Critical Event Summary E03
 

Flashback 2003:
Anna (14) sprints through a mall store, weaving between customers and clothing racks. Behind her, two older friends and an enraged store owner give chase. The trio stays just ahead, bursting out of the mall and onto the street. The store owner slows and gives up, but in the parking lot, a police officer on a lunch break spots Anna and her companions.

Jumping into his patrol car, the officer takes off in pursuit. In a panic, Anna splits from her friends, taking a different route—a fateful mistake. The officer catches up, jumps out of his car, tackles her to the ground, and cuffs her. It’s clear from his tone and familiarity that he knows Anna well from previous run-ins. Instead of processing her, he drives her home to her mother.

At home, Anna’s mother is livid about yet another incident involving her daughter. We see her patience wearing thin, worsened by her own struggles with alcohol. After a heated exchange, Anna is sent to her room. She overhears her mother as she, in a moment of hysteria, calls Louie, stating "I can't take this anymore. She's your niece, you have to take her for a while". In her room, Anna breaks down in tears while her mother numbs her guilt with wine.

Present:

On a gray and rainy day in Oslo, Anna searches for a safe place to stay. She tries to check into a hostel, but the receptionist demands a passport, explaining it’s required at all hostels and hotels in the city.

Anna seeks temporary shelter in a café to escape the cold and rain. When the weather finally clears, she wanders aimlessly through the dusk until she finds herself standing before a church. She steps inside the seemingly empty building and gazes up at the dramatic, dark murals on the ceiling. Collapsing onto a bench, she lets her tears flow freely. A voice suddenly breaks the silence—it’s Irja, a female pastor, who asks if Anna needs anything. Without hesitation, Irja embraces Anna, asking no questions.

A few days later, Anna has been given a bed at the church’s women’s shelter. Irja invites her to join a Tuesday group where the women share their stories. Anna never speaks, but she finds comfort in listening to others, even though their situations—mostly involving abusive men or drug addiction—are far from her own. The other women assume Anna has experienced something similar, but Irja senses there’s something different about her.

One day, Irja visits Anna privately and shares her own story about losing her daughter to addiction. She admits she didn’t realize the seriousness of her daughter’s struggle until it was too late. Deeply moved, Anna confesses that her husband died violently, and she blames herself. He had only wanted to secure a future for her and their child in the U.S. However, Anna avoids providing specific details. Irja talks about letting go of emotional baggage that no longer belongs to her, emphasizing how she has become a more self-aware person.

The following morning, Anna wakes early and follows the Jonas' Norwegian coordinates, leading her to a national park north of Oslo. After a grueling effort, she digs it up and drags it through the forest before throwing it off a cliff into a river. A brief moment of relief washes over her, but it’s quickly interrupted by sharp cramps in her abdomen. She starts bleeding and, in a panic, calls out into the woods.

A group of young hikers hears her cries and helps her to a parking lot at the park’s edge, where an ambulance arrives to take her to a hospital in Oslo. In the commotion, Anna’s backpack—used previously by Louie during their trips—is left behind. The hikers, trying to identify Anna to contact a relative, find the hitman's phone in the backpack. Mistaking it for Anna's, they decide to call the only number in its address book. 

The phone belongs to the hitman, and a man answers. The hikers tell him that Anna is being taken to the hospital and that she left her belongings behind.

At the hospital, Anna lies in bed as Irja rushes in, visibly shaken but offering support. The bond between the two women has grown unexpectedly strong. A doctor finally arrives with news: Anna’s cramps and bleeding were caused by stress and a subchorionic hematoma, but the baby is unharmed. All Anna needs is rest. Relief fills the room, and Anna and Irja embrace through tears of joy. For the first time, Anna feels truly connected to her unborn child.
A nurse interrupts the moment, announcing that Anna’s father is on his way. For a fleeting second, Anna feels joy—but it’s quickly replaced by dread. It can’t possibly be her father. She realizes her life is once again in danger.
Anna explains to Irja that dangerous men connected to her husband are after her. Irja tells her to head to the shelter while she herself will stay behind to delay the men.

When they arrive, Irja refuses to reveal Anna’s whereabouts, even when threatened. It's a true act of bravery, but the last act she ever commits. 

Leaving the shelter, Anna is met by a car screeching to a halt by the sidewalk. She flees into the bustling streets of central Oslo. The chase leads into a mall, and in a mirroring of chase of her youth, Anna chased and captured by her pursuers. Thrown inside the car, she's interrogated about the coordinates by Eirikur.

”The list?” Eirikur demands “Where’s Irja?” Anna asks in defiance. “Where is it?” “Where’s Irja?” Anna repeats. “The bitch is dead. Where’s the fucking list?”

Fury boils inside Anna as she defiantly reveals she threw the Norway-suitcase into a river and adds that while she remembers the coordinates for Iceland, they’ll never get them from her.

“That settles it,” Eirikur says. Anna is taken to a port and led aboard a ship. Thrown into a small cabin and tied up, she watches helplessly as the ship leaves the harbor.

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END OF EPISODE 3​