Diksha Sundriyal
The seventh episode of NBC’s ‘The Hunting Party’ offers another intriguing case to Bex Henderson and her team. At the beginning of the series, an explosion at the Pit, a highly secretive prison that houses the most dangerous serial killers in the country, led to the escape of several killers. In the past episodes, we watched Bex and her team chasing after these killers all over the country. With each day, the killers would put distance between them and the Pit, which means that the task force would have to travel from one place to another. In this episode, however, the serial killer strikes close to home, raising several questions about his intentions. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Bex and Her Team Chase a Bride Killer
This week, the focus is on a serial killer named Mark Marsden. Before he was put in the Pit, he made a name for himself as the Widower. The reason behind this moniker was the fact that Mark would marry women and kill them soon after their wedding. It took the death of three women for the authorities to realize something was wrong with him. The last one he had killed on the night of their wedding. For all the years he spent in the Pit, he had been yearning to kill another bride, but he never got the chance until the explosion.
Since it has been about two weeks since the explosion, Bex and her team think that Mark would be somewhere far away, which is why they are shocked to discover that he has targeted a woman pretty close to the Pit. The woman in question is Carol Miller, and it seems that she used to work at the Pit. This piece of information leads the team to dig into the past to find out why she was specifically targeted, and it turns out that this is because she was his bride.
In Mark’s profiling, it was found that his desire to kill women arose from his fear of abandonment. He believed that by killing them, he would prevent them from leaving him and breaking his heart. This problem can be traced back to when he was a teenager. A couple of weeks after his first girlfriend broke up with him, she was found dead following a party. Because Mark’s family had connections, he was never arrested. Instead, he was sent to therapy, but that didn’t do much for him. The problem persisted, and while his time at the Pit held him back for a while, he is now back in the world and free to do as he pleases.
Carol’s Special Connection With Mark Brings a Twist to the Case
One of the things that set the Pit apart from other prisons is that it used unconventional ways to treat the prisoners. Each serial killer was subject to a different type of therapy, and in Mark’s case, it was to have him wedded. The people at the Pit narrowed down Mark’s problem to the point where he would marry the woman, which is when his insecurities would be triggered, leading him to kill the woman. So, they arranged fake weddings for him so that he got a wedding, and maybe even the insecurities, but he never got the chance to act upon them. The woman they hired to act as his fake bride was Carol Miller, who did it because it got her extra cash.
While watching the videos of their weddings, Bex notices that the first few times that Carol did the wedding, she acted out the whole thing. She seemed entirely disinterested in the ceremony, and it felt like this was something she wanted to get over with. However, in the last few weddings, a shift in her performance is prominent. To Bex, this means that she might have developed feelings for Mark. This is further confirmed by the fact that she had been a part of an online forum called Reaper’s Digest, where she would talk about her feelings for him.
It turns out that Carol has a condition where she is attracted to violent criminals. This is worsened by the fact that her personal life has been in an upheaval since the loss of her husband. This is why she was drawn to Mark and started believing she could change him. When Mark escapes the Pit, he sees Carol as his bride. The first order of things is for them to have a wedding, so he takes her shopping for a dress. At the shop, a person recognizes him, which leads him to attack two people. One of them dies, while the other survives. Meanwhile, through her activity on the forum, Bex and the team locate her and try to reach out to her. At first, Carol doesn’t seem interested in their help, but when she discovers that Mark killed the people at the shop, she is forced to reconsider her feelings for him.
Bex sends her the videos of Mark’s other weddings, following which he’d killed the brides. When Carol is at the altar with Mark, he says the same thing he said to his other brides, which is when she realizes that she will die at his hands. Fortunately for her, Bex and the team arrive just in time to save the day. Mark is shot dead, ending his reign of terror. Carol worries that she might have to go to prison for aiding and abetting, but Bex assures her that she was a victim in all of this, so she is free to return to her life.
What is in Silo 12?
With the case wrapped up, Bex turns her attention to Silo 12. In the last episode, she confronted Oliver about keeping secrets from her. In this episode, he gets a passkey that will allow them to enter the facility. Jacob is not too pleased with the idea of trusting Oliver, but Bex convinces him that the only way forward is together. Together, the three of them make their way into the facility, where it is clear to them that the story about the breach was a lie. The signs of the bloodbath point towards a massacre. Moreover, they also discover that Silo 12 was the place where the serial killers would be brought for experimentation. This is also where they’d brought Richard Harris.
Now that they know what Silo 12 is about, they have even more questions. It hasn’t escaped their attention that the entries and exits to the Pit are more than they appear on the surface, which means that whatever was going on in Silo 12 is only a fraction of the secrets the other facilities hold. They will have to wait for the secrets to unfold over time. Meanwhile, Shane goes back to the care home to meet his so-called father. This time, however, he is told to leave because the man’s real family is not happy with his secret meet-ups and posing as his son. Later, Shane is followed by the real daughter, but instead of hiding from her, he decides to welcome the confrontation. As they finally sit down face to face, Shane seems poised to reveal why he did what he did.
