Jennifer Garner leans into action in The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2

jennifer garner returns as Hannah Michaels in The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2, a follow-up that lets her get physical early and sends the character back on the run — a shift that reviewers say improves on the first season while stretching the story in other ways.

A reprise of a gallery encounter

Season 1 closed with a brief, secret meeting at a gallery in which Hannah Michaels (Jennifer Garner) encounters her supposedly disappeared husband, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). That same short scene reappears at the start of Season 2, a repeat that reviewers note feels more like a gentle tease than a full cliffhanger.

Jennifer Garner gets physical within the first 15 minutes

Critics praised that it takes the new season roughly 15 minutes to let Garner demonstrate physical acting skills she’s long shown. In the show’s timeline, Hannah has spent five years preparing for another upheaval: she now trains in fighting, actively carries a weapon, uses burner cell phones, keeps bank lockboxes full of untraceable cash, and rents secret storage units. The season is based on Laura David’s sequel novel, published last year, and those changes to Hannah’s routine are meant to show real, forward movement in the character.

Why Hannah and Bailey are forced to run again

At the end of Season 1, Hannah struck a deal with Owen’s late wife’s father — a mobbed lawyer played by David Morse — that ensured she and her stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) would no longer be hunted by his clients, the Campanos, over Owen’s betrayal. In Season 2, that agreement is suddenly finished, driving Hannah and Bailey back on the run. Reviewers note there is a precipitating event in the plot, but say it requires a large leap: one must imagine a crime family so stung by a betrayal nearly twenty years earlier that they would act at the first chance to kill someone, and not the betrayer himself but his daughter, who was very young when her father crossed them and has no memories of that time. The new wife is targeted as well, despite not meeting the betrayer until roughly a decade later. The critique adds that the published review text breaks off mid-point with the fragment: "And please keep in mind, this comes after several Campan" — unclear in the provided context.

Critical framing: raised expectations, uneven logic

The reviewer admits being frustrated by modern literary adaptations that stretch past a natural ending, and says their own earlier Season 1 review left the show some slack. Even so, they call Season 2 "a step up": it avoids simply Xeroxing Season 1 by changing the characters and giving Hannah a more prepared, more physical posture — though not all plot choices convince.

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jennifer garner’s season highlights — early physicality, a layered survival toolkit for Hannah, and a reopened threat from the Campanos — are the clearest changes critics point to as the show tries to justify a second season rather than resting on the tighter ending Season 1 delivered.

What comes next is unclear in the provided context: the material does not state any confirmed release dates, publicity plans, or production milestones for subsequent episodes or seasons.