‘Hunters’: Get Ready for Season 2 with a Season 1 Recap

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Prime Video’s Hunters might not have been a worldwide hit, releasing around the truly terrible time of March 2020, but nevertheless garnered itself a significant loyal fanbase with its jam-packed season 1. Months later, the show was renewed for a second season and promptly entered a production hiatus from hell (a hellatus, one might say) that left fans seriously questioning if the show would ever return. However, Prime Video followed through on its commitment to the show starring Logan Lerman, Al Pacino, Jerrika Hinton, Josh Radnor, Tiffany Boone, Louis Ozawa, Kate Mulvany, Carol Kane, Saul Rubinek, and more, bringing it back for its second and final season.

From the jump, Hunters was absolutely insane — packed with unbelievable action and even more unbelievably heinous plots. While it struggled to find its footing at times, as any freshman show does, it ultimately came out as a very good season of television in my humble opinion. With only a few days left before season 2’s release is upon us, let’s take a trip down memory lane to remember where journeys of seasons past brought our characters and where they last ended up.

The Hunters

Jonah

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Our poor little Jonah Heidelbaum was really put through the wringer last season. One day, he’s an oblivious kid living in New York with his beloved safta, just trying to make ends meet, the next he’s thrown into the world of Nazi hunting headfirst in the wake of her brutal murder. And he’s pulled into the game in such a traumatizing way as well, having tracked down Ruth’s murderer only to nearly face death himself at the killer’s hands before Meyer murders him right in front of Jonah. Not only that, but once Jonah joins this not-so-merry band, he finds himself entrenched in an effort to stop a plan intended to bring around the rise of the Fourth Reich.

Jonah was forced to deal with a great amount of loss this entire season: loss in the form of the crippling death of his safta (who raised him all alone), loss in the form of Travis (one of The Colonel’s American henchmen) murdering one of his best friends, Booty (I’m still not over that the guy rounding out the trio was nicknamed Cheeks), loss in the form of kissing his old life behind as he fell in with Meyer’s crew, of losing his innocence. Not to mention Meyer whispering poison in his ear the whole time while Jonah was at his lowest, most vulnerable point. And of course he trusted him, because Meyer was revealed to be none other than his saba, his grandfather.

As a result of all of this, Jonah’s main character arc in season 1 is concerned with his internal battle between darkness and light, trying to balance what he felt was his duty, his birthright the Hunt, of helping get justice for Ruth, for the 6 million victims of Jewish genocide, for the 11 million victims overall and deviating from the idea of justice, of being a hero like he had always read about in his beloved comic books, of being the light that his safta always saw in him. Whether or not he won that battle, however, is up to the viewer’s interpretation. When Meyer is revealed to be none other than The Wolf, the terrible Nazi doctor who was obsessed with Ruth and tortured Jonah’s real saba, the real Meyer (who he then killed right before liberation) among countless others, Jonah crosses the line that he was hovering around while trying to figure out what he stood for, ultimately killing Meyer for his crimes. The last we see of him, he’s taken over leadership of what’s left of The Hunters, and they plan to take the hunt overseas.

Meyer

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Meyer Offerman, an extremely rich Jewish businessman and leader of The Hunters, whisked into Jonah’s life like a hurricane and made an equally violent exit after season 1’s shocking reveal that he himself was the infamous Nazi that was he and Ruth’s ultimate target, The Wolf. Initially, Meyer tries to shield Jonah from the hunt, but accepts that he’s destined for it when Jonah tracks down his safta’s killer (who almost kills Jonah before Meyer sweeps in). Meyer vacillates between pushing Jonah away from the hunt and pulling him back in, saying he doesn’t have what it takes (the chutzpah to actually kill someone). He constantly tries to drill a sense of violence and responsibility for the hunt into a vulnerable, grief-stricken Jonah.

