The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 9 ‘Tom Beecher‘ easily became our favorite episode of the show. The action, team dynamics, and emotions were at a high, and we were on the edge of our seats from start to finish. Tom Beecher’s case was intense from the start. But not for the reasons you might think. Because we didn’t spend the hour looking for him. Instead, we were looking for his victim, named Lily Jacobs.
Henry Dulles had experimented on Beecher’s brain and altered his ability to form short-term memory in The Pit. So naturally, he forgot where he hid Jacobs. It’s a twist that we didn’t see coming and added tension for the hour. The episode was thrilling to watch the team put every ounce of effort into finding Jacobs. Beecher’s secret puzzle to find her location was a tough one to solve. We felt their relief through the screen when they succeeded. We knew they would, but still. The worry of not knowing if they’ll save someone is always there.
Additionally, we learned more about Shane’s connection to Dulles. It’s not paternal. We know that now. But it’s a storyline that continues to make our heads spin. As we discover something earth shattering about Shane’s biological parents. We also appreciated Oliver’s stubbornness in making his military contact come clean with the team. He showed them, and especially Bex, that he’s all in to solve The Pit’s awful mysteries. Maybe there’s nothing to fear with him anymore. Admittingly, we’d like to go into the finale next week with at least one peaceful thought.
Overall, our brains are still reeling with everything that happened in The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 9 ‘Tom Beecher’. And we’re buzzing to get our thoughts in order. First, we need to talk about Jennifer Morales (Sara Garcia) finally getting her moment to shine in the field.
Jennifer Morales Deserves the World
Finally. That’s how we felt when we realized Lily Jacobs and Morales shared the same hometown. Because it meant she’d be important to the case. We’d finally be able to see more of her other than quick adlibs, a goofiness that we love, and her smarts when it comes to tracking the team’s suspects with ease.
We’ve been wanting to see more depth to her character. We wanted to see what would happen when her emotions get rattled for a case. This episode delivered in giving us just that. The closest we’ve gotten to a person on the team letting his emotions get the best of him when feeling helpless is Oliver. We saw his outbursts in the last episode over Hassani and Shane. And more often in cases like in The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 4 ‘Doctor Ezekiel Malak’ or ‘Arlo Brandt‘. when it comes to seeing Bex in trouble.
Her ability to keep guarded and focused on a task is a trait she got from her military experience. It’s what makes her do the job so well. She’s also complex because she has her moments where she’s able to crack at the team’s hard exterior and make them smile. It’s moments like those where she’s able to make everyone take a breath and feel human in such dire situations. And in The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 9 ‘Tom Beecher’, Morales gave us a side of her that we haven’t seen yet. An eagerness and passion to act against evil. She was a total badass who would do anything to save lives and especially protect those she cares for.
MORE: Read our interview with Melissa Roxburgh and Patrick Sabongui about what makes Bex and Hassani’s partnership work so well!
“Same Time Tomorrow? Yeah.”
When given the chance to get into the field and see how important their work is, Morales felt pride in risking her life. She wanted to be the one to find Jacobs and didn’t want to do so by sitting behind a desk. There was an itch to be hands-on in this investigation because this case hit close to home. We completely understood why because Jacobs was an innocent girl that needed Morales’s heart and empathy to work the hardest in finding her. It’s a passion that motivates her with every case, but Jacobs represents someone that Morales could’ve been if she didn’t join the military. A girl who dreamed of leaving their small town and felt stuck.
So, when the team tries to trick Beecher and needs a new victim to be his hostage, Morales doesn’t hesitate in offering to help. It was admirable to watch her put herself in harm’s way and do something heroic and dangerous. Shane was right in saying, “for a military brat, you’re really brave, Morales”. She was trained and ready for the worst to happen if Beecher caught onto the scheme. It was why we didn’t worry about her when things went wrong. Morales is a woman who can take care of and save herself.
It was sweet to recognize that the team felt the same faith and belief in Morales that we did. While Hassani kneeled to tie her weaponized shoes on for her, Bex stressed the fact that they would be watching everything unfold on hidden cameras in Beecher’s hotel room. She wouldn’t be alone in facing Beecher. They were looking out for her safety as she did something she’d never done before.
We’d begun to see this bond and closeness form in the last week’s episode, The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 8 ‘Denise Glenn‘. Therefore, it’s no surprise we’re seeing more of their growth. Ultimately, their success in finding Jacobs was a nice reminder for Morales that her desk job and occasional field work is exactly where she should be. She has power in helping innocent people get found and saved. It’s a dangerous job to have, don’t get us wrong. But it’s something to appreciate when you’re doing good in the world.
Shane and Sarah
A bulk of Shane’s screentime in this episode was shared with Sara Dulles. It makes sense as to why. Shane needed a VHS player, and he probably didn’t want to be alone watching them. Sara looked as if she wanted to offer her insight as Henry’s daughter when watching the recordings of Shane’s childhood therapy sessions with her father. So, she was helping him in that regard. However, their scenes together felt unsettling.
They’re practically strangers who are trying to figure out why Henry was so drawn to understanding Shane’s mental health as a child. It’s quite a personal thing to digest with the daughter of a man who might’ve swiped your childhood memories because he’s evil like that. It was tough to watch Henry Dulles try to coax answers out of a child who didn’t understand what was happening. The recordings leave a pit in your stomach because we know Henry Dulles is an awful man. We know going into these tapes that he’s capable of doing horrible things. It made us a little sick watching him interact with Shane as a child, knowing he’s faking that warmth and innocence.
He’s had an attachment to three killers so far. Dulles’s resurrection of Ezekiel Malak in The Pit had inspired the killer to evolve and torture his victims. He had worked with the doctor that traumatized Clayton Jessup in The Hunting Party Season 1, Episode 2 ‘Clayton Jessup.’ And also conducted an immoral human experiment on Tom Beecher to ruin his brain functions. All for selfish reasons. He wanted to try and see if he could stop his early onset of dementia by messing with Beecher’s brain.
It’s a Lose-Lose Situation
These feelings of discomfort quickly vanished when Sarah showed Shane an extended tape of one particular therapy session. A tape that revealed what happened when Dulles left him in the room to talk with a woman. It was shocking because we were finally able to put the pieces together. Dulles was interested in Shane because his mother was an inmate in The Pit. It was the reason why he was put up for adoption yet kept an eye on by the doctors in the prison.
Which makes things obviously very interesting. We’re left wondering if his mother was so important to keep locked away if they had to monitor her son. If she’s dead, we’ll feel terrible for Shane just because he never got to meet his actual mom. If she’s alive, then we might be able to see their reunion very soon if our suspicions are correct. A part of us kind of hopes we aren’t. Because we know this reunion would hurt just as bad as if she were dead.
The Hunting Party airs on Mondays at 10 pm ET on NBC.
