The task force goes after The Widower in The Hunting Party season 1, episode 7. Can they stop him before someone else becomes his victim?
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS from The Hunting Party season 1, episode 7.
The episode opens with Mark on his wedding night pre-The Pit. He paralyzes a woman and then drowns her, and it looks like this is how he killed all his victims. However, it turns out that two of his victims’ deaths were made to look like accidents, and that’s how he got away with it at first.
In the present day, he takes a woman named Carol, and it’s soon clear that this was premeditated. Shane makes a note that Carol was a woman who worked at The Pit. This case is much more than it initially seems, just like The Pit.
Is Carol a victim in The Hunting Party season 1, episode 7?
There’s a big question about whether Carol is a victim or not throughout the episode. It turns out that she was one of the actors in The Pit used for Mark’s exposure therapy. Mark was forced to get married over and over again, and over time, Carol fell in love with Mark.
She has what is also known as Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome, and Bex points out that Carol is a victim, too. I’d like to argue that she also has a mental health issue that needs to be dealt with. Carol falls for Mark, believing that he is a changed man for her. So many women believe this, and they end up becoming the next easy targets for these type of men.
The team is able to use Carol’s need to log onto a serial killer lover forum to track her and then get her to realize the truth. It’s after Mark kills a wedding dress clerk and almost kills another that Carol realizes that maybe Mark isn’t everything that he seems to be to her. Maybe he hasn’t changed.
She doesn’t want to believe it at first, and I get that. In any sort of relationship, you don’t want to believe the bad about the people that you love. Just look at how many people stay in abusive relationships because they don’t accept what they’re in and they’re too scared to leave. Carol is in that situation, so in a way, yes, she’s a victim. That doesn’t stop her from needing help, but she is a victim of Mark’s in this instance.
She’s also a victim of The Pit, as Shane later points out. The Pit allowed Carol to hear the words of love and adoration over and over again just after losing her husband. She was lonely, and those words spoke volumes to her. She really thought that Mark was saying them to her, but he wasn’t. He was saying them to make Carol his next victim when he had a chance.
Fortunately, Carol is able to hear what Bex is telling her. The problem for Bex is that Carol isn’t a great actress, and she can’t just go through with the wedding while Bex, Hassani, and Shane get to her. This leads to a stand-off situation, but Bex is able to get a shot off. It’s the first kill in a while on The Hunting Party, and I am glad that the series reminds us that not all these serial killers can be caught.
I do wish that Bex, Hassani, and Shane pointed out to Carol that she needed some psychological help at the end. I understand not arresting her, but to not point out that she needs psychological help is a major flaw on their parts. At least one of them should have mentioned it.
What is Shane hiding in The Hunting Party?
At the start of the episode, Shane tries to go see the doctor from The Pit, but he’s stopped. The care team has realized that he’s lied about everything. It’s about time that they figured this out!
Shane is followed by the doctor’s daughter, and at the end, he makes it clear that he knows. This gives them a chance to talk, but we’ll have to wait for the next episode to find out what Shane has to say.
I’m in two minds about how this story will play out. Either Shane is the doctor’s son that nobody else knows about (because I wouldn’t be surprised if the doc had a second, secret family), or Shane views himself as the doc’s son because of how closely they worked together. Either could be true because this doc clearly had some sort of recollection of Shane. Sure, the dementia was taking its hold on the doc, but there would have likely been a lucid moment or two where the nurses would have mentioned Shane.
So far, this series has done a great job in keeping me on my toes. So, I’m curious about which direction it will go in during the next episode.
What’s in Silo 12?
The end of the episode saw Bex, Hassani, and Odell head into Silo 12. As much as Hassani doesn’t trust Odell, they do all want the same thing. I don’t blame Bex for bringing Odell on. In fact, this is a smart move because if there is a turn of events at some point, there’s a bit more safety in numbers and this is a good way to see just how much Odell really knows.
Well, Silo 12 happens to be under a house. Something big went down in this silo, and it wasn’t a break-out. There was a massacre, with someone coming in and removing the bodies.
When the group gets to a room with what looks to be an execution chair, Bex realizes that someone was experimenting on the inmates who were brought here. They had the same chemical used on Richard Harris, making it clear that there is something much bigger than some sort of “treatment.”
It’s no wonder many of these psychopaths are even worse now that they’re out, and it’s no wonder that someone wanted to bring this entire program to an end. I’m surprised anyone who worked there was able to get out alive, to be honest, and I wonder if those who did make it out only did so because someone is continuing some sort of experiment out in the real world.
Finding Silo 12 has raised far more questions than answers, but that’s not the part of the story that intrigues me more. I want to know what Shane is up to in The Hunting Party. I get a feeling that this is far bigger than it seems, and I want to know if my theories are right.
The Hunting Party airs on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.
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