The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 4 ‘Doctor Ezekiel Malak‘ shows us the dark side of those who worked in The Pit. The prison that was a secret from the outside world was doing more than housing deadly serial killers. Was it also to hide the actions of authority so there would be no consequences for them?
In The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 1 ‘Richard Harris‘, we learned that the prison experimented on serial killers to learn what makes them so extreme and to use this knowledge to stop the future generation of killers from evolving. Shane tried to warn us before. The guards and doctors weren’t the best of people to represent good morals.
Don’t get us wrong, serial killers are certainly at the top of the evil scale. But the people who experimented on them share the same twisted line of thinking. Doctor Ezekiel Malak, a hospital psychiatrist who killed over twenty of his elderly patients who he believed didn’t need to live anymore, is an example. He was revived from death in The Pit to be experimented on. Which gave him a complicated God complex and a reason to kill again. Dulles had given a monster a second chance at life.
The team tried to make the most out of second chances in The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 4 ‘Doctor Ezekiel Malak’. There’s a romantic past between Bex and Oliver that’s beginning to unfold and complicate things. We discovered Shane’s secret which left us shocked. From watching Bex stand her ground with Malak to rooting for her and hitting him over the head with a chair, there’s a lot we enjoyed in the hour.
First, let’s digest the fact that Florence had direct connections to this case that don’t come from his time as a guard. He’s related to a key character in the episode which means yes, our brain is still trying to come to terms with that “Hi, Dad“.
Shane Florence (Or Is It Shane Dulles?)
Shane Florence is Henry Dulles’s son. We heard correctly when the words “Hi, Dad” as he greeted his now elderly father in a senior home. In The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 2 ‘Clayton Jessup‘, we saw Shane take a photo of a group of doctors in Jessup’s doctor’s home. Naturally, we put the photo in the back of our minds until now. Until we realized that Shane had taken it because he recognized his father.
Shane isn’t a bad guy. At least not right now. For example, he was the first person to tell Bex that the prison did experiments on inmates. He makes Bex smile with his jokes and banter. He has his team’s back and protects them. Florence experienced war, The Pit, and has survived four encounters with deadly killers. All while holding onto his heart.
He’s different than his father for that alone. So, it makes sense why he kept this a secret from the others. He didn’t want to be judged or thrown off this case if they knew he was related to Malak’s doctor who made him the way he was. Shane wants to do good by saving the lives of those targeted by the escaped killers. That’s his main priority. We wouldn’t support Shane getting in trouble for having an evil father with little to no morals. Because he’s not him. Having a guy who tortured killers to understand them as a father isn’t something we’d talk about in any conversation. We understand his reluctance to be honest.
Bex and Oliver
When Hassani asked Bex to use an eraser device on Oliver’s phone to destroy the military encryption on it, we had expected the initial hesitance. She wouldn’t want to get caught digging for information. But we also knew she’d eventually agree to cozy up to Oliver to get access to his phone. Both she and Hassani want to know the truth about his secret meetings with mysterious people. It wouldn’t be hard for Bex to be nice and fall back into old habits for the sake of something bigger than their relationship.
She wasn’t the one to take the first step. Oliver had left a cupcake on her desk to celebrate her birthday. She hadn’t seen the gesture coming. Neither had we. Bex was adamant in saying the time for soft moments between them had passed.
You wouldn’t even need glasses to see that something shifted back into place. Something familiar between them had resurfaced. No matter if Bex wanted it to happen or not. It’s why Bex hadn’t told Oliver to stop smiling at her. Or why she hadn’t brushed his concern over her aside as if it meant nothing. They had a romantic relationship in the past. It’s not a reveal that’s lit up in color and bright lights. But it’s there for us to acknowledge. Bex had tried to forget about her feelings for him and move on from what they had. She told him they had to move on from the past. It’s harder for Oliver to do because he regrets how their partnership ended. He had let his professionalism go out the window when Malak kidnapped her in a hospital parking lot.
He was willing to call the local PD to find her when previously he had told Bex to never get them involved in the case. Oliver could be working for an enemy, but the man never stopped caring about her. He slipped in saying “I thought I-we lost you” when seeing her after the rescue in the hospital room.
Romantic feelings, past or present, always have a way of complicating things. Oliver wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to Bex. It’s the reason why he gives up his phone easily when she asks to borrow it to call her daughter Sam. Bex, hesitant for a second, plugs the eraser into the phone. She had a truth to discover no matter the cost.
MORE: Read our The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 3 ‘Lowe‘ review here if you missed it!
Bex vs Malak
Bex had been through a lot in the last ten minutes of The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 4 ‘Doctor Ezekiel Malak’. She died for less than two minutes. Her heart stopped beating. That’s enough to traumatize someone into never functioning normally again. It had traumatized Malak’s previous victim who survived. Bex wasn’t going to let him win. Once she had been revived by Malak, Bex had let the fear go in an instant. She played with his emotions and used his frustration to her advantage.
After hitting a personal wound in Malak when talking about how his father was ashamed of him for turning into a killer, he pushed her to the floor. Bex is smart, we know there’s a reason for her rudeness. The impact had ripped the fragile tape around her wrists. She was quick in using the chair as a weapon to knock Malak to the floor. It was rewarding to watch his face turn bloody.
Hassani and Shane found them before Bex could get another hit on him. Malak had run to hide in a bathroom to inject himself and die. It was a coward’s way to end his life. Which Bex wouldn’t stand for. She grabbed the defibrillator off the floor and rushed to revive him. He wasn’t going to take the easy way out in confronting the consequences.
In the end, we got to see a new side to Bex. A “I’m not letting anyone walk over me” side to her that we appreciated. Give us more!
What did you think about The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 4 ‘Doctor Ezekiel Malak’? If you have any thoughts about the show, leave your own review/rating in our The Hunting Party hub!
The Hunting Party airs on Mondays at 10 pm ET on NBC.
