What I genuinely liked about Amazon’s “Hunters” is how the show shifted between the Nazi-killing escapades of the titular group in the ’70s and the horrors that Jews had to face back in the ’40s without losing focus on its characters. Since it had such a stellar cast, the performances were fantastic throughout the season. On a technical level, it was brimming with amazing cinematography, editing, production design, costume design, music, and sound design. But it opened to polarizing reviews from critics and audiences, and hence, it looks like the showrunners are ending things with its second season. So, here’s what you need to know before watching the second season of “Hunters.”
What Is The Hunt?
Operation Paperclip was a very real thing that happened sometime between 1945 and 1959, where around 1600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were smuggled into the U.S. from former Nazi Germany for government employment. Why? So that the U.S. could be at an advantage against the Russians in the Cold War and the Space Race. For these Nazis’ services, they were given the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award, and the Goddard Astronautics Award, and were immortalized in the Space Camp Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame. There are lunar craters named after these guys, who were literal Nazis and aided in the killing of millions of Jewish people! “Hunters” directly referred to this horrendous and unethical program and assembled a group of Jewish vigilantes to hunt these monsters down, which was called “The Hunt.” This was probably inspired by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where Wiesenthal, a concentration camp survivor played by Judd Hirsch in the show, tracked down Nazis and tried them for their war crimes.
The Hunters could be a watered-down version of the Nakam, though, which was a group of around 50 Holocaust survivors who wanted genocidal revenge against the Nazis. But there’s no way to be sure. Anyway, the fictional group had a married couple, Murray and Mindy, who were German-Jewish Holocaust survivors, with the former being especially good with electrical equipment and the latter being an expert in signal tracing. Then there was an actor named Lonny Flash who played various characters in both real life and on film. Despite being a single mother and an activist, Roxy fit into the role of forging documents for the group. Vietnam war veteran Joe lent his skills to martial arts. Sister Harriet, a former MI6 operative and German-Jewish refugee, was an expert in torturing and orchestrating various kinds of heists. This team was led by Meyer Offerman, a Polish-Jewish philanthropist who doubled as a Nazi-killing vigilante. Jonah Heidelbaum, a math genius who loved to solve puzzles, joined the group after her grandmother Ruth’s death. He was recruited after he killed Heinz Richter and re-recruited when his friend was killed by the American Neo-Nazi, Travis Leich. Jonah was seen as an immature kid by the adults. But he managed to prove his mettle with his problem-solving skills. However, the more he became involved in the Hunt, the more muddled his ideas of good and evil became, as he didn’t want to become evil to defeat the greatest evil of all, i.e., fascists.
What Were The Nazis Planning?
Germany, under Adolf Hitler’s dictatorial rule, was referred to as the Third Reich, i.e., the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). That obviously ended in 1945. Now, the “Fourth Reich” is a reference to the hypothetical successor to the Third Reich. Neo-Nazis (racist and bigoted individuals who want to revive and reinstate the Nazi ideology) believe that they can do it by promoting racism and anti-semitism and taking over Europe, Russia, Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa via a concept of settler colonialism called “Lebensraum.” The term has come up while alarming people about the dangers of far-right-wing movements and the rise of right-wing populism. But it doesn’t really prove that there’s a possibility of a Fourth Reich or anything synonymous with that. “Hunters,” though, showed the Nazis dreaming of a Fourth Reich by taking over the United States of America, which was long seen as the greatest nation in the whole wide world.
The political takeover was easy because the U.S. government willingly brought the Nazis into the highest places, with the one in the White House being Biff Simpson. But, of course, that wasn’t enough. The Colonel, along with Travis and her Nazi goons, wanted the eradication of anyone who didn’t belong to their pure and superior race. So, they smuggled in a special kind of pathogen that would be mixed in corn syrup, a substitute for sugar, which is one of the most common ingredients in everything that’s consumed in America. In addition to that, they’d be mixed into medicines, drinks, etc., thereby allowing them to wipe out most of the country’s population. And the trick was that when the pathogen entered the victims’ bodies, it would have a delayed reaction. Therefore, by the time the symptoms started to show up, it would be too late to contain the situation. The system would be overwhelmed, allowing the Nazis to take over. Thankfully, while hunting them down, the hunters came across this sinister plot. They found a direct link between the distribution of the solution and the Colonel’s Schidler Corp. and decided to burn it all to the ground to save America from annihilation.
