The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 2 Review: Adrian Gallo

The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 2, “Adrian Gallo,” immediately one-ups its previous episode in terms of weirdness, while also setting up more of the season’s themes.

“Adrian Gallo” focuses less on the killer and more on the people who go after them. It toys with the idea of Bex falling into darkness while also prompting us to further question the treatment of the killers in the pit.

Showing how the trauma of her job is corrupting Bex is straightforward, but creating sympathy for the killers is not.

While the pit is clearly not exactly a moral institution, the notion that what they are doing is just as bad as what these killers did doesn’t quite feel justified yet.

Obviously, the show never wants you to forgive or even pity the killers, but it does want you question the purpose of what’s being done in the pit and what exactly their methods say about the people who came up with them. 

It’s a good idea, but the execution is lacking. When the pit lives up to its reputation, the question of morality will be more relevant.

The episode focuses on the team’s pursuit of Adrian Gallo. He is a serial killer who encases his victims in resin to preserve them.

While this is horrifying, it does require a great deal of suspension of disbelief.

This is because Adrian’s resin method probably wouldn’t work as shown. Casting someone alive in resin likely wouldn’t result in a perfectly preserved body, as the episode shows.

However, looking past the real-life logistics, this is a genuinely frightening concept that works well.

In a twist, Erica Burke, one of the detectives who worked on Adrian’s original case, is a copycat killer. While more astute viewers probably could have seen this coming, it is a shocking turn of events.

Erica is grounded, while Adrian is completely unhinged. The reveal that she’s also encasing people in resin is a wild turn.

Apparently, after spending so much time investigating murders, she started to see the appeal. As a motivation, this is okay, but there isn’t really much reasoning beyond it.

The plot twist feels more like an attempt to parallel Bex, who’s been developing into someone far more vengeful after Oliver’s death. This is further corroborated by a conversation she has with Shane about succumbing to the darkness.

This all feels like a setup for Bex to have some sort of corruption arc, which would be an interesting direction for the character, given that she started Season 1 by being disturbed by Oliver’s methods.

While “Adrian Gallo” could have been smoother in delivering its story, the actual implications of what it may or may not be foreshadowing are interesting.

If having her team is what’s keeping her out of the darkness, then what happens if she loses them? Time will tell whether or not the season chooses to address that.

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The Hunting Party airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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