The hunt was on for a serial killer called Clayton Jessup in The Hunting Party season 1, episode 2. Also, some of Bex’s secrets are coming out.
Caution: this post contains SPOILERS for The Hunting Party season 1, episode 2.
The new episode picked up with a few threads. The first was the hunt for Clayton Jessup, but the others involved Bex’s past, including a secret that she has long kept from the FBI and everyone around her.
Tackling the problem of Clayton Jessup in The Hunting Party season 1, episode 2
The case was a twisty one. Bex and the team had to track down a man named Clayton Jessup. We got a brief backstory about him. He would act out fantasies, which involved looking for the perfect family. When he was 16, he killed his own family through carbon monoxide poisoning and lived with them for three days acting out what he viewed to be the perfect family.
Then he continued that attack on other families until he was eventually caught. While he was going through some treatments in The Pit, he broke the back of a psychiatrist and nobody else wanted to work with him due to the danger he posed. So, The Pit put on the same educational videos over and over again.
It didn’t take long for Clayton Jessup to look for the “perfect family” again. It also didn’t take long for the Task Force to get a copy of the videos that were created. They were created by the University of Wyoming, and everything was online. This helped Bex and the team work out that Clayton was going after all those who were in the educational video. They were actors, but to him, they were the perfect family.
Bex and Florence end up at the house of the psychiatrist after failing to save the third actor from the video. It’s there that the two realize the psychiatrist had Clayton in the house. This psychiatrist wanted to help Jessup despite being injured, but The Pit authorities wouldn’t allow him to. He decided to give Jessup a safe space.
This almost led to the deaths of all the actors, Bex, and Florance. Fortunately, Bex was able to cut off the carbon monoxide and open the storm doors to the basement to get fresh air in. With everyone there saved, it was time to go after Jessup again, who was now attacking the doctor saying that this doctor didn’t love him and allowed him to get hurt.
The FBI is able to move in and save the day. Clayton Jessup is no longer an issue. However, there is something much bigger going on.
Hassani shares what he’s learning about The Pit in The Hunting Party
Bex wants more answers about The Pit. The psychiatrist won’t give her any, but Hassani figures a few things out. He tells Bex that it wasn’t a gas explosion after all. In the rubble of The Pit, people are finding C4. It’s clear that this was some sort of inside job. It was all planned to allow prisoners to escape.
Who did it? Well, Morales finds out through her team that there was a digital break. Someone sent a message to Odell to get him out of dodge before the explosion happened. That’s how he happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Is it possible that Odell was behind all of this? It’s starting to look that way, but isn’t that a little too obvious for The Hunting Party?
Bex finds out Odell knew something about her past
Bex will want to be careful about going up against Odell. It turns out that he learned the truth about Bex’s past when she found out her best friend’s dad was a serial killer.
During the episode, Bex explained that her best friend was killed that night. After Bex found the rope, the dad found her. Bex ran and went straight to her dad, who managed to call in a team. There was a standoff, and Eli Johnson (the dad) killed his own daughter.
At the end of the episode, the FBI has found Eli Johnson. He wasn’t in The Pit, and it allows Bex a chance to face him. This is when we learn that Bex wasn’t alone that night when she found the rope. Naomi, the best friend, was with her in the basement. Bex ran and left Naomi behind, something that Bex has always hidden from the authorities.
Eli tries to make it out like his daughter’s death is on Bex’s hands. That’s not the case at all, and Bex knows it. However, she does have one concern. Eli told Odell everything for Bex’s psyche evaluation to join Quantico. Odell hid the truth, knowing that if he shared Bex lied to the police about anything that night that she would end up unable to join the FBI. He could tell the type of profiler she could be, and she deserved the job.
Odell made a note that he thought Bex would tell him the truth when she was comfortable enough. That never happened, but now the secret is out. Is this going to come up against Bex in the future? This can’t be the last we’ll see of Eli Johnson.
The extra twists with Eli not being in The Pit and the secrets around Bex’s past certainly make this a series to watch. I’m also intrigued by who was actually behind the prisoner escape. I can’t see it being Odell, but I think someone certainly warned him to get out and he put his own life first. I actually wonder if he thought someone was coming in to demolish The Pit to get rid of all the serial killers in there, but it went wrong.
There are still certainly some Criminal Minds vibes throughout the series, and I’m here for the cases of the week. Bring on more The Hunting Party.
The Hunting Party airs Mondays at 10/9c on NBC. Catch up the following day on Peacock.
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