What Happened After the Schidler Corp. Attack?
To put an end to the corn syrup distribution and avenge Murray’s death, the Hunters went to the Schidler Corp. factory. Lonny was tasked with disguising himself as a scientist and bringing the pathogen-laced syrup to a boil, with Mindy guiding him remotely. Jonah was responsible for setting up a bunch of explosives. Roxy and Joe punctured the tires of the trucks that were supposed to take out the syrup for delivery. Sister Harriet was observing from afar, and she was equipped with a bazooka to stop any trucks from getting out. Everything went according to plan. Most of the Nazis were killed. The Colonel escaped in a car, but Meyer turned out to be its driver. He probably planned to take her somewhere for questioning, but the Colonel pulled out a gun and caused the car to crash. Harriet saved Meyer, and the Colonel ran away. Millie reached the site with Biff in handcuffs. When she went after Jonah, who was running after Travis, Biff escaped and eventually jetted off to Russia under a fake identity.
Jonah had the chance to kill Travis, but Millie prevented him from doing so, and she arrested Travis. This disappointed a recovering Meyer. So, to win him over again, Jonah caught the man he assumed to be Wilhelm “The Wolf” Zuchs (the doctor who had tortured the Jewish people at Auschwitz and forced Meyer to kill eleven people to keep Ruth alive). But it turned out that the Meyer we’ve been following is actually Zuchs. He had killed Meyer 30 years ago and was living as a Jew and hunting Nazis down as penance for his misdeeds. Jonah, unable to digest that nonsense, killed Zuchs/Meyer. Mindy bailed on everyone. Harriet, Roxy, Lonny, and Jonah vowed to continue their work internationally. Harriet was seen to be in contact with someone named Chava. Millie joined hands with Congresswoman Elizabeth to take down the Nazis legally. An incarcerated Travis killed his Jewish lawyer to rile up the inmates with anti-Semitic sloganeering. And Joe was taken to the Colonel’s hiding place where she was revealed to be Eva Braun-Hitler. She has been living under the radar with an aging Adolf Hitler along with four identical boys who looked like the descendants of the Aryan race. This was obviously in contradiction with what we know about Hitler and Eva Braun’s (Hitler’s long-time companion and briefly his wife as well) fate, i.e., that they died by suicide in the Führerbunker before the Soviets could catch them. But “Hunters” imagine that that is all a ruse and that they are plotting the rise of the Fourth Reich and the expansion of their Nazi family from South America.
What Can We Expect From ‘Hunters’ Season 2?
Of course, the second season has to address the elephant in the room, Adolf Hitler. But I don’t know how cathartic or satisfying the handling of it will be because, as per David Weil, he wanted to tell the story of the Hunters over the course of five seasons. Things did look well for the show when a second season was announced soon after the release of the first season. However, somewhere along the way, it must have been decided that the second season was going to be the final one. So, there’s not much of a build-up to the fictionalized version of this historically notorious figure. That said, with “Inglourious Basterds,” Quentin Tarantino proved that putting Hitler in a story and ending his life doesn’t need a lot of hype. He simply needs to be killed in the goriest fashion possible. That’s all. Now, is the mention of Hitler living all the way into his 80s going to fuel some conspiracy theories? I think so, yes, especially with regard to his and Braun’s children.
As for the Hunters, it’s clear that they’ve been living separately for some reason and aren’t on good terms with each other. But Jonah is going to bring them together with Millie’s help, whose mission to take down Nazis legally has probably gone down the drain. The second season has to answer what’s up with Joe and why Braun took him and only him to her Nazi resort. In the trailers, he seems to be sporting a Nazi hairdo and helping the Hunters. So, he might be some kind of brainwashed double agent. We’ve got Chava in the flesh, played by the amazing Jennifer Jason Leigh, who’ll be helping the Hunters with the might of her team and her own skills with guns. Travis seems to be roaming around pretty freely. He has either been bailed out or has escaped from the jail he was in after causing some kind of Nazi uprising there. In addition to that, Al Pacino is still going to be a dominating presence as the show is going to oscillate between the present (where the Hunters take down Hitler) and the past (where Meyer/Zuchs assembled the Hunters). Fair warning, though: things can get quite messy because Weil and his team are watering down five seasons’ worth of stories into this second and final season.
