Bex and the team go in the hunt for The Couples Killer in The Hunting Party season 1, episode 5. Meanwhile, Odell needs to figure out why Hassani is looking into certain elements of The Pit.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Hunting Party season 1, episode 5.
As previous episodes, we get to see some of the things Roy Barber went through while in The Pit. It turns out that he got art therapy. As JJ Bailey has shared, the type of therapy these serial killers are getting is specific to them.
Roy was known as The Couples Killer, but it doesn’t take long for Bex and the team to find out that he’s changed the game. Before, he would have specific kills in mind but randomly target couples. Now, he has specific people in mind, but the kills are random.
Roy Barber changes his MO immediately in The Couples Killer season 1, episode 5
From the stat of the episode, we see how Roy changes his MO. His first victims know who he is, making it clear that they believed he was dead. Bex notes that his kill is random, though. It’s in the way that he killed.
Bex and the team need to figure out why Roy went for this specific couple at first. It turns out that the woman was his last victim. She changed her name and got to start a new life, but now Roy has come after her to finish what he started.
Bex goes back through the art that Roy drew while in The Pit. He drew his victims, but she notes that the women have aged in each of the pictures. The men he drew didn’t age. Bex realizes that the women were involved in the murders, because they become the first suspects if their husbands are killed. While there isn’t any proof that the women survived, there are clear signs that this is possible.
I love that we see Bex not ruling anything out. She is able to get into the mindset of the killers. She can figure out what they want. It just takes time to do that, which is realistic.
Bex now needs to figure out why the women would help
Of course, Bex needs to figure out how the evidence points to her idea. This is where Morales comes in. She’s able to figure out how Roy was able to find the women. She’s able to figure out how Roy would even consider approaching these women.
Bex admits that the original profile was possibly wrong. Instead of locking himself away from people, he grew up with his mom and saw what she went through. He had a bit of a God complex, believing that he was saving the women from their abusive husbands.
It turns out that Roy is sure that his female victims haven’t learned from their original mistake. He’s sure that they are just as abusive and awful as before.
By getting to the bottom of the situation, Bex and the team are able to get to the right house, but it’s too late to get to them. Roy has already taken them away, carrying out a somewhat unplanned kill. With the help to technology, they’re able to figure out where Roy took them, but they need to get to the victims before Roy forces them to act out his wishes.
Of course, Roy was ready for the gun to be turned on him. He didn’t load the weapon. This guy may be a serial killer, but he’s also smart. He knows how people will think, and this is the most obvious writing. It was still enjoyable, though. I always love watching women attempt to take their power back, even if they can’t.
The delay does give the team to get to Roy. There’s an interesting line in this, where Roy says that he’s not afraid to die. He’s done it before. It suggests that everyone is like the doctor from episode 4. They are all executed and killed. They were just brought back to life for The Pit.
Something that I’ve enjoyed seeing is that Bex, Hassani, and Shane aren’t there to actually kill their suspects. They are there to capture. We keep seeing how they don’t shoot to kill so that they can take people in, and in this case, they need to take Roy in. They need him to tell them who the other women are who are still alive so that they can charge them for the murders of their husbands. It doesn’t matter that Roy was the one to do the killing; they still played a part.
We get to see how Bex gets into Roy’s head, showing her skill as a profiler. This helps her get enough information to figure out where one of the women is. Roy had paid a visit to others to figure out which ones Roy had “saved” or not. Just by getting one name, Morales is able to get the other names. I just feel for Morales that nobody is happy with her work. There was one “good job” and that was it. Will this come up at a later point of the series?
Odell needs to find out what Hassani knows in The Hunting Party
Throughout The Hunting Party so far, we have known that The Pit incident wasn’t some accident. It was a prison break and Odell was somehow in on it. He is working with some bigger company. Well, that bigger company has found out that Hassani is looking into coordinates that Hassani found in the previous episode.
The company is concerned with Silo 12. Now Hassani and Bex are. The coordinates at Silo 12 were doctored, but why would someone do that and not doctor images from The Pit? What’s more important to cover up than The Pit. This is where we get to see the plot of The Pit thicken. There is much more to this conspiracy than we ever thought possible, helping to keep the entire plot interesting.
We do get to find out a little more about this woman who has been running the show. She’s military, and she has everyone in her pocket who matter. Of course, we don’t think Hassani will actually stop checking out this bunker, do we?
Bex wants to believe that Odell is one of the good guys, but she knows that isn’t true. So, she figures out a way to get Odell to tell her that Sam sends cards on his birthday.
There is a chance to see Bex and Sam interact, which was something Melissa Roxburgh warned fans wouldn’t be the case much. I do enjoy getting to see some of this. We get to see a woman who can have a career but also still think about her daughter from time to time. This is a daughter who is well adjusted and wants her mom to have a career and a life, but she’s naturally worried. I would love to see more of this dynamic play out, but I’ll take what we can get for now.
Something I’m noticing is that the cases of the week are pretty formulaic and predictable. However, The Pit storyline continues to intrigue me. I want to learn more about this to get to the bottom of it and see if it’s going to turn out as predictable as it would initially seem.
The Hunting Party airs on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC. Catch up the following day on Peacock.
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