Diksha Sundriyal
In each episode, NBC’s ‘The Hunting Party’ puts forward a unique case about a serial killer who is one of many to have escaped the secret prison called the Pit following a mysterious explosion whose cause and intent are yet to be revealed. The ninth episode presents quite a challenge to Bex Henderson and her team as they are forced to put themselves in difficult and dangerous situations while also facing a race against time to save the lives of innocent people. At the same time, Bex is also opened up to a major revelation about the Pit. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A Serial Killer With Memory Loss Becomes a Challenge for Bex and Team
Of the many serial killers who escaped the Pit on the night of the explosion, one is Tom Beecher. He is a special case for several reasons. The first is that Bex has a personal history with him. She was the one to apprehend him the first time he was caught, which means she is deeply familiar with his sadistic methods. This is why when his name pops up as the next target, she knows that they need to act fast and may yet save his victim. Beecher is known for killing in pairs. He kidnaps one woman, terrorizes her family, and revels in their helplessness. Then he kidnaps another woman and makes the second one watch him suffocate the first one to death, giving her a glimpse of what’s in store for her.
When the first girl goes missing, Bex and the team immediately reach out to the girl’s family because she knows that Beecher will call them sooner or later. As expected, the call comes, and it is traced, allowing the team to immediately rush to the motel where he has been hiding out. He is apprehended once again, but the problem is that the girl they find in the room is not the one they are looking for. This is the second girl, which means that the first one is still out, being held captive somewhere, and until Beecher gives her location, she will not be found and will most likely die.
The most obvious answer to this problem seems to be Beecher. Bex has to find a way to make him spill the details and save the girl, but then, a very interesting aspect of Beecher’s condition comes to light. Previously, it was pointed out that Beecher never really stayed at the Pit and was not a part of any therapy. In fact, he was kept in the ward where only those prisoners were sent who were believed to be on the verge of death. Once Beecher is caught, it becomes clear that he is nowhere near close to dying, which means something else was going on in the place where he was held, and it has to do with his memory loss, which becomes the biggest hurdle in finding the victim.
Oliver’s Contact Reveals Shocking Information About Beecher
Realizing that everything is not what it looks like with Beecher, Oliver decides to call up his contact to find out what secret stuff the serial killer was involved in. It seems that Beecher was transferred to a special ward where Dr. Dulles was free to do his experiments as he pleased. The experiment that he did on Beecher had his brain permanently damaged such that he could not retain short-term memories. This means that he really does not know where he has kept the first woman, and he is in no mood to even try to think about it.
When Beecher’s memory loss poses a huge hurdle, Bex comes up with a solution. It is postulated that Beecher might work out of muscle memory, which means that he might still find his way to the first woman. So, they let him go back to his motel room, and Jennifer Morales offers to act as his second victim. Because of his short-term memory loss, he will not remember being kidnapped, which means that he will continue acting on his plan, which requires him to take the second woman to the same location where he has been holding the first woman.
In the beginning, everything seems to be going as planned, but then, Beecher realizes that he is being made. His first clue is graphite in his car, which he knows is used to sweep for prints. When they realize that their cover is blown, Bex and the team rush in to help Morales, who frees herself. At the same time, Beecher puts two and two together and realizes what Bex is trying to do. He knows that he will be put in the same position again if he is arrested, but he also wants to beat them. So, he kills himself, thereby ensuring that they never find out where the first girl is, and she will die despite all their efforts.
Jennifer Morales Saves the Day
Because Beecher had short-term memory loss, he came up with a system to tell himself what he was up to the previous day and what he needed to do next. The problem is that he coded up everything, which means that his code needs to be deciphered to find out where he held the first girl. For a while, nothing seems to work, but then, Shane points out the song that he heard Beecher singing while he was still unaware of the trap around him. Morales uses it as the key to breaking down Beecher’s code, and soon, the whole thing unravels, and the first girl is found. In cracking Beecher’s case, when Oliver reaches out to his contact, he also mentions looping in Bex.
So far, he has been keeping some very important things from her, but in the past few weeks, she has shown such trust in him that he can’t not give it back to her. At the beginning of the episode, he, Bex, and Hassani discover that a key scientist of Whitmore Sciences has died in a car accident. All three of them agree that the timing of this accident is too convenient, which means that Whitmore is trying to cover things up. While solving Beecher’s case, Hassani and Bex continue to poke around Whitmore, but this does not escape the attention of Oliver’s superior. So, at the end of the episode, Oliver decides to bridge the gap of knowledge. Instead of being an intermediary who is forced to keep secrets and earn distrust, he finds a way to get in Bex’s good graces and arranges a meeting with his contact.
Meanwhile, Shane makes some strides of his own. In the last episode, he got the recordings from Dulles’ daughter. In this episode, they start to go through these recordings, and she comments that her father was never a child psychologist. This makes Shane wonder why the doctor was so interested in him. While Shane busies himself to solve Beecher’s case, Dulles’ daughter goes through the other recordings until she lands on one that she knows Shane would definitely want to see. The recording has Dulles giving a young Shane Rorschach test, following which he walks out of the room, on the other side of which is a woman. Her face is not revealed, but from its appearance, it is clear that she is Shane’s mother.
