Diksha Sundriyal
The fifth episode of NBC’s crime drama, ‘The Hunting Party,’ presents a new case of a twisted serial killer and his equally shocking crimes. Bex Henderson, Shane Florence, and Jacob Hassani chase after the killer to stop him before he restarts his killing spree. At the same time, Hassani and Bex continue their investigation into the additional Pits, whose existence came to light in the previous episode. Moreover, Bex is also unnerved by the fact that Oliver Odell has been in contact with her daughter, Samantha, all this while without her knowledge. She wants to bring this up but cannot, as it will blow the cover off her and Hassani’s investigation into him. All of this tension serves up the drama that drives the narrative, further entangling the team’s dynamics. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A Couple-Killer Becomes the Centre of Investigation
At the beginning of the season, an explosion in the Pit, the highly secretive prison housing the most dangerous serial killers who are supposed to have been executed, leads to a bunch of prisoners escaping. In this episode, one of the most prolific killers in the Pit is caught when he is captured in the background of a picture posted on social media. The fugitive in question is Roy Barber, who made a name for himself by targeting couples, killing them brutally, and leaving no trace of their bodies. His crimes were nearly perfect, and the only thing that remained on the crime scene was the blood of the victims.
For years, Barber walked free and killed many couples. One of the reasons behind his escape from the law for so long was that he was working with the law. He was employed as a sketch artist by the cops and would often collaborate with them in their search for himself. This made him familiar with the procedure of an investigation, showing him all the things he needed to avoid to stay out of the clutches of the cops. His case serves as a lesson for all investigators to always be vigilant and not ignore the things that are often right in front of them. This rings painfully true for Bex, especially as she continues to grapple with the conflict of what Oliver’s real intentions are. Still, she has a killer to catch, so that’s what she chooses to focus on.
Because Roy Barber is so familiar with the workings of the law, it takes some time for him to surface. In fact, beyond the social media post, he comes into the spotlight when he commits another murder. He shows up at the house of a woman called Krystal Resnik, who is utterly horrified to see him. Before she can do something, her husband shows up and tries to throw Roy out of the house. In the end, it does not end well for either of them. A couple of hours later, Bex and her team show up at the house, only to find Krystal and her husband dead.
Roy Barber’s Escape Leads to the Reassessment of His Crimes
Bex notices that while Roy had planned to kill Krystal, the method of killing suggests that it was a spur-of-the-moment decision as it looks nothing like his previous kills. What also interests her is why Roy chose her, a woman outside of the profile that he generally went for. Digging into Krystal reveals that she was originally named Bridget Caldwell. What’s more interesting than her name change is the fact that she was supposed to be Roy’s first victim about two decades ago, which means she is officially dead. This rings an alarm for Bex and her team, which is also when she realizes that there is a major clue that Roy left for them.
Bex notices that Roy has a habit of drawing sketches of his victims. He did it over and over again during the years he spent in the Pit. But there is a clear difference in the way he drew the men and women he had killed. While the sketches of the men remained the same over the years, the sketches of the women showed them aging with time. This leads Bex to believe that perhaps Roy ages his female victims because he never killed them. This can only mean that the women were in cahoots with him all along. A quick look into the history of the victims reveals that all the couples that Roy is supposed to have killed had women in abusive relationships.
It turns out that Roy’s mother was also a victim of domestic violence and was killed by his father. Because he couldn’t save her, he made it his mission to save any other woman who was caught in similar circumstances. Due to his collaboration with the cops as a sketch artist, he frequented the police station, which is how he knew which man was brought in for beating his wife or girlfriend. Then, he would approach that woman and offer to help her. He would kill the man so she could be free. At the same time, he would make it look like the woman was killed, too. Because there would be no bodies, the woman would be free to run away and live under a new identity, and start her life anew.
Roy Barber is Caught in the Nick of Time
The revelation about the women leads Bex and the team to look into Roy’s second victim, and sure enough, they find her to be alive and living under a new identity. Meanwhile, Roy seems to have found her already. He takes her and her husband into the woods, where he forces her to shoot the man she loves. His reasoning is that he had freed her before, but she chose to go back into those shackles. He refuses to accept that her current relationship is nothing like the one she had when she agreed to have him kill her first husband. When she refuses to do as he asks, he decides to kill her too.
Roy is stopped just in time by Bex and her team. While the couple is saved, the woman will have to answer for the crime of killing her first husband. Meanwhile, Roy is taken back to the Pit, where Bex questions him about the other women he said he killed. Unintentionally, he reveals that he visited another woman before he killed Krystal and her husband. Only that woman didn’t have a new husband, so he let her live. The same woman gave him the car that he’d used to drive around so far. Roy refuses to give up any more women, still believing himself to be their savior. However, Bex and her team have enough to go on within their investigation, especially with Roy’s sketches, to apprehend those women and bring them to justice.
Jacob Hassani’s Investigation into the Pits Ruffles Some Feathers
While they chase Roy Barber, Jacob Hassani also continues his investigation into the Pits. In the last episode, he discovers the existence of six more such facilities, which leads him to ask around about them. He asks his contact to get him satellite pictures of the locations that they’d found with the blueprints in Oliver’s storage. However, when he receives the images, he discovers that they have been doctored to hide something that seems to be even more important and secretive than the Pits. He shares this information with Bex, who is equally perplexed at this discovery.
What Hassani and Bex don’t realize is that their asking around has been heard by the people who are working really hard to keep the Pits and other things secret from everyone, including the people already involved in the Pit that Bex and her team work for. The mysterious woman, whom Oliver had given the hard drive in a previous episode and from whom he continues to take orders, re-appears at the end of this episode. It turns out that she is from the military, but what really shows off her level of power is that she is above Hassani’s boss, whom she orders to get him to stop looking around. She hopes that this will stop him from looking any further into the matter, but at the same time, one is left wondering what she will do if he doesn’t heed her warnings.
Meanwhile, Bex subtly confronts Oliver about his and Samantha’s secret relationship. She passes it off as something she realized from what Oliver said to her while she was in the hospital in the last episode. He, too, brushes it off pretty quickly and turns the conversation in a different direction. Their talk also leads Bex to come clean to Samantha about the fact that she is not working in a casino anymore but is with the FBI again. Her daughter is supportive of her decision, and that brings a sense of comfort to her, which she will need as things get even more complicated in the coming episodes.
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