Spoiler Alert: The Hunting Party spoilers to followNBC’s new proceduralThe Hunting Partyhas quickly become an audience hit despite less-than-stellar reviews. The critics and the viewers couldn’t be further apart on this one, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 18% by the critics and 81% by the viewers. Sure, it mostly boils down to your conventional cop show, but isn’t 18% a little low? The fans would agree, as demands for a second season have already begun.
As is required withevery network drama,The Hunting Partyended its first season on an unresolved cliffhanger. While some potential second-season teases were quickly wrapped up, the waning moments of the finale opened up a whole new can of worms. Viewers can’t get enough of the storylines, action, performances, and host of guest stars. Though we all know that the modern TV business is brutal, and a second season is far from a guarantee. But if the fans are blessed with a sophomore outing, what do they want to see? Let’s take a look at what hints the first season finale dropped, and how we might see them tackled ifThe Hunting Partysniffs out a second life.
The Setup and Premise of ‘The Hunting Party’
The Hunting Party
For curious viewers,The Hunting Partycan be described as across betweenThe BlacklistandCriminal Minds— some spoilers to follow. Melissa Roxburgh stars as FBI agent Bex Henderson, an expert criminal profiler. She’s assigned to the case of The Pit, a secret underground prison that houses some of the world’s most dangerous serial killers, and not thenew hit Max drama. Several of these murderers escape when a seemingly random explosion destroys The Pit, though Bex and company soon learn the explosion wasn’t as accidental as it seems. Each week, Bex hunts down an escapee with the help of CIA agent Ryan Hassani, Pit officer Shane Florence, and former FBI partner Oliver Odell.
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In typical network drama format, Bex and the team deal with very considerate prison fugitives. That is, only one escapee operates at a time, and each one waits until the crew has apprehended the previous troublemaker to begin. Through television magic, each killer is caught in a day or two. Sure, they might claim a few more victims out there, but the new deaths are just background actors.Is the show realistic? No. Is it gritty, heightened, suspenseful fun? Yes.
That brings us to the season finale — more finale spoilers to follow. Bex and the squad track down Jenna Wells, a pharmacist known for lacing her customers' medications with poison. As if there weren’t enough reasons to be terrified of leaving your house. After it seems like Wells might be the first murderer to elude Bex’s bunch, they manage to take her down in the end. The team also uncovers who was behind the Pit explosion.
Billionaire James Whitmore ran unethical human trials of brain-altering drugs before the military confiscated his work and began administering it to the Pit inmates. Jealous of his property being stolen, Whitmore orchestrated the blast to allow the inmates to escape while destroying evidence of the program. Wells was one of Whitmore’s main victims, and his experiments caused her to believe that she would become those people she kidnapped and murdered.
Hints About a Second Season Storyline for ‘The Hunting Party’
This left us with an interesting tease when Wells assumed Bex’s identity after first eluding capture. It seemed like that’s where the season would end, but Bex managed to track down and kill Wells, who had taken Odell hostage at their headquarters.All seemed well until it was discovered that Wells had already poisoned Odell with cyanide. To top it all off, he had just told Bex he loved her at gunpoint, and she didn’t reciprocate. Wuh oh.
As all of Wells' previous victims had died after the same attack, it’s implied that Odell’s time on Earth has expired. But it’s not confirmed, so maybe we could see him again next time around. He and Bex certainly have a lot of history, starting when he was fired from the force for going a little too aggressive with his interrogation techniques. The Pitbrought him out of retirementto serve as its warden, where he worked alongside the mysterious military figure known as Lazarus.
That ties into our next unresolved thread. Throughout the season, Shane’s been searching for his biological parents. A doctor at The Pit who studied him as a child may have the answers, but he has dementia. We learn that Shane’s mother is this Lazarus person in the finale, and she was unable to interact with him throughout his childhood at the Pit. Lazarus is deeply involved with Whitmore, The Pit, and the coverup.It’s also clear that Shane’s purpose is far greater than that of a simple test subject. What is that purpose? We don’t know yet.
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Finding those answers will be trickier now that the Attorney General has shut Bex’s band of investigators down. She argued that their style was too sloppy and needlessly reckless. The AG may regret that decision, as she might not know that the group was able to track down every fugitive by typing on a computer for a few minutes and then flying to their hideout that day. Where else can you get those kinds of speedy results?
But the AG isn’t clean either, as she was involved in some manner with Whitmore’s foundation. A second season could see Bex’s troop investigate under the radar, as that’s how they finally brought Wells in. Covert operations could add another level of dramatic intrigue to the second season, as there are still several more inmates to hunt down. ButThe Hunting Partyhasn’t taken off in the ratings, so a second season is far from guaranteed. However, if it is asked back next year, there is no shortage of cliffhangers to resolve.All episodes ofThe Hunting PartySeason 1 can be streamed onPeacock.
