Warning: Major SPOILERS for Hanna Season 3.
Hanna season 3 brings the Amazon Prime Video series’ overarching narrative to a definitive conclusion. By the season 3 finale, Hanna (Esmé Creed-Miles) successfully frees herself from UTRAX and gets to start a new life on her own. However, although the final destination is ultimately a happy one, there are many twists and turns along the way.
Hanna spent season 3 stopping her fellow UTRAX graduates from assassinating young people deemed by Pioneer’s algorithm to be a threat to the United States and Gordon Evans’ agenda. Meanwhile, Marissa evaded her father’s attempts to bring her into Pioneer several times, even after Evans used UTRAX’s former head and Wiegler’s partner, John Carmichael (Dermot Mulroney), against her. Hanna also came of age in season 3 and she fell in love with Abbas Naziri (Adam Bessa), an activist and one of Pioneer’s main targets. Marissa and Hanna’s attempt to take out Pioneer’s algorithm and stop UTRAX culminated in a violent climax at a farmhouse outside Vienna, Austria, where Hanna hid Naziri. By the end, Marissa and Gordon fatally shot each other while Hanna’s fellow super-soldier Jules Allen (Gianna Kiehl) shot and killed her best friend, Sandy Phillips (Áine Rose Daly) to save Hanna, Naziri, and his young daughter, Nadiya (Leann Hamon). UTRAX’s operations were then publicly exposed, prompting the CIA to shut it down, at least.
Hanna season 3 was only 6-episodes compared to season 1 and 2’s 8-episodes, but it was a tighter and more focused story. The major plot points of Hanna were wrapped up and almost every adult character met their final fates. Hanna and Marissa Wiegler (Mireille Enos) teamed up to take down UTRAX in Hanna season 3, only to discover the true mastermind behind the top-secret CIA program is Gordon Evans (Ray Liotta), who is not only the Chairman of the Pioneer Group behind UTRAX but he’s also Marissa’s estranged father. Like the death of her father Erik Heller (Joel Kinnaman) at the end of Hanna season 1, the demise of Marissa leaves Hanna without a parental figure, which finally allows her to face the world as an adult who can stand on her own. Despite this conclusion, the overarching narrative of the series was far from straightforward for the main protagonists. Here are all of the twists and turns of Hanna season 3 and what it all means as the Amazon Prime Video action saga comes to a close.
UTRAX & Pioneer’s Final Defeat
Exposure and accountability were the only way to take UTRAX and the Pioneer Group down and it’s why Marissa kept ex-CIA programmer Ethan Williams (Sam Swainsbury) alive and away from UTRAX. Williams knew about UTRAX’s algorithm to predict which young people would be targeted by Pioneer’s agenda. Ethan was the key whistleblower for that aspect of Gordon Evans’ scheme. The other important whistleblower was Terri Miller (Cherrelle Skeete), who designed the backstories and social media accounts of all of UTRAX’s young female assassins. Miller was the insider within UTRAX who could prove everything that Gordon ordered his personnel to do. When Marissa killed both Gordon Evans and Brianna Stapleton (Chloe Pirrie), she took out the Chairman of the Pioneer Group and his top lieutenant. With no one left to give orders, Pioneer’s soldiers stood down.
Afterward, Terri and Ethan went to the press and went public with UTRAX’s entire rogue CIA operation starting with the creation of the first generation of babies, which included Hanna, back in 2003. The CIA quickly moved to shut down UTRAX and disassociate themselves with Evans and Pioneer. Presumably, it means the CIA put an end to the use of Evans’ algorithm that he used to predict and generate his target list. While it’s possible the algorithm cut be used by someone with a similar agenda to Gordon in the future, Hanna season 3 definitively put an end to UTRAX. However, UTRAX’s agents like Jules Allen (Gianna Kiehl) are still out in the wild and it’s unknown whether they are now “out” of the CIA and free to live their own lives or if they will be reassigned as assets by the agency.
