If there is one character who hasn’t had much time to show what she can do, it’s Morales. The Hunting Party season 1, episode 9 changed that, and it was about time!
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Hunting Party season 1, episode 9.
The episode focused on the search for Tom Beecher, a man who loves to inflict pain on others. His original MO was to take two people, and allow both of them to watch him torture and kill them. Eventually he was caught (by Bex!), and then he was placed in The Pit.
However, there’s not much about the “treatments” on Tom in The Pit. He was in the medical unit for most of his stay after suffering a series of strokes. It doesn’t take long to find out that should be “strokes.”
What happened to Tom in The Pit in The Hunting Party season 1, episode 9?
Part of the episode is figuring out what happened to Tom while he was in The Pit. This is important as it causes problems when he’s arrested by Bex and co. It turns out that he had brain surgery performed on him by Dr. Dulles. This surgery affected his memory. Every time he goes to sleep, he forgets everything that happened.
So, when he said he didn’t remember where he took his last victim, he means it. That doesn’t mean he can’t get back to her, though. He has a code, but the team needs to crack it. When they can’t, Bex has a new idea.
They can put him to sleep so that he forgets being jailed. Then they can set up the motel room they found him in exactly the way it was. He did have a victim in the bathtub, and that’s where Morales comes in. She offers herself up as the new “victim” since Tom won’t remember who he actually took.
Finding the victim in The Hunting Party
This case has become personal for Morales. The first victim taken was a girl from Casper, the town Morales came from. It’s rare that people get a chance to escape Casper, so when this young girl had been offered a scholarship for NYU, Morales wanted to see her get out and enjoy it. That means finding where she has been taken.
Of course, while Tom doesn’t remember things, he has a series of ways to remember. He also knows what ink from fingerprinting looks like, and when he sees it on his fingers, he knows that something happened. This girl he took isn’t his girl at all.
Morales remains calm in the situation despite knowing that the team has been caught. She even remains focused when Tom takes his own life. She needs to figure out where the girl is, and that means going back to the clues. Only, by being in the back of Tom’s van, she has a new set of clues.
Tom was humming Moonlight Sonata while listening to the recording of the victim. That had to tell him where the team needed to go, and we got to see the way Morales’s brain works. She quickly got to work sharing her theory about the code that was in Tom’s head. Sure enough, it leads to uncracking the code and getting directions to where the victim is being kept.
Bex makes sure that Morales is there when they go to the location. After all, this is Morales’s win, and it’s also personal for her. To see Morales be the one to save the girl was the icing on the cake. There is clearly more to this character. Shane points out that Morales got out of the town, but part of me feels like she didn’t; not really. Part of me also feels like her joining the military wasn’t the way she intended to get out of the town at first. I find myself needing to know ore about her, and I need The Hunting Party season 2 for that.
Shane and Bex gets more clues of their respective mysteries in The Hunting Party
Meanwhile, we get more about Shane, as he goes through the tapes from his sessions. He’s doing it with Dr. Dulles’s daughter, who decides to continue watching the videos while Shane is away. That’s when she comes across one that offers a hint of who his biological mother is. She was there for at least one of the sessions. Could she have been there for more?
Bex, Odell, and Hassani have their own questions about The Pit. Odell decides that it’s time for Bex to meet his contact, which is the military woman. It seems that she isn’t trying to cover up The Pit, at least, not the way AG Mallory is. What is she up to, and can Bex actually trust her?
With just one episode left of the season, there are way to many questions. I need The Hunting Party season 2.
The Hunting Party airs on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.
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