Summary
“Road” offered an explosive penultimate episode as the stakes for the finale have been set and Hanna races to its conclusion.
We begin “Road” where we left things, with Mahan, the apparent golden child of Utrax Regenesis. But we don’t stay with her long. Instead, the episode opens somberly with Hanna (Esme Creed-Miles) and Erik (Joel Kinnaman) discussing the impossibility of life together. Erik reveals that he has spoken to Hanna’s biological father, that he wants to meet her, and that she can have a “normal” life with him if she wants to. This strikes me as an incredible reach, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Marissa (Mireille Enos) wants to be lead on the case again, but Sawyer (Khalid Abdalla) isn’t having it. She lost Hanna (even though Sawyer lost Erik first) and so doesn’t get to have any of her demands met. But Marissa’s burgeoning maternal instinct (she looks wistfully at a picture of Hanna on her phone) won’t allow her to drop it.
On the way to Romania, where Hanna’s biological father apparently lives and where we also learn the revived Utrax project is headquartered, Erik and Hanna stop in with Erik’s mother, Sara (Ursula Werner). He wants his late father’s guns (“We’re going hunting,”) but gets a knife straight in the back; his mama has Marissa’s contact information and gives her a call. Marissa arrives on-site in record time but is swiftly apprehended by Sawyer’s goons. The news is out, though; Erik knows about the revived Utrax, and he’s going to f**k it up.
One of the best-kept secrets of Hanna thus far is that Marissa is herself a stone-cold elite killing machine, as she proves by despatching Sawyer’s men easily and making her own escape. As Sawyer arrives at Utrax Regenesis to beef up its security in expectation of Erik’s arrival, Erik and Hanna, after some bonding and a shopping trip, arrive at the home of her seemingly well-off father and his wife and children.
This guy seems a bit limp to care for Hanna, but in an emotional goodbye, Erik promises to return for her anyway; perhaps not the best idea, given the circumstances, but it was nice to see some genuine on-the-surface emotion from these two, who have spent their entire lives suppressing such things. This isn’t a promise Erik intends to keep, obviously, since he calls Hanna’s father (who seems a genuinely nice bloke) after leaving and tells him that he isn’t coming back.
The problem, as ever, is that Hanna is too smart for her own good. She quickly figures out Erik isn’t returning, and that he’s planning on doing something stupid, and assaults her dad and nicks his car. She heads back to the motel where Marissa has tracked Erik and offered to help him keep Hanna safe; she finally admits she is “responsible” for Hanna, which has been building all season. However, Sawyer turning up at the wrong time with his hit squad makes her look mighty suspicious to Erik, and thus an excellent standoff ensues, with Erik and Hanna once again fighting their way out of trouble to an awesome music cue. “Road” ends with Sawyer on the ground, having been tossed around by an explosion, and with Marissa standing over him. Is an execution incoming? We’ll find out in the finale.
Really great recap. I look forward to it after each episode.