Why Marissa’s Death Had To Happen
Marissa Wiegler’s redemption is one of Hanna‘s most important macro stories throughout the three seasons. Originally Hanna’s enemy who confessed to hating her, Marissa underwent a change of heart inspired by her knowing the teenage super-soldier. Hanna season 3 finally revealed Marissa’s backstory of being abused and manipulated by her father, Gordon Evans, who wanted her to be a reflection of him as a CIA operative. Marissa learned the awful truth that Gordon secretly enabled her entire career and everything was a manipulation for her to join him in the Pioneer Group. This includes why Marissa was put in charge of UTRAX, to begin with.
Ultimately, Marissa had to die at the end of Hanna’s series finale because there was nowhere for her story to go and there is no future for Wiegler where she could live a normal life. Despite Gordon’s numerous attempts to bring his daughter back to the fold, Marissa had caused too much damage to Pioneer’s plans and Wiegler killed too many CIA agents without remorse for her to ever come back to the agency unless it was under her father’s umbrella. Marissa truly hated her father but she had to face the fact that she became a ruthless and amoral killer just like him. Rejecting Gordon once again fueled Marissa’s actions in Hanna season 3 and what Wiegler really wanted was to make amends for all of the pain she caused, specifically to Hanna, by bringing down UTRAX once and for all. Hanna telling the dying Marissa that she is “good,” was the absolution Wiegler needed for her sins and she was able to die knowing that she did right by Hanna in the end.
Jules’ Decision To Turn And Kill Sandy Explained
Jules shot and presumably killed Sandy Phillips, who would have killed Hanna without remorse. Echoing how Marissa shot and killed her own father, Jules shot her best friend, which completed her break from UTRAX. Jules began developing her conscience and ability to see through UTRAX’s indoctrination ever since she and her ‘sisters’ moved to the Meadows and were given fictional names and histories in Hanna season 2. Jules didn’t go through with her assignment to kill a target in Hanna season 3 because she realized she and the others were brainwashed by UTRAX from the beginning.
However, Sandy psychologically and emotionally built herself around UTRAX’s training and the fake life they fabricated for her. Sandy was the ideal UTRAX agent, but the blonde super-soldier posing as the perfect schoolgirl also had a crisis of conscience after she murdered a pregnant woman in Hanna season 3. Still, Sandy was too far gone and also too afraid of UTRAX to listen to the nagging feeling in her head that what she’s doing is wrong. Both Hanna and Jules understood this about Sandy and that she would follow her orders to kill no matter what. Sandy is likely dead after Jules’ gunshot and from falling off a cliff into a river. What happens next to Jules, and the other UTRAX agents like her, is unknown.
Hanna’s Future: Why Does She Go To Boston?
The CIA gave Hanna yet another alias, “Grace Elder,” and a United States passport so she could move to Boston. This allows Hanna to ‘disappear’ and start a new life in a completely new country, especially after UTRAX became public knowledge. Hanna grew up in the Romanian wilderness and she has been all over Europe, but moving to the USA with a new identity gives her a fresh start and a completely clean slate. Of course, this meant Hanna had to leave Abbas Naziri behind and he was essentially her first love. But what Hanna desperately needed is a clean break from all of the bad memories in Europe, which she couldn’t achieve if she stays for Abbas. Boston is a good destination for Hanna because it’s filled with universities but also has a quaint, European feel so the super-soldier could presumably complete her education and live a normal life. Hanna also doesn’t use social media so it will be easier for her to blend in without leaving a digital footprint behind.
What Hanna Season 4 Could Be About (If It Ever Happens)
Hanna‘s showrunner, David Farr, ended the series in season 3 because it concludes his planned 3-act structure of Hanna growing up from a girl into an independent young woman. While there are currently no plans for Hanna season 4, it’s possible that in the future, Farr could conjure a new story about an older Hanna to tell. If that’s the case, there are threads Farr can pick up, such as the whereabouts of Jules and the other UTRAX super-soldiers. It’s also possible that the CIA’s generosity of giving Hanna a new life came with strings attached since she is still technically a valuable and highly-trained asset. The CIA could pull Hanna back into the life of an operative, especially if someone recreated Pioneer’s algorithm and resumed the plan to attack young people deemed dangerous to their agenda. But unless Hanna season 4 ever happens, the richly-acted and action-packed Amazon Prime Video series has definitely wrapped with Hanna season 3.
All 3 seasons of Hanna are streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
