Warning: SPOILERS for Hanna Season 3.
Now that its run on Amazon Prime Video is over, Hanna emerged as a rarity: a perfect 3-season show. Created by David Farr, Hanna adapted the 2011 Hanna feature film directed by Joe Wright, which Farr co-wrote. Esmé Creed-Miles took over the role of Hanna, which was originated by Saoirse Ronan in the movie, while Joel Kinnaman and Mireille Enos played Erik Heller and Marissa Wiegler, characters played by Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett. While Hanna season 1 largely followed the film's plot, seasons 2 and 3 significantly expanded the Hanna universe and told a powerful story of the teenage super-soldier's coming of age.
Hanna season 1's crucial shift was its climactic introduction of UTRAX, the CIA operation that created Hanna as one of what was meant to be a generation of female super-soldiers literally bred by the agency. Hanna was genetically spliced with wolf DNA to give her enhanced abilities, including heightened hearing. But Erik stole the baby Hanna, who is his daughter, and destroyed UTRAX's work in 2003 before he hid Hanna in the Romanian wilderness and trained her to be an elite warrior. 15 years later, Hanna and Erik re-entered the world to learn that the CIA created the second generation of UTRAX. After Erik's tragic death, Marissa Wiegler turned from Hanna's greatest enemy into her ally. In Hanna season 2, Hanna joined UTRAX to liberate her 'sister,' Clara Mahan (Yasmin Monet Prince), and she briefly served as their agent under the alias, Mia Wolff. But when Hanna learned UTRAX's ultimate goal is the elimination of innocent targets their benefactors, the Pioneer Group, deemed threats, Hanna and Marissa joined forces to take down UTRAX. In Hanna season 3, Hanna discovers that Pioneer's Chairman, Gordon Evans (Ray Liotta), is Marissa's father.
While Hanna is an international action series, its true strength is its focus on its lead character and the show's thoughtful examination of Hanna's coming of age. Despite all of her training, Hanna entered the world as an innocent, and her discovery of normal society and life outside the wilderness was as fascinating as the show's espionage and intrigue. Hanna met her first friend, Sophie (Rhianne Barreto) in season 1, while Hanna season 2 was the show's unique take on the super-soldier essentially attending a British boarding school, albeit one training teenage female assassins. In Hanna season 3, she falls in love with Abbas Naziri (Adam Bessa), an activist who opened up Hanna's mind to new ideas about social justice. Keeping Naziri safe dovetails into Hanna's greater mission of stopping UTRAX and the Chairman. Throughout all 3 seasons, the show never loses sight that Hanna is about the title character's growth as a young woman who was bred to fight but is trying to find her place in the world under her own terms.
Hanna season 3's introduction of Gordon Evans also ingeniously drew a parallel between how Marissa was raised with how Erik raised Hanna. Although it was under extreme survival conditions in nature, Hanna still grew up in season 1 with a loving father who literally died to protect her. But Marissa's coldness and amoral tactics were revealed to be the result of her abusive father, Gordon, who wanted Wiegler to be a reflection of him. Marissa ultimately rejects her father in Hanna season 3, and her redemption arc is inspired by Hanna's purity. As the dying Wiegler told Hanna, "I hated you for so long..." but Hanna came to love her former enemy, and vice versa. Hanna telling Marissa, "You are good," was the absolution Wiegler needed for a lifetime of misdeeds, including killer her own father in cold blood.
Even though it's about a teenage super-soldier, Hanna is grounded in realistic characterizations and intense emotional drama. Hanna also evolves throughout the series, which introduces endearing counterparts to Hanna like her blonde adversary, Sandy Phillips (Áine Rose Daly), who is the ideal UTRAX agent, and Jules Allen (Gianna Kiehl), who grows a conscience and rejects UTRAX the way Hanna did. In an era of TV where great shows are often and maddeningly canceled prematurely by streaming services, Amazon Prime Video thankfully allowed Hanna to complete the story its creator wanted to tell so that Hanna ends its richly told, thrilling run as a perfect 3-season show.
Hanna Season 3 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.