5 Attachment(s)
Hanna Season 2's Ending Sets Up The Super Soldiers' Season 3 Mission
Warning: SPOILERS below for Hanna Season 2
Hanna season 2's action-packed ending was full of twists that set up the next exciting mission for the rebellious teen warrior and her fellow super soldiers in season 3. Created by David Farr, Hanna season 2 blazes a compelling new direction for the titular heroine played by Esme Creed-Miles and her longtime frenemy, CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Mireille Enos). After season 1 loosely adapted the 2011 feature film directed by Joe Wright and starring Saoirse Ronan, Hanna season 2 thrillingly reinvented Amazon Prime Video's action-adventure series to center on Utrax, the CIA operation that created Hanna, which is now a school of enhanced teenage female assassins matriculating in a Northern England estate called the Meadows.
In Hanna season 2's finale, Hanna turned on Utrax and worked to upend the plans of the program's director, John Carmichael (Dermot Mulroney). Hanna was sent undercover to London to kill a reporter looking to acquire a secret list of Utrax targets, but she rebelled. After Hanna failed to stop her fellow Utrax trainee, Jules Allen (Gianna Kiehl), from eliminating the target, Hanna traveled to Barcelona to stop the second phase of the plan as Sandy Phillips (Aine Rose Daly) and Clara Maher (Yasmin Monet Prince) were to take out a Washington attorney named Robert Gelder (Mark Bazeley) who was in possession of the list. After Sandy assassinated Gelder, Hanna and Clara (who turned on Utrax) had to go to the run and protect Robert's teenage daughter Kat (Angela Sari) from Utrax.
Meanwhile, Marissa had to cut through an elaborate web of lies to reunite with and help Hanna. Weigler then finally got even with Carmichael and discovered who her true enemies are: a powerful faction looking to take over the CIA called the Pioneer Group. Hanna season 2's finale was full of explosive action, turns, and a reshuffling of the series' paradigm yet again. Here's every twist of season 2's finale episodes, "Tacitus" and "The List," and how everything sets up a new direction in Hanna season 3.
Carmichael Was Using Utrax To Fix His Own Mistake
John Carmichael's main goal in Hanna season 2 was to clean up a mess he made because, thanks to his blunder, a list of Utrax's future targets ended up in the hands of a Washington insider named Robert Gelder. Carmichael, who was socially drinking with Gelder in July 2019 and couldn't hold his booze, goofed and allowed Gelder to take a photo of the Utrax target list. Codenamed "Tacitus," Gelder planned to make the list public by giving it to reporters in London and Barcelona, which would blow Utrax's existence wide open. Tacitus himself traveled to Barcelona to meet his contact in person. Carmichael deployed Hanna and Jules to London undercover as students to intercept and kill the London reporter while Sandy and Clara were sent to do the same in Barcelona. Sandy and Clara were also ordered to get close to Gelder's teenage daughter Kat, who was a student in Barcelona.
Hanna couldn't go through with being part of a government-sponsored assassination; she turned on Utrax but couldn't stop Jules from completing her mission and killing the London reporter. Hanna acquired the reporter's phone, and armed with the info she needed about Sandy and Clara's end of the assignment, she traveled to Spain. But again, Hanna was too late to stop Sandy from killing Gelder. Despite deploying his trusted top man, Leo Garner (Anthony Welsh), to Barcelona to run point on Sandy and Clara, Carmichael had to enter the field after Gelder was killed and Hanna and Clara went on the run with Kat.
After Carmichael failed to stop Hanna from acquiring the list, which Gelder left behind in his hotel's safe, Carmichael's forces tracked their rogue agents to their hideout, a mansion in the Barcelona hills, but Leo was accidentally killed while fighting Clara. Hanna arrived, killed Carmichael's men, and shot Utrax's boss before Marissa came in for the save. At that point, the jig was up for the wounded Carmichael, and he had no more cards to play because his entire operation was in shambles.
