In most of the television miniseries, the programs drag by the time of Episode 6, as the filmmakers string the viewer along to a penultimate and final episode. "Hanna" is different. Program #6 was the most suspenseful and most action-paced thus far into the series.
Part of the success is due to the multi-dimensional characters. Young Sophie sells out Hanna and is overcome with self-loathing due to her selfishness. At the same time, she clearly has deep affection and even devotion to Hanna, intuiting that her friend has had such a traumatic past. We thus feel drawn to and repulsed by Sophie's actions.
There is an interesting scene in the middle of this episode when one of Sophie's friends discovers Hanna's birth record. He goes to his computer and pulls up Darabini, a city in the northernmost portion of Romania, bordering on Moldova and Ukraine. The boy discovers that the area is "blacked out." Darabani holds the secrets to the mysterious experimental project run with complicity of the CIA in training intelligent children to become killing machines. That was little Hanna's incubation period.
Another multi-dimensional character is Marissa Wiegler, who, in this episode, pretends to be Hanna's mother to claim her from Sophie's family. Marissa is not coming clean with Hanna when she promises to tell her the truth about her past provide her protection. Instead, she will be handing Hanna over to the nefarious middleman Sawyer. Yet, Marissa seems so compassionate and genuine that it is difficult for the audience not to empathize with her at least in select moments of the program.
All of these "human" elements in the narrative combine with a great action sequence in a hotel as the program's finale. Erik has escaped the clutches of Sawyer, surprising his guards who are about to kill him. He then ingeniously tracks Hanna through a CIA computer. The daring rescue takes place during a mad scramble in the hotel, including a fire alarm and stampede to a waiting helicopter.
Perhaps the greatest clue for learning about Hanna's past comes from Erik, who says at the start of the program, "She's smarter than all of us. You made her that way" and Hanna's admission that "I cannot control my body." The evidence points to a complete reconstitution of Hanna's DNA. Yet in the closing scene of this program, Hanna shows compassion in a moment when she could pull the trigger, yet draws back due to a stronger human impulse than her programming. This is great drama!
Part of the success is due to the multi-dimensional characters. Young Sophie sells out Hanna and is overcome with self-loathing due to her selfishness. At the same time, she clearly has deep affection and even devotion to Hanna, intuiting that her friend has had such a traumatic past. We thus feel drawn to and repulsed by Sophie's actions.
There is an interesting scene in the middle of this episode when one of Sophie's friends discovers Hanna's birth record. He goes to his computer and pulls up Darabini, a city in the northernmost portion of Romania, bordering on Moldova and Ukraine. The boy discovers that the area is "blacked out." Darabani holds the secrets to the mysterious experimental project run with complicity of the CIA in training intelligent children to become killing machines. That was little Hanna's incubation period.
Another multi-dimensional character is Marissa Wiegler, who, in this episode, pretends to be Hanna's mother to claim her from Sophie's family. Marissa is not coming clean with Hanna when she promises to tell her the truth about her past provide her protection. Instead, she will be handing Hanna over to the nefarious middleman Sawyer. Yet, Marissa seems so compassionate and genuine that it is difficult for the audience not to empathize with her at least in select moments of the program.
All of these "human" elements in the narrative combine with a great action sequence in a hotel as the program's finale. Erik has escaped the clutches of Sawyer, surprising his guards who are about to kill him. He then ingeniously tracks Hanna through a CIA computer. The daring rescue takes place during a mad scramble in the hotel, including a fire alarm and stampede to a waiting helicopter.
Perhaps the greatest clue for learning about Hanna's past comes from Erik, who says at the start of the program, "She's smarter than all of us. You made her that way" and Hanna's admission that "I cannot control my body." The evidence points to a complete reconstitution of Hanna's DNA. Yet in the closing scene of this program, Hanna shows compassion in a moment when she could pull the trigger, yet draws back due to a stronger human impulse than her programming. This is great drama!