Hunters Season 2 Review: An Uneven, But Never Boring, Conclusion to the Prime Video Series
The post Hunters Season 2 Review: An Uneven, But Never Boring, Conclusion to the Prime Video Series appeared first on Consequence.
The Pitch: If there’s one thing most of us can agree on, it’s that Nazis are bad. But what kind of justice does a Nazi deserve? That’s the ethical question underlying the second and final season of Hunters, the Jordan Peele-produced and very peculiar Prime Video thriller series about a ’70s-era vigilante force formed around one goal: track down all the Nazis who evaded persecution after World War II, and use the efficiency of bullets to stop them for good.
Created by David Weil, Hunters is coming to a close after only 18 episodes, which somehow seems simultaneously like too many episodes and too few. But while suffering from writing issues and a lack of consistency in tone, there are moments of dialogue, performances, and in one case an entire episode which reveal the underlying potential of the series; in fits and starts, there’s some great TV here.
When Last We Left Our Heroes… The first season of Hunters followed the recruitment of young Jonah (Logan Lerman) by Jewish philanthropist Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) into the “Hunters,” a ragtag bunch including tempest-in-a-nun’s-habit Sister Harriet (Kate Mulvany), Holocaust survivor and demolitions expert Mindy Markowitz (Carol Kane), mustachioed actor Lonny Flash (Josh Radnor), war vet Joe Mizushima (Louis Ozawa), and counterfeiting expert Roxy Jones (Tiffany Boone).
At the end of Season 1 came the shocking reveal that Meyer wasn’t who he claimed to be — in fact, he was himself the infamous SS officer known as the Wolf, who the Hunters had been trying to track down this whole time. After Jonah kills Meyer, the rest of the hunters scatter to parts unknown, except for Joe, who gets abducted by goons who end up depositing him in Argentina, specifically at the remote villa occupied by one Eva Braun (Lena Olin) and a still-living Adolf Hitler (Udo Kier).
Two years later, Jonah is still hunting Nazis when he finds out that Hitler is still alive, which means you better believe it’s time to get the band back together for the ultimate Nazi hunt. What could possibly go wrong?
Pick a Favorite: Hunters has always been easier to like on paper than in practice, because objectively, all of the elements presented are awesome, especially the cathartic thrill of watching underdog bad-asses taking down history’s worst villains — Carol Kane as a demolitions expert alone should be an easy sell, and she’s just one of the many stellar performances at the heart of this series. In particular, Season 2 introduces Jennifer Jason Leigh as Chava Apfelbaum, a Nazi hunter with her own team and her own agenda. Leigh tears into this material like it’s the most delicious steak, savoring each dead Nazi with glee.
Hunters (Prime Video)
But it’s the nature of these performances which speaks to the baseline issue with this show: Everyone is giving great performances, but in different shows, all of which exist somewhere on the spectrum between camp and minimalist. But this lack of coherency in the performances is reflected elsewhere — Hunters often feels like it’s trying to be many different shows at once, managing to wear a surprising amount of hats in its limited time.
Everyone’s favorite character on Hunters probably speaks to the show they most wish they were watching; for this critic, Josh Radnor’s Lonny Flash is a highlight, all ego and self-serving mythmaking working to conceal deep angst and addiction issues, his tongue firmly embedded in his cheek the whole time. But there really are a number of options to choose from, with Kate Mulvany offering a deep well of mystery to explore in Sister Harriet, and Lerman serving as a steady lead, if lacking in flash (and that’s fine, because Lonny Flash is right there to pick up the slack).
Really, Though, The Worst Thing About Hunters Season 2… is Al Pacino. It’s not a performance issue, but a writing issue, as the show can’t bring itself to let go of the character (and more importantly, the actor) — so, nearly every episode, we get extended flashbacks to the false Meyer beginning to set up the Hunters team. It’s an origin story that might have been interesting as a Season 1 bottle episode, but feels deeply unessential for this unique beast of a second and final season, one that sometimes feels undermined by the constant returns to the past.
It’s a shame, too, because the momentum this season from episode to episode is a lot stronger than Season 1, with tighter episodes and a thrilling end destination. And it still manages to have a little fun along the way, with moments like a truly demented Sound of Music homage. But while it’s totally understandable that the creative team doesn’t want to lose freaking Al Pacino as a series regular, the season would have been infinitely stronger if those scenes had been dramatically cut down. We’ve got a Hitler to hunt here, after all!
Hunters (Prime Video)
The Verdict: While the ethical questions posed by the series are intriguing, they more often than not take a back seat to the more visceral elements. For if there’s one film to which Hunters owes a huge debt, it’s Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, a clear inspiration point for not just the show in general but a specific episode this season. Leigh joining the cast only enhances the overall Tarantino-ness, thanks to her unforgettable work in The Hateful Eight — her character’s introduction, featuring a Yiddish cover of Kelis’s “Milkshake,” is an especially demented touch that you could imagine Tarantino appreciating.
Unfortunately, while Tarantino has become quite skilled at creating a filmic point-of-view that, even in the most extreme of moments, feels balanced and complete, Weil isn’t quite skilled enough as a showrunner to unite all of this show’s wildest swings into one cohesive whole. But although Season 2 is uneven and disjointed, the moments that work really work, with the final episode providing a pretty near-perfect ending. Peak TV might be in its decline, and it’s shows like Hunters I expect to miss the most from this time — shows that took huge chances, sometimes didn’t succeed, but were rarely, if ever, boring.
Where to Watch: All eight episodes of Hunters Season 2 debut Friday, January 13th on Prime Video.
Trailer:
Hunters Season 2 Review: An Uneven, But Never Boring, Conclusion to the Prime Video Series
Liz Shannon Miller
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