We already knew what was going to happen at the start of The Hunting Party. The trailer told us everything we needed to know. A secret prison would blow up and dangerous inmates would escape.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Hunting Party series premiere
The episode itself wasn’t all that surprising for the overall story. The trailer told us everything, including the twist that the explosion wasn’t an accident. There is a much bigger conspiracy at hand.
This conspiracy does help with the fact that the series would otherwise have a clear endpoint. Once you got all the inmates back behind bars or killed, there was nothing more for this group of agents to deal with. So, we needed the conspiracy that someone wanted them out to be able to add another layer to the search—another mystery for them to solve.
Bex has plenty of backstory to come out in The Hunting Party
Of course, there are a lot of people tuning into The Hunting Party because of Melissa Roxburgh. Manifest fans will know that she can command the screen, and she plays a great role in this new series.
She was the one who put one of the convicted escaped inmates away in the first place. She put away Richard Harris, who she believed had been executed. This gives us a great look at how secret the factility, known as The Pit, is.
The Pit, by the way, is a silo. Everything is underground to help hide it from the public. At least the series has thought of that. Otherwise, there would be plenty of people wondering what a large building that looks like a rocket or some X-Men facility is.
Back to Bex, she has a bit of a backstory that involves Oliver Odell, played by Nick Wechsler. The two used to be partners in the FBI, but Bex was horrified when Oliver was willing to brutally get information out of a suspect and then set that suspect on fire all in the aim to get information about a missing girl. Do the ends justify the means? Not always.
We also learn that Bex realized that she was a profiler back when she was a teenager. She managed to figure out her best friend’s dad was the murderer of 12 local girls.
What happened to Oliver after the incident?
Oliver was moved to be the Warden of The Pit. And then we find out that The Pit exploded on purpose. Is it possible that Oliver was involved in the explosion? Did he want to expose this secret facility or get some sort of revenge for him being placed in this underground silo?
It’s Oliver who shares this piece of information, though. It’s almost like he knows there is a bigger conspiracy going on, and now Bex will have to decide whether she is willing to work with him. At least there are others to help with the capturing of the inmates who escaped.
The Hunting Party review
Overall, the episode was a very standard introduction to a series. We got to know the main players and some of their backstory. There’s clearly a much bigger conspiracy going on, and now we hae to find out who wanted to get the inmates out.
I’m more excited about some of the cases to come. With such dangerous criminals and a Criminal Minds feel to the series, I can’t wait to see what twistiness the writers can come up with. Look, I like behavioral science, okay?
The Hunting Party will air an encore of its series premiere on Monday, Feb. 3 and then air Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.
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