Over the course of the season, it’s revealed the Meyer is Jonah’s grandfather, which makes him cling even tighter to his saba, desperate for approval with him via the hunt. It gets to the point where Jonah starts to grow cold, crossing lines that even Joe has a problem with. After Meyer is injured after capturing the Colonel, who escapes by causing Meyer’s car to run off a bridge into a body of water, Meyer insists Jonah doesn’t have what it takes after he failed to kill Travis in the factory, even after all of the suffering he’s caused for Jonah. Desperate to redeem himself, Jonah tracks down who he thinks is The Wolf, but who actually turns out to be a Nazi surgeon who gave Nazi fugitives a new face in America. Meyer kills him without saying the Kaddish, something that Meyer insisted he would do in one of Ruth’s diary entries. This combined with some throwaway clues and odd behavior from throughout the season prompts Jonah’s realization that this man is Wilhem Zuchs, The Wolf, not Jonah’s saba. Meyer’s final act is death, but in a way even that is equally as heinous as the identity reveal, as it’s what prompts Jonah to finally kill, letting go of what Ruth would have wanted for him and fully embracing the hunt.

Millie

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FBI Agent Millicent Morris really drew the short end of the stick here. The poor woman just wanted to be taken seriously at her job. I mean, she did get that eventually. She just had to wade through a government conspiracy and become a Nazi hunter first.

Assigned by her boss to what was supposed to be an open and shut throwaway case investigating the death of an old NASA employee (though looking back, was the intent ever for it to be a throwaway case?), Millie quickly gets in over her head when she discovers the woman whose death she was investigating was a Nazi scientist, and she head been gassed to death in her shower. Her investigative path leads her down a road of silence, pain, and suffering as she seeks to uncover the truth about the conspiracy of Operation Paperclip, which saw the U.S. government bring in thousands of Nazi scientists and wipe their records clean to keep the Soviet’s from poaching them for the impending Cold War. Her quest leads her to discover the Hunters, whom she’s honestly fighting just as much as the Nazis as she seeks justice the legal way.

The season mostly brings bad things for Millie, but she’s integral in putting Travis behind bars (one of the only forces urging Jonah towards the “light”), foiling the plot to distribute corn syrup and target inner city populations across America, and shed light on Operation Paperclip. However, in the process, she loses her girlfriend, Maria, as well as her mother, who dies from MS. At the end of the season, she’s offered a job by a Jewish congresswoman to head a governmental Nazi hunting task force.

Lonny

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Famous (?… still unclear) actor Lonny Flash — born Leonard Flazenstein — proved himself to be not just a master of disguise but a loyal and valuable member of the team this season with his vital roles in the bank heist that uncovered the disgusting amount of Nazi loot stolen from Jews before and during intake to the concentration camps as well as foiling the corn syrup plot (if I had a nickel for every time a season’s main plot for of one of my favorite shows was to take over the world via high fructose corn syrup, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice). At the end of the season, Lonny is one of the few set to take the show on the road overseas.

Harriet

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One of Meyer’s merry band of Hunters, Sister Harriet gave audiences serious reason to question her multiple times throughout the season. A former MI6 agent turned Catholic nun, Harriet was arguably the deadliest of ’em all. And the most secretive. Harriet is shown to be communicating with some unknown outside forces, which has been presumably influencing her actions this entire time. She’s the one that suggests the Hunters take their services overseas in accordance to her mysterious comrades’ wishes. How this is going to play out, we’re not quite sure, but it’s not looking too good.

Mindy and Murray

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There are a lot of tragic arcs in this show, but Mindy and Murray’s is arguably up there as one of the worst. Surviviors of the camp, this lore of this wholesome couple (the family that hunts Nazis together stays together) is slowly revealed over the course of the season. The two, who boast a large and happy family, used to have a beautiful little boy, Aaron. When they were rounded up and sent to the camps, Murray refused to be separated from Aaron, and the officers shot Aaron right in front of them.

On the quest at the Fourth of July BBQ, Harriet finds the man that killed Aaron and brings him to Mindy and Murray right after their daughter’s wedding. The two always planned to get their revenge together, and they were not planning on showing the man mercy. However, when Murray tragically dies trying to dismantle the bomb the Nazis have placed on the subway as a distraction to sneak in the corn syrup and toxin to their warehouse, that’s not the case. Bereft after her husband’s death, Mindy has a vision of Murray visiting her with Aaron, saying that they were safe and happy and would wait for her to be with them. At the end of the season, Mindy decides to take time with her family.

