Hanna – The List

By: Kelly Kearney

The season two finale is here and, oh boy, it was a jam packed hour of heart pounding action and surprising twists that left viewers breathless for more. Let’s jump right into this recap because we have a lot to cover!

On the Run

After the last episode ended with Sandy (Áine Rose Daly) killing Tacitus (Mark Bazeley), Hanna (Esmé Creed-Miles) and Clara (Yasmin Monet Prince) take off with his daughter Kat (Angela Sari) to keep her safe. Where do you go when the police, FBI, Interpol and a top secret government network of killers are hunting you down? We soon found that out when all three head to a wealthy gated neighborhood in Barcelona. Hanna, Clara and a traumatized Kat force their way into a home and hold the man (Eduardo Lloveras) inside hostage. It is not clear if the terrifies man is the owner of the house. He claims to be a work man and has no idea where the owners are. The girls tie him up to a chair and right away you can see cracks starting to form in this plan. Kat is not only furious at Clara for her part in her father’s death, but she doesn’t seem too keen on this hostage situation. Considering it has been less than 24 hours since she was poolside with her university friends, this deadly life on the run just doesn’t suit her.

Next we dive into a flashback with John (Dermot Mulroney) and Bob Gelder A/K/A Tacitus. The two men are having dinner and drinks and they are obviously friendly co-workers. After the drunks start flowing we see John hand Bob a folder full of information. It’s the list of targets The Pioneers intend to kill, and Bob is stunned into silence. Back to the present and John shows up at the crime scene from Gelder’s murder and its immediately obvious everyone works for him. Even the police and FBI are his subordinates and it shows just how deep this all goes. Casually walking through the murder scene, John has one mission: To find that briefcase but so far, he hasn’t been successful at tracking it down. Does Kat have it? Find the kid and maybe he can find the list.

Uncle Leo

In her apartment and struggling through a murder hang over, Sandy hears a knock at her door and it’s her “Uncle” Leo (Anthony Welsh) asking the landlord to be let in in. Sandy opens the door and Leo waltzes in with orders to get her out of the city safely and back to The Meadows. Besides her getaway, Leo is also on the hunt for Hanna who is doing her best to stay out of sight.

Back at the mansion Hanna questions Kat about her father’s work. If she knows anything she has to spill the tea because it could be the difference between life and death for all three of them. Kat does mention the briefcase and that’s when Clara remembers she saw a bellhop walk out of Gelder’s room carrying one! This means someone will have to go back to the hotel and question that staff member and it looks like its going to have to be Hanna. Luckily, the owner of the house left the keys to his flashy car. With Hanna city bound and looking for this list, Sandy’s escape plans hit a snag when the police come to her school to question Kat’s friends. The girl hasn’t been seen since she was spotted at her Dad’s hotel and with him now dead she is either in danger or a suspect. Sandy does her best to evade their questions and defect any suspicion off of herself. Later, she fills John in on the police questioning and he tells her she did a good job and to head back to The Meadows.

At the house an emotional Clara reads the email her mother sent and she is filled with happy tears that this woman is alive and wants to know her. She emails the woman back and, while she is distracted by this life changing moment, the hostage convinces Kat to pull the silent security alarm.

Another Betrayal

After driving off in her newly acquired Mercedes, Hanna makes it to Gelder’s hotel and finds the employee with the briefcase. The man put it in the safe and, at gun point, Hanna demands he hand it over. Outside the lobby Marissa (Mireille Enos) and Grant (Caitlin Innes Edwards) show up looking for both the list and Hanna, assuming they would probably be in the same place. Grant is banking on that because unbeknownst to Marissa she is feeding information back to John Carmichael! It seems Grant is secretly on The Pioneer’s payroll! With the list in hand, Hanna goes to leave but then spots the other journalist, Alba (Clara Segura), who was working with Bob and Nicola. In that moment John enters the lobby with his goons and chaos ensues. Everyone starts shooting at each other, but Hanna is too quick for him and she escapes though the hotel’s kitchen and runs directly into Marissa. She stops the fleeing teenager and tells her she can help, but Hanna knows Grant is a traitor and can’t be trusted. When the woman is out of ear shot Hanna tells Marissa she knows Grant works for John. Marissa believes her, but Hanna is not waiting around for them to figure this out. As John flies out of the kitchen doors, Hanna takes off running before he can kill her.

