Where We Left Off In Hanna Season 1 & The Wide Open World Ahead

You might have seen the 2011 action-thriller Hanna starring a super young Saoirse Ronan as the titular Hanna, but the show came along with a story four times longer and ten times more intense. Amazon Prime Video essentially rebooted the movie with an 8-part first season that takes Hanna’s already familiar origin story in a brand new direction and expands her little-kid-assassin-world threefold. With season 2 quickly approaching, now’s the perfect time to either get hooked on the thriller or remember exactly what happened ahead of a new batch of episodes. 

For the most part, the series follows a lot of the same beats of the movie, but the film’s ending and the ending of season 1 are drastically different — and that’s important. 

In season 1 of Hanna, we’re introduced to Hanna (Esme Creed-Miles) and her father, Erik (Joel Kinnaman). They’re living alone in the wilderness, and Erik is teaching Hanna how to survive. But, not just survive off of the land but survive if she’s suddenly attacked by a fleet of men with giant guns hunting her down. Thankfully, she’s been preparing for this her whole life so when a mysterious group does locate Hanna and Erik, they’ve got a plan in place. They’re going to split up later and meet in Berlin. 

The team hunting Hanna and Erik is lead by CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Mireille Enos), who’s been tracking the young girl down for over a decade. Because, big spoiler warning, it turns out Erik is not really Hanna’s father. He rescued her as a baby from a government facility, where she had been genetically enhanced to essentially become a super-soldier. Way back when, Erik had convinced Hanna’s mom to give her up to this program, UTrax. But when Hanna’s mother changed her mind, Erik stole the baby back and they’ve been on the run ever since. 

Flash forward 15 years later, and this leads to a dash around the world as Hanna and Erik continuously evade capture, while Hanna also gets her first taste of life as a teenager (and Snickers bars). 

Having only known the life she’s led with Erik secluded in the forest, Hanna is on one hand eager to survive (and fight) and on the other hand….well, she’s excited to finally get a small glimpse at what being a teenager is like. Hanna is also a sneaky coming-of-age story, as she befriends a British girl named Sophie (Rhianne Barreto) and then develops her first crush (who also happens to be Sophie’s crush... you know how it goes with teenagers). But, Hanna also realizes that she’s been trained to do one thing her whole life, and that’s survive. And when push comes to shove that’s what she’s going to do. 

This all leads to the explosive season 1 finale where Hanna — finally reunited with Erick, who she has since learned is not her real dad — tries to free a new batch of UTrax recruits, now under the name UTrax Regenesis. Throughout the season we learn that these girls are genetically enhanced and being trained to essentially become sleeper agents. They’re also being fed some sort of medication every day, but we don’t know what happens when they go off those meds. 

Though Hanna asks for her “sisters” to escape to freedom with her, only one of them chooses to do so: Girl 249, whose real name is Clara (Yasmin Monet Prince). All the other girls decide to stay with UTrax Regenesis. After a deadly confrontation, Marissa (who has been chasing Hanna all season), lets her go, realizing that maybe she wasn’t actually one of the good guys like she previously thought. 

Hanna and Clara bury Erik and leave together, heading for parts unknown.  

With Erik gone, she’s lost literally the only figure she’s ever had her entire life. But, thankfully Hanna now has Clara, who is also going to be in search of guidance, considering she’s been a part of the UTrax since birth.

His fate didn't change: Erik died in the season 1 finale. After being shot, he collapses and Hanna (with Clara’s help) manages to get him out of the UTrax facility and to safety. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save him and Erik dies. The two girls bury Erik before setting off without him.

The small sliver of silver lining here is that Erik greatly prepared Hanna for life without him. By this point, she's. She’s well aware of her government background and the fact that she’s been genetically enhanced. Thanks to Erik’s training, she’s also an incredibly skilled fighter. She also knows how Erik recruited her mother, and eventually saved her from the UTrax program. While it’s sad to see him go, Erik at least left her equipped to take care of herself. 

Erik’s death is sure to have a lasting impact on Hanna, but from the looks of it, Erik isn’t involved in the brand new season of Hanna.

Marissa spends the entire season trying to track down and capture Hanna and in the end, she just lets her go. But Marissa obviously has her reasons. Throughout the first season of Hanna we learn about her connection to Erik, and how they used to work together — before Erik went rogue.  

Marissa was one of the agents behind the original UTrax program, and is now one of the agents behind the new UTrax Regenesis. But by the end of the season, even she has her doubts about what’s right and wrong. During a confrontation at the UTrax Regenesis facility, Marissa actually shoots her boss, Jerome Sawyer (Khalid Abdalla), allowing Hanna, Erik, and Clara to escape. 

Realizing the situation she put herself in, Marissa calls in the incident and then shoots herself in the leg, making it look like she was attacked by Hanna. The last we see of her, the UTrax is in shambles and she's waiting for help.

The biggest question for season 2 might be if Hanna can trust Marissa. Judging from the trailer for the season, it sure looks like Marissa is trying to convince Hanna that she can. Still, she appears to be involved in whatever the new UTrax Regenesis is, and is working closely with its new leader.

It’ll be interesting to see these two meet again, not only because of her involvement with UTrack, but because while Marissa let Hanna live, because of Marissa, Erik's dead. She may start out as an ally for Hanna in season 2, but there’s no telling how long that will last.