Amazon's Hanna - Episode 1.06 "Mother"
Sophie and Hanna's relationship begins to turn sour over their shared interest in Anton. In the fallout from this argument, Marissa arrives at Sophie's house pretending to be Hanna's mother. Hanna finds herself torn between endangering Sophie and her family, or giving up her own freedom and going with Marissa. Meanwhile, a captured Erik is brutally interrogated by Sawyer and his men.
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.
"Mother" was written by David Farr and directed by Amy Neil
The push-pull dynamic amongst Hanna, Erik and Marissa is really the central and only focus of this season. They come together. Then, they fall apart. And yet, it has been repeated a couple times. As such, it doesn't seem as if this season needed to be stretched out across eight episodes. The six hours so far have mostly just wanted the audience to see everyone as being able to one-up each other in this investigation. None of them are really operating with the full truth though. In negotiating her return with Sawyer, Marissa mentions wanting to be brought up to speed with everything that is currently going on with Utrax. She may have left the program shortly after Erik and Hanna did. And yet, the program didn't shut down after she closed the facility. In fact, Erik receives damning evidence that it quickly picked up again. As such, Hanna isn't the only person in the world with her special abilities. Sure, the show hasn't done a great job in explaining what makes her so different. The sound design has told the audience that she can hear things others cannot. Everything else though could easily be accredited to excellent training from Erik in the woods. She can outshoot and outrun people. That too may be genetic for her. But the show has remained very vague when it comes to the precise details. That means this season has simply been delaying the gratification for both Hanna and the audience. She makes a deal with Marissa to go with her if Sophie's family remains safe and she gets the answers she has always wanted. When Marissa presents herself as Hanna's mother, there is no reason for Sophie and her family to question it. It is only after the fact that Sophie and Dan realize that Marissa is deceiving everyone and has an ulterior motive in all of this. At that point though, Hanna has already made her decision. She wants the clarity of knowing who she truly is. She doesn't have a good enough explanation to Sophie when she learns that she had sex with Anton. That is the moment this friendship falls apart a little bit. But it's also meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Sophie continues to protect Hanna even in the face of immense pressure from her parents and Marissa. That is the true loyalty that comes from a friend. It still leads to Hanna and Marissa in a hotel together though. Hanna was promised answers but Marissa doesn't give any to her. Marissa is using all of this to get some herself. Meanwhile, Erik is the one who receives access to the files detailing the current Utrax program. He was being tortured into giving up the whereabouts of Hanna. He didn't know where she was. When he managed to break free though, he did so by gathering as much information as he could. So, he knows this program is so much bigger than Marissa now. Eliminating her wouldn't put an end to him and Hanna being hunted down. Their reunion is heartwarming because they felt they had lost each other. It's a tense situation as well. Of course, it's also a little ridiculous. How did Erik get to London so fast? He got there apparently before Sawyer and his team because he was able to make the intersect in the elevator while the team was still assembling for the take down. After that, it's all about creating enough of a distraction so that the two of them can get to the helicopter. That proves that they are still very crafty and work well together. They just have to trust each other especially because it is essentially them against the world at this point. However, the pieces aren't just coming together quite yet to make all of this feel satisfying. Instead, it's most repetitive.
