Amazon's Hanna - Episode 1.03 "City"
Hanna and Erik are reunited in Berlin, where they hide out with his old army friends and she learns more about her father's past. However, Hanna continues to long for the normal life she glimpsed with Sophie and becomes increasingly frustrated at the restrictions her own father imposes on her. Sensing Marissa is closing in on them, Erik and his friends begin to prepare for an attack.
In 2018, there were 495 scripted shows airing amongst the linear channels and streaming services. The way people are consuming content now is so different than it used to be. It happens according to one's own schedule. As such, there is less necessity to provide ample coverage of each specific episode in any given season from a show. Moreover, it is simply impossible to watch everything. As such, this site is making the move to shorter episodic reviews in order to cover as many shows as possible. With all of that being said, here are my thoughts on the next episode of Amazon's Hanna.
"City" was written by David Farr and directed by Jon Jones
At what point does Erik compromise too much of the mission by keeping Hanna in the dark about all of the secrets pertaining to his past with Marissa? The audience is currently operating with much more information than she is. And yet, she's the one thrown into these life-or-death situations not knowing what is informing her father's actions. That is sowing further discontent between them as well. She wants to know why she was trained so vigorously if she is just going to sit on the sidelines when the fight finally comes. She has been on the run for the first two episodes of the season. Now, she reunites with Erik and they get to go on the offensive. They lay a trap for Marissa because they expect her to track them down to Berlin. Everyone has the awareness that they are being watched and potentially outsmarted. Erik plans on attacking Marissa in her hotel room while Marissa hopes to turn one of the soldiers working alongside Erik in order to capture Hanna. Of course, Marissa's orders have changed as well. She sees the priority in killing both Hanna and Erik now. Hanna is even close to death at one point. However, that moment lacks a ton of genuine tension because it was foolish for Hanna to run away in the middle of this operation. She got spooked because of all the shots fired in the area. And yet, this was all a part of the plan that Erik created. It didn't matter that the mission had become compromised. It made everything much more dangerous. Only then did he reach out to the most skilled driver for the emergency plan. He is the one who saves Hanna from herself. But she only runs towards the cloud of smoke because she doesn't know what all is going on. The show wants the audience to be compelled to keep moving forward with the story because it's a lot of action and mystery. Right now though, it is suffering on a character level. Erik and Hanna exist as mysteries that need to be solved. Marissa is the person hunting them for some nefarious reason. She wants them dead so that she can return home to her life of normalcy. Erik wants to kill Marissa because she killed Johanna. That becomes a personal motivation for Hanna as well because her father has told her as much. But this hour also proves that Erik isn't Hanna's biological father at all. Instead, he was working with Marissa in order to procure all of the babies for that secret program. Johanna is Hanna's mother. That means she is more important than simply being the woman who was killed and who needs to be avenged no matter how much time passes by. Erik obviously developed more of a connection with her that got him to see the error of his ways and remain loyal to Hanna no matter what. And yet, Hanna is lacking all of that context. Instead, she is adrift and doesn't know how to fit into the world. She has been conditioned to see everything with life-or-death stakes. Even a game of soccer becomes too serious with her. She impresses Erik's army friends with her skills. But she is also kept in the dark about what's actually going on because Erik always believes that he knows best. He feels tortured in a way because he doesn't want to relive the past. And yet, that's really the only thing keeping him going forward as well. It's meaningful that he captures Marissa at the conclusion of the episode. But it's also likely that he won't succeed with his final mission because the season is nowhere near its completion at this point.