The Pioneer Group Are The Real Villains Behind Utrax
Utrax is a Romania-based CIA program that in 2003 began genetically manipulating newborn fetuses and injecting them with wolf DNA to grow super soldiers. However, around 2015, highly-placed, radical nationalists within the CIA began a systematic takeover of the agency and recruited agents who were "loyal to a new cause." This cadre calls themselves the Pioneer Group, and they installed John Carmichael as the head of Utrax, which would be their "new weapon" against their enemies: deploying an army of enhanced super soldiers who, because they were teenage girls, could blend into the real world and operate without suspicion.
The Pioneer Group believes in controlling the young and eliminating them before they can grow to become threats. Hence, they use the youth of Utrax to take out their youthful targets. In fact, every name on Utrax's target list was a person who was under the age of 29; it was the fact that the targets were mostly kids that appalled Robert Gelder and led him to copy the list and try to take it public. The Pioneer Group are the Big Bads of Hanna and will find themselves the targets of Utrax in Hanna season 3.
Clara Left Utrax To Reunite With Her Mother
Clara's obsession in Hanna season 2 was finding her birth mother, Samira Elouassi (Tasiana Mevong), who she believed was alive. Utrax fooled Clara into thinking that her mother was dead, and once Clara accepted that lie, she was able to dedicate herself to Utrax and her new fabricated identity as Clemency Jones. Once Clara had settled into being Clemency, she was instrumental in getting Hanna to also join Utrax and become Mia Wolff (at least for a while). However, neither Hanna nor Clara were ever true believers in Utrax like the other trainees like Sandy and Jules are.
Clara also rebelled at the idea of being a government-sponsored killer, and Hanna fueled her hesitance by telling her that her mother was alive and living in Egypt. Hanna even told Clara how to email her mother. Clara sent an email to Samira and found out her mother wanted to meet with her. After the entire Barcelona operation was over, the list was secured, and Kat was safe, Clara decided she couldn't return to Utrax and had to reunite with her mother. Hanna understood and gave her the Canadian passport Marissa had made for her, which gave her a new identity: Melanie Jean Hall.
But to keep Clara safe, she and her mother had to go on the run and Clara could never see Hanna again. In fact, Terri Miller (Cherrelle Skeete) at Utrax, who created Clara's Clemency Jones identity, discovered that Clara made contact with her mother but deleted the files to protect the girl. In the end, Clara reunited with her mother in Morocco, and presumably, she is safe from Utrax. Like Hanna, Clara was never really cut out for Utrax, but she is lucky that her mother is still alive, and Clara deservedly got her heart's desire after being separated from her family for her entire life.
Marissa Took Over Utrax For A New Mission: Fight The Pioneer Group
Besides helping Hanna, Marissa Wiegler was driven to find the truth behind who was running Utrax and why. Marissa endured numerous obstacles and found traitors in every corner. Even the resistance cell within the CIA that she turned to for help ended up being infiltrated by agents sent by John Carmichael, who was her teacher at the agency. Nonetheless, Marissa proved too smart for Carmichael and turned the tables on him in the Hanna season 2 finale.
Marissa pieced together that all of the blame for the botched Barcelona operation lay at Carmichael's feet. Once she had John where she wanted him, she presented him with her new plan: Marissa herself is taking over Utrax and will use them to fight the Pioneer Group. If Carmichael doesn't help her, she'll reveal that he was at fault for all of the mistakes and leave him for the Pioneer Group to deal with. This twist not only sets up Utrax's new mission for Hanna season 3, and places Marissa right at the center of it all where she belongs, but it's also a clever way to utilize the super soldiers so that they become Marissa's private army. After all, Marissa used to run the original Utrax before it was restarted without her knowing.
Essentially, Wiegler now has a school full of 30 Hannas at her disposal. For fans, it's also a relief that after spending the entire season developing Utrax, the lovable characters like Sandy, Jules, and Helen Young (Severine Howell-Meri) get to continue on and fight for a (hopefully) better cause in Hanna season 3. Utrax's operatives are trained to follow orders, but it will also be fascinating if any of them rebel against their new boss, Marissa.
