It was exciting news to hear that The Hunting Party season 1 would join Netflix. This should be great for the show’s overall success, and hopefully, it’s in enough time to boost the season 2 viewing figures to keep the series on the air.
If you’re on the fence about this series, then you’ll want reasons to watch it. For Criminal Minds fans, this is a no-brainer, especially with the profiler aspect of Melissa Roxburgh’s character, Bex. However, there is much more to this show.
The Hunting Party goes big with its Pit mystery
While the main focus is on capturing serial killers, the show’s heart is the Pit mystery. There was a silo that held prisoners who were believed to be dead, and that immediately brings up a lot of questions. However, the biggest of them all is how the silo blew up.
Was this some big conspiracy to get the inmates out? Was it some sort of attempt to destroy what was going on in there? With Bex’s former partner, Odell, the warden there and having some sort of tip-off to get out, there are naturally questions about whether he was involved in the explosion, and that keeps you hooked throughout the first season.
You’ll actually start to question morals
The Hunting Party does a wonderful job of making you question right from wrong, and you’ll find yourself siding with each of the characters now and then. There’s Bex, who is just interested in catching the bad guys, and there’s Hassani who believes that the serial killers don’t deserve peace after what they did. Then there’s Shane, who questions whether the experiments that were done on the serial killers were right.
Does being an inmate mean you lose all of your rights? Does it mean experiments can be carried out on people that wouldn’t usually be done on people at all? After all, some of those experiments are torturous. You’ll certainly find yourself in a debate.
The team is one to root for on The Hunting Party
In a lot of cases, when a team is initially put together, there are questions about trust. Sure, the first season has a lot of concerns about Odell, but the main team out in the field has each other’s backs right away. There is no debate over who they are and what they are there for.
It’s a great way to see how people can work together. We also see them debate things, and they’re respectful about each other’s views. While there are certainly secrets that they each hold, they are still able to get the job done and celebrate with each other at the end of the day.
The serial killers aren’t your average Joe
When you think of serial killer shows, you’ll likely think of Criminal Minds. Each killer had a set MO, and they stuck with the profile that the BAU set up. The Hunting Party twists it a little, and it adds to the mystery of the criminals and the Pit.
The “treatments” that the serial killers have been through change the way they think and act. Some of them no longer follow the MO they did when they were arrested, making it a little harder to figure out what they want and what they’re going to do next. It certainly adds to the intensity of the series.
The mystery isn’t dragged out on The Hunting Party
One of my favorite things about the overall mystery is that it’s not dragged out. There are a lot of TV shows that will give a snippet of the mystery, and then it will move on for a few weeks before coming back to it. With each episode of The Hunting Party, there is a new piece of information gained and that pushes the mystery forward.
By the end, you definitely get more answers about what the Pit was used for. There are still plenty of questions, but it feels like there is something to work with, and that just leads to an exciting mystery to continue developing on The Hunting Party season 2.
The Hunting Party season 1 drops on Netflix on Sunday, Feb. 15. The second season is available to stream on Peacock.