she was able to be young, like other people her age not being hunted by secretive government agencies. In the middle of her one-woman dance party she sees the flashing lights of a police vehicle. Two cops get out to check the van, soon noticing the hole in the fence. This prompts Hanna to start driving. She blows through a fence as the cops shoot. She picks up her father and his friends then gets a crash course in driving from Erik while they make their getaway.
Back at the hideout, Hanna starts asking her father what he did for Marissa. She wants the truth: “I‘m not a child anymore.” He explains that after his military service he was left poor and with psychological issues, probably PTSD. He was taken in by Marissa and Utrax. Eventually he left. She was able to track him down. There’s something else behind the relationship, too— so much more than Erik is willing to reveal to his daughter.

Soon Marissa realises she’s been lured. She knows she’s being watched, and that it’s obviously Erik behind it. She digs into his connections, sure he’ll be using them as a network while in Berlin. Erik’s out finding more of those old friends to potentially aid him with his monumental task. Not everybody’s immediately willing. Some people from his past “warned” about Ms. Wiegler.
We see more of Erik’s past, when he and Johanna (Joanna Kulig) first met, though he was pretending to go by the name Daniel. She was going into an abortion clinic. He asked her to go for a coffee with him. You can see where this was headed, right? Not long and she was signing her name to a piece of paper. This is what Erik did in those days for Marissa and Utrax. No wonder he didn’t want to tell his daughter.

In the city, Lukas (Peter Ferdinando) gets picked up by Jacobs. He’s brought to see Marissa. The chat starts off pretty antagonistic and doesn’t really get any better. He plays ignorant. Marissa plants the seeds of doubt about Erik and his daughter. Once Lukas is back at the hideout, he’s questioning everything. So is Hanna— she’s angrier all the time because she knows nothing and was trained “like a machine” for nothing. Her father may come to regret keeping her in the dark so much. When Hanna mentions smelling fear on Lukas— who’s now wholesale betraying his friends to Marissa— she’s brought along by dad with the group on their next leg of the mission. This proves especially useful. The abnormality of the young lady’s DNA gradually emerges and we witness more of whatever power she holds within.
Hanna stays with Elsa (Katharina Heyer) while her father goes to meet Lukas, and Rudi (Stefan Rudolf) heads into the nearby parking garage. Erik starts to push about Lukas seeming nervous, noticing something’s not quite right. A wrench goes into Marissa’s plans when Jacobs can’t find Hanna after Lukas said she’d be left at the hideout.
Shit goes sideways once Marissa shoots at who she thinks is Erik and it turns out to be Lukas— Heller’s making a run for it in his friend’s clothes. Gunfire erupts and Rudi tosses a smoke grenade for cover. Hanna freaks out and runs which leaves Dieter chasing her in the car. Inside the hotel, Erik tosses more smoke and sends people screaming from the building while he heads upstairs.
And his daughter’s not far behind him.
The whole scene surrounding the hotel becomes total chaos. Jacobs gets there ready to shoot Hanna, but Dieter knocks him down and whisks the girl off in the getaway car. In an alley by the hotel, Marissa finds two police with Erik on his knees. Except it’s actually Rudi and Elsa. They’ve caught Marissa in a trap. But what will they do with her? And how much do the army buddies know of Erik’s past in connection to her?
Soundtrack note: “Yatton” by Beak plays over the end credits
Another great entry in this series. The writing’s solid, and there’s plenty of good thematic stuff happening. Love the expanding of the characters/their backstories here in this episode. “Father” is next.