Summary
The Hunting Party Season 2 returns to its typical formula in “Adrian Gallo”, which is fine on its own terms but doesn’t stand out overall.
I’ve always said that The Hunting Party does a good job of coming up with eerie concepts for its killers, and I’m glad to see this hasn’t diminished in Season 2. The premiere’s paralysis boyfriend was pretty creepy, but Episode 2, “Adrian Gallo”, wheels out an even odder MO. The titular serial killer likes to drown his victims in resin and display them as bizarre public art installations. He’s a real charmer.
But this episode does feel like a bit of a step down in other respects. Despite the big turn with Lazarus taking over the team, she isn’t seen at all here, and instead leaves behind a stooge, Jonathan Peck, who seems a lot more sympathetic, even if nobody really trusts him (for obvious reasons). And Niecy Nash is a prominent enough guest star – especially on the heels of All’s Fair – that the late twist is kind of given away in advance.
However, there is, I think, a broader purpose to this twist, which is to foreshadow a similar outcome for Bex. The premiere introduced the idea of her acting recklessly following Oliver’s death and getting a bit too carried away – as with trying to strangle Ron Simms to death – and all the talk about the darkness of the job eventually taking root in you feels very much like we’re heading in that direction. Time will tell.
To be fair, there is a bit of overarching plot development here, which involves the gang discovering that Lazarus technically doesn’t exist, officially speaking, but that’s not a major development, as we already knew she was sinister from the jump. It just feels like par for the course, and we still seem to be a world away from Shane discovering who she is in relation to him. Still, it’s progress of a kind.
Most of The Hunting Party Season 2, Episode 2 is devoted to the case of the week, though, and it’s a perfectly fine one. The resin stuff is effectively nutty, and the idea of Niecy Nash’s character having become a copycat of the killer she was hunting is also nice, but it’s a little bit too similar to previous reveals where the supposed victim – or someone else associated with the case – turns out to be complicit. If you look back, though, it is teed up rather nicely. The idea of Gallo picking his victims “at random”, the sudden pivot into targeting someone he knew – the detective, Jack Waylon, who was investigating him – and a few more errant clues pave the way to the eventual reveal. Only half of the murders were Gallo’s. And that’s just the ones that the authorities knew about.
The psychology isn’t especially novel, though. Gallo’s obsessed with the idea of preservation for what turn out to be obvious reasons, and I’ve got to be honest that I’m not sure I necessarily bought Erica’s explanation for her own turn to villainy. “We had an argument” is quite a distance from “I killed my partner”, and she deliberately skips over how that escalation occurred. As mentioned, I think this is more of a means to an end for Bex-related reasons than anything else.
It doesn’t stand out in the grand scheme of things, then, but it’s always worth noting that The Hunting Party is generally a very good procedural, so even average episodes work on the most basic entertainment level. It’ll be interesting to see what direction Bex’s characterisation actually goes in, not to mention whether Peck can really be trusted, or whether Shane will find out about Lazarus (and, by extension, Morale’s deception in that regard). “Adrian Gallo” is a classic early-season episode to get viewers back into the swing of things, but hopefully, things pick up a little bit from here.
