Hanna – Nadiya

By: Kelly Kearney

It’s a trap! After Hanna and Marissa were exposed and Gordon figured out they were both alive, the two make plans to head to Vienna, the city that houses Pioneer’s headquarters. But first, Hanna heads to see Abbas one last time. The two have no idea if this is their last moment together. Meanwhile, Marissa goes ahead to the Austrian capital having no idea she and Hanna are about to walk into a Gordon Evans’ sized trap. Things are heating up, and with three episodes left in the series, it’s only going to get more chaotic and deadly. So, let’s dive right in to “Nadiya.”

MARISSA KEEPS THEM GUESSING

After the events of 3×02, Hanna (Esmé Creed-Miles), Marissa (Mireille Enos) and Abbas (Adam Bessa) are on the run from Stapleton’s (Chloe Pirrie) all-seeing CCTV eye. The stone-faced female agent knows they’re working together and tracks them all over the world from France to Beirut as the savvy ex-CIA agent Weigler seems to be everywhere at once and yet nowhere to be found. While working overtime to keep Brianna Stapleton and her team on their toes, Marissa’s contact, Ethan (Sam Swainsbury), starts to realize he is being watched. He sends photos to Marissa and Hanna, who are preparing for a trip to Vienna to intercept the next mission and also search the city for Pioneer’s headquarters. Hanna is worried about Abbas, who was just spotted on CCTV boarding a bus to Paris. Terri overhears Stapleton send a team to grab the escaped target claiming she will handle the two women who keep foiling her Abbas Naziri plans. She goes to Carmichael (Dermot Mulroney) to convince him to talk, knowing he has more information on Marissa and Mia/Hanna than he is letting on to. “Where are they?” “I only talk to the Chairman. Tell him I want to talk about his favorite agent. In case you are wondering, it’s not you.” He hits a nerve, because from everything we have seen Breanna wants to be Gordon’s (Ray Liotta) favorite girl, and the jealousy is written in green all over her sourpuss of a face.

Trying to always stay one step ahead of Pioneer, Marissa calls in a favor with an old Colleague Carl (Justin Salinger). She wants everything he can dig up on a former colleague, Gordon Evans.

Speaking of, The Chairman drops in on Carmichael and John offers him a deal. He knows Gordon has been behind Marissa’s career from the beginning and he also is aware of how badly he wants her back and under his thumb. He offers him a trade: Marissa for his freedom. It must be an offer Gordon cannot refuse because when we next see John, he is taking a call from Marissa in front of Stapleton, who is listening in on a wiretap. He explains that the surprise attack she, Hanna, and Abbas, faced was not his fault. In fact, if anyone is to blame it’s her for losing track of Hanna and allowing her spend time with Abbas at the safe house. He finishes the call by telling her a team is coming for Naziri unless she finds them first and stops them. Marissa begrudgingly tells Hanna to be safe knowing she will take off to save him and risk this whole operation. Hanna is a girl in love, and it is not like Marissa can ground her, she isn’t even her mother, although she might be the closest thing she has ever had to one. Hanna notices Marissa’s concern and promises to make it to Vienna before the next target is struck down. It isn’t long before Marissa is alone again and having creepy disturbing flashbacks of her father she just cannot shake.

When Hanna does make it to Paris she figures out where Abbas is hiding when she spots a caged bird in the window. It reminds her Naziri’s comparison to a caged mind trying to break free. She slips inside the flat undetected until an older woman, seemingly Abbas’ mother, Sylvie (Mama Prassinos), runs into her in the entryway. She starts and that’s when we hear Abbas talking to someone. It’s a reveal Hanna wasn’t expecting. Abbas has a six-year-old daughter named Nadiya (Léann Hamon). It is a shock and immediately reminds Hanna of the moment they met and the phone call he made to what seemed like a girlfriend. It isn’t long before she gets the feeling this hideout isn’t safe and Pioneer’s goons are outside; armed and ready to kill. Hanna goes into panic mode and manages to get Abbas and Nadiya out a window and into a neighboring apartment just as Gordon’s men break down the door and shoot his mother dead. Shots ring out in the apartment building with the goons killing everyone in their path. Luckily, Hanna, Abbas, and Nadiya escape capture once again when they steal a parked van and take off through the streets of Paris.