Roxy

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The flyest mother in all of New York, Roxy Jones was (and still is) a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Throughout season 1, she struggled about whether or not she should hang up her hat from the cause with the responsibility of caring for her daughter, Malika, heavy on her mind. Though it’s interesting to note, Roxy’s motivation, however altruistic the ideals behind the cause, were also rooted in caring for Malika; Roxy was getting paid for her role in The Hunters. Though she vacillated between staying or going, season 1 ultimately saw her sign on to take the show on the road overseas.

Joe

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We honestly don’t learn much about Joe other than he’s a pretty closed off dude and he’s skilled with a weapon. He obviously has a soft spot for Roxy, warning her to escape the city with her little girl when they discover the Nazis are set to release a biological weapon after Roxy got out. Poor Joe has some bad things coming for him in the future I fear, as when Jonah took over The Hunters, he stormed off and was kidnapped by the Nazis. Where did he end up you might ask? Right in Hitler and Eva’s clutches. As we say in my hometown, free Joe ’till it’s backwards.

The Ops

Biff

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Biff started off the season with a bang — and by a bang, I mean gunshots. One of the craziest openers I have ever seen. Truly. From the jump, his reveal as The Butcher of Arlav showed just how Nazis were living scot-free under aliases in America. Biff is integral in progressing the corn syrup plot, as his job as a high-ranking politician allows him to whisper in President Jimmy Carter’s ear. However, Biff played a dangerous game and found out the consequences this season. After being put out of commission for a while to deflect undue attention of his family’s murder, he started feeling like The Colonel didn’t see him as valuable and made some stuff shake that delayed the import of the toxin from South America through policy. He eventually runs to Millie’s boss, who was revealed to be a part of Paperclip. Millie catches him and brings him to the factory where the battle of the corn syrup goes down, but Biff manages to escape. After he procures a new alias, poof. He’s in the wind.

Travis

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I do not care that Hitler himself walked on screen in quite literally the last minute of season 1. Travis is the scariest mofo in this entire show. I will not be hearing any arguments at this time. Called in to clean up Biff’s mess after the BBQ massacre, Travis is intent on climbing the ranks and is assigned the task of handling the people responsible for a myriad of suspicious Nazi deaths around the city and the investigation. This brings him into Millie’s orbit, which brings him into Jonah’s orbit, which leads to a lot of bad things. This man is a psychopath. He murders Booty, he murders The Colonel’s underlings, he murders a lot of people by placing the bomb on the subway, including Murray. Jonah catches up with him at the factory, a hair away from sending him to his grave, but Millie intervenes and he’s taken to jail. However, this isn’t the deterrent it seems it would be for Travis’ sick ways. In jail, he refuses to testify for Millie and stabs his Jewish lawyer to build his own little faction of White Supremacists in jail.

The Colonel

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The Colonel was the brains behind the entire corn syrup scheme. She was repeatedly shown to be ruthless, going so far as to praise Travis for killing her three lackeys that she had raised like sons in order to climb the ranks. After the corn syrup plot fails, The Colonel makes a strategic retreat and is revealed in the last minute of the season to be none other than Eva Braun, wife of Adolf Hitler (who is also still alive).

BONUS – Characters I would love to know what happened to

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There were quite a few people who just got explained away for the purpose of the plot, but who I would love to know what happened to in season 2.

  • Cheeks (RIP Booty) – Allegedly set to head off to college at CalTech. Was never seen again.
  • Carol – Jonah makes the hard decision of letting Carol go to protect her by freezing her out of his life when she tries to help him. Was never seen again.
  • Maria – Millie takes a similar route to Jonah, freezing Millie out and breaking up with her to protect her. Maria continued to be there for Millie’s mother, but once the MS catches up with Mrs. Morris, Maria was… you guessed it, never seen again.

The second and final season of Hunters premieres January 13. The production stars Logan Lerman, Jerrika Hinton, Lena Olin, Carol Kane, Josh Radnor, Greg Austin, Tiffany Boone, Louis Ozawa, Kate Mulvany, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Al Pacino. Stay tuned for our review of season 2 and any news/updates as they become available.

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