Once safely away from John and the others, Hanna gets in her car and goes through the sought after list of names. Immediately she notices the ages of the target are all children, some of them as young as thirteen years old. At the same time this big reveal is happening, Marissa tracks down Sandy and demands to know where Hanna and the other two are hiding. She mentions a classmate told her about a wealthy neighborhood tucked away and behind some gates. It’s the perfect place for them to hide, especially since most of them are vacation homes and empty this time of year. It seems like an obvious place to lay low, unless one of them pulls the alarm and alerts the police to their location, which is exactly what Kat did! The distraught girl is angry and confused and doesn’t want to witness anymore killing. When Clara hears the front gate to the house open she figures out what Kat did and she is furious! Clara grabs the tied up man and throws him out into the driveway. She tells him to go, that he will be safe with the police. The man is extremely hesitant to walk through the gates, almost like he knows it will not be the cops waiting for him but something far more sinister. Of course, he was right. As he makes it to the front gate, Leo steps out and shoots the man in the head. Next, Leo enters the house stalking around looking for the girls. He calls out to Kat to give the other two up since they helped kill her father. He tries to get the hidden girl to turn on Hanna and Clara and eventually she comes out of hiding with her hands up. This is when Clara jumps down from the ceiling rafters. The two struggle and she tosses herself and Leo into the pool. Above them John stands on the house deck and aims to shoot Clara, but he misses and instead kills Leo! Clara swims to the other side of the pool just as Hanna pulls up at the house and finds Grant and Marissa outside. Hanna shoots Grant and then saves Clara by shooting John. The traitor dies, but John gets off lucky with a bullet to the arm. The three goons with John try and storm the house, but Marissa shoots all three dead and saves Hanna, Clara and Kat.

With everyone either dead or incapacitated, Hanna has a moment to hand Marissa the list of targets. She takes a few photos of the contents and tells Hanna to hold on to it for now. Heading inside the house Marissa finds a wounded John and informs him this entire project and list mission is over. The Pioneers will not be happy that John shared their secrets with his colleague, Gelder. It was sloppy and will probably cost him his life. Now, he is under Marissa’s thumb and knows he is going to have to cooperate with her if he wants to live. He asks, “What do you want” and for her, a woman who spent the whole season getting beaten by this man, power over him is almost satisfying enough. Marissa tells John she wants him to help her take The Pioneers down. This is her show now. She is the boss, not him. And if he doesn’t agree to help her, she will let her bosses kill him for his sloppiness and risking the project.

Goodbye…Forever?

Now that they are safe Hanna and Clara take Kat to the airport so she can fly to Missouri to be with her mother. Hanna assumes it’s now a party of three – her, Marissa and Clara. But after emailing her mother, Clara decides her path is leading her to Morocco for a long awaited reunion. Crying, Clara thanks her friend for saving her and finding her mother. The two friends fiercely hug it out and then abruptly Hanna pushes back and says, “You leave me now forever.” Clara shrugs that off and says they will meet again, but Hanna shakes her head. To remain safe, Clara needs to go live her new life and never look for Hanna again. The gift Hanna gave her is not only her mother, but the freedom from having to look over her shoulder if this Pioneer take down doesn’t work out. It is a good thing Hanna is so insistent, too. At The Meadows Terri (Cherrelle Skeete) sees the emails between Clara and her mother.  She was ordered to alert her bosses if there was any activity that could pinpoint the girls whereabouts, but when she does she has a crisis of conscience. Instead of offering up Clara’s freedom on a silver Utrax platter, Terri deletes the email exchange and pretends like she never saw it. For now, Clara is safe and that’s all Hanna wanted from the start of Season Two. Terri might be questioning her loyalty to the program, but Sandy sure isn’t. She returns to The Meadows excited for whatever comes next.

As the season draws to a close Hanna prepares the fans for what lies ahead when she turns to Clara and asks her, “What’s next?” For Clara, it’s a trip to Morocco where she runs to embrace her mother Samira (Tasiana Mevong). For Hanna, it looks like her future will continue to include Marissa, as the two work together to finally take down Utrax from the inside. They will head back to The Meadows and chip away at the powers that be until the whole operation comes tumbling down. Someone has to stop these men from killing children across the globe and these two, along with a blackmailed John, might be the only ones who can do it. It is, after all, what Erik said his daughter was destined to do. Little did he know that destiny would include the very woman who put her in this path to begin with.