Hanna to end with season 3: 'That was always the intention,' showrunner David Farr reveals

Hanna's mission is almost over.

EW has exclusively learned that Prime Video's action-thriller based on the 2011 film of the same name will end with the upcoming third season. "That was always the intention, to be honest," showrunner David Farr tells EW. "If you look back at when I was talking about the second season, I talked about how it needed 'the third act.' I come from the theater originally, and I always have full act structure in my head to how a piece of drama plays out. And in this case, I felt that there was this very clear arc."

All six episodes of Hanna season 3 — including the series finale — will debut Wednesday, Nov. 24. The premiere picks up almost immediately after the end of season 2, as teen assassin Hanna (Esmé Creed-Miles) embarks on her new mission to take down the sinister government organization Utrax from the inside, with help from enemy-turned-ally Marissa Wiegler (Mireille Enos) and blackmail victim John Carmichael (Dermot Mulroney). But Hanna's fellow young assassins Sandy (Áine Rose Daly) and Jules (Gianna Kiehl), as well as terrifying new foe Gordon Evans (Ray Liotta), are starting to suspect Hanna's plan. As she moves closer to her goal, Hanna begins to uncover not only a world-changing agenda but also the true power behind Utrax that stands between her and freedom.

Farr explains that each season has followed a different chapter in Hanna's life, with this third season completing her journey into adulthood. "You've got the upbringing of the child Hanna, then you've got the adolescent Hanna, and then act 3 is the end of her journey," he says. "And each of those parts of the journey involves the discovery of different parts of herself emotionally. It also involves huge discoveries in terms of things she didn't know and things we didn't know, and that's true very much this season. So that's how I've always had it planned."

And Farr, who also wrote the original Hanna movie, knows that getting to conclude the series on his own terms is a blessing that many showrunners don't get. "I believe that television should be brave enough to have fully shaped dramas," he says. "I think it's something that we're beginning to appreciate more and more. I think some shows, of course, are deliberately endlessly running, and that's fine, but I think there's a pleasure in actually having an arc that you obey and observe."

Looking back to when he wrote the Hanna movie, starring Saoirse Ronan and Eric Bana, Farr is proud of what he was able to accomplish with that film. But he's even more grateful that he was able to extend that same story through an additional three seasons of TV.

"I loved the movie, and it did a lot for me," Farr says. "But I always thought that this is an extraordinary character, and we haven't quite plumbed the full journey of the idea of starting in the forest with this kind of feral creature who has no concept of the world, of people, of human relations, of the kind of family she might belong to. And fundamentally, this is deep down very much a family drama in a weird way. For me it's rather wonderful that from the point in the cave with the little baby in season 1 with Joel Kinnaman, to be able to go from that to the end, that sense of journey for the character was always the reason I did it. To fulfill that is really exciting."

Farr teases that the final season is "the most operatic of the three," and that it ends on a high note. "It's really about Hanna having to come to the ultimate terms with who created her and how she was created and why, and the political context and stakes and consequences of that, and the personal consequences and stakes of that," he says. "It operates on a quite extreme family tragedy level. That central big arc of her finally coming to terms with the nemesis of what this project was, what is Utrax, what was it intended to do, who was behind it, what was it all about, and can she actually escape the destiny that it intended for her? That's the fundamental drive of this season."

The only question remaining is whether Hanna will get the happy ending she deserves — and what a "happy ending" for a teen assassin who knows only what she's been taught even looks like.

Related content:

• Ray Liotta joins Hanna season 3 as formidable new villain
• Hanna showrunner reveals plans for 'third act' after season 2 finale
• Dermot Mulroney on playing a 'complicated' villain in Hanna season 2: 'It's a mental puzzle'