VIENNA

Meanwhile, from a train heading to Vienna, Marissa calls John knowing she and Hanna have been compromised. She keeps it short, as to avoid the trace, but the background chatter slips her mind and gets picked up on Stapleton’s recordings. After John offers to help, Marissa gets suspicious, “you’ve done everything I need,” meaning I know what you have been up to, and I am not walking into whatever trap they have you setting for me. Stapleton plays the recoding of their call for Gordon who notices the background talking and asks her to isolate the voices. They hear German and a mention of Vienna; Marissa is coming for them, and more importantly, coming for him.

When Hanna calls Marissa to let her know about the shootout and Abbas’ dead mother, Marissa confirms that Carmichael is working with The Chairman. If he is still alive, she is going to move Ethan and his pregnant girlfriend, Anne (Amira El Sayed) to a safe house and then meet Hanna in Vienna for the next mission. The Chairman is also on the move, as he orders his team to activate the next mission and take Ethan out. He cannot have the other half of the programming team out in the world just waiting to out Pioneer’s little killer secrets. From the loose of things, they already captured his partner, coder Max Kaplan (Gabriel Akuwudike), and he is next on the “tying up loose ends” list. Who better to loosen his knot than Sandy (Áine Rose Daly) the ruthless assassin assigned to him.

After going to the café for his daily lunch and learning Marissa paid for his meal; a sign that he should run, we see Sandy enter the dining room just as he makes his hasty escape. Back at Pioneer headquarters, Carmichael threatens Terri (Cherrelle Skeete) telling her to forget what she thinks she knows and do her job. Whether or not he is looking out for her, it is hard to tell, but his clear threat doesn’t deter Terri from doing what she knows in her heart is right.

Next, we spot Abass, Nadiya and Hanna at train station in search of a place to hide while the next mission is intercepted. The two land on the topic of his daughter and why he lied, and Abbas admits he was scared to tell her in fear she wouldn’t want to be with a man who has a child. He is truthful about her mother, claiming she wasn’t a god person, and they haven’t been together since Nadiya was born, but none of that matters now. A child cannot decide this life, and Hanna will not out Nadiya through what she went through. The fear, the hiding, the isolation; it is no way to raise a kid. So, she breaks up with him but promises to get them both to safety before their final goodbye. At the same time this drama at the station is going down, we see in Marissa stuck in Mary’s flashbacks. Cigar smoke wafting through the air as young Mary cringes at the man who she calls father.

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

Having just met a helpful man on the train offering them a safe place to stay after he overhears their “family drama” a group of Pioneer’s men board and start combing the train for their targets. The kind man steps in between the goons, giving  the three travelers enough time to make a run for it. They hide underneath the stopped train while the men in black search every inch of the cars above. With the address in their pocket, they head to the farm the man said was safe, and it appears he was right. The woman who owns it shares Abbas’ anti-capitalist beliefs, so Hanna assumes he will be fine while she is in Vienna. Regardless of what she said at the station, she does promise him she will be back.

Speaking of surprising returns, the doorbell rings at Ethan’s apartment and his music professor girlfriend, Anne, waddles to answer it. She is very pregnant and trying to pack her things to meet with Ethan when her music student, Sandy asks for help on a piece they have been working on. The vibes are off immediately and call it a mother’s intuition, but something doesn’t add up with this student. When the woman tries to get Sandy to leave things quickly devolve into a fight, with Sandy getting the upper hand and tying the pregnant woman up. She holds a gun to her belly ad orders the frightened woman to tell her where Ethan is. She eventually breaks down and shows her an address scribbled onto a sheet of music and as Sandy takes her eyes off Anne, she grabs a heavy object and attempts to hit Sandy over the head. It doesn’t go as planned; the trained killer is too fast for her and shoots Anne and her unborn fetus dead. Sandy’s brutality isn’t for the faint of heart, but in killing the mother-to-be we get a peek at the level of depravity these trainees have been brainwashed into. She takes the address and starts to make her way to the safehouse as Ethan sits alone waiting for his fiancé, worried about her no show. That’s when he spots Sandy entering the building. He calls Marissa just as he escapes to a nearby church and gives her the coordinates of his whereabouts. She calls Hanna who just arrived in Vienna to tell her to meet her there. When Marissa does arrive, Ethan is nowhere to be found but her father is. “Hello Mary, its been a long time.” After peeling back Marissa’s layers this season, it looks like we are finally going to get an idea of how she became the woman we first met, and why she has been running from her ever since.