Erik is holding Marissa prisoner, trying to negotiate a deal to get him and Hanna safely out of Berlin. Meanwhile, Hanna hides out with Dieter and his family. Desperate to know more about what her father is up to, Hanna discovers a huge secret in her own past. As an escape plan begins to form, Marissa attempts to make her own.
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.
"Father" was written by David Farr and directed by Jon Jones
This season has built a lot of its tension around Erik keeping secrets from Hanna and her trying her best to force him to tell her the truth. It has become such a formulaic and repetitive pattern here as well. The show is great when it comes to showing just how skilled both of them are at evading detection. Sure, Hanna makes more mistakes because she's young and not used to this world. However, she still gets very far as well. She is also just prone to wild outbursts at the worst possible times because of all the secrets her father has kept. He is seeking answers from Marissa as well. It's more than just the clarity over whether Johanna was given a proper burial. In that moment though, it appears as if Erik is trusting everything that Marissa has to say. He told Hanna though to always question everything about Marissa. And so, it's strange that he would take everything at face value from her. The show wants the audience to fall into that trap as well. It aspires to give us this safe assumption that the characters can be trusted with what they say. And yet, it's so blatantly obvious that they are all trying to deceive each other. Because it is so perceptible to the viewer, it makes it seem as if they aren't all that great as liars. That would make them bad at these jobs especially when it pertains to detecting the traps set by their rivals. Marissa was deceived by Erik and his team in the previous episode. And now, Erik is trapped in a situation by himself where he is seriously injured by Marissa's officers waiting for him. That seems like a blatant attempt to increase the tension moving forward. It comes on the heels of the long-awaited fight between Hanna and Erik. She follows Dieter to the secret facility where Marissa is being kept and interrogated. Dieter is given all of the information that Erik has in order to ensure it gets sent out to the public should the worst happen to his team. When Hanna takes a peak at that information, it appears as if the only meaningful information is that Erik is not her biological father. That is devastating and dramatic to her personally. And yet, it hardly spells out a conspiracy that is worth the pursuit for Erik and Hanna all of these years. Erik is led to believe by Marissa that the entire Utrax program was shut down with the remaining babies killed because he escaped with Johanna and Hanna. His actions led to even more harm being done. Of course, the audience is operating with the information that Utrax is still an active program. Its agents send Sawyer to free Marissa from her circumstances before she is killed. He is the one who successfully lures Erik into this trap. It may not kill him. But that remains the motivation for everyone involved to keep the lid on what's actually going on with this secret program and what makes Hanna so special. But Hanna is leaving Berlin. Dieter also happens to be running a human smuggling operation. Not many details are given about that here. But it presents as a way for Hanna to intersect with Sophie once more. Again, that was a taste of normalcy that was so thrilling for Hanna in their few fleeting moments together. She wishes to return to that. But it also seems as if she is just lashing out at the world without truly understanding just how serious the threat against her is. Marissa will continue to hunt her because of the resources afforded to her and Sawyer. That makes them an even more dangerous threat. But again, it all feels formulaic in a way purely to complicate the plot before reaching its expected conclusion.
