Contributor: Bronzethumb
Written by Frank Spotnitz
Directed by SJ Clarkson
The second episode of “Hunted” does a much better job of getting the show off the ground, albeit in a strange and interesting way. It still lacks a really compelling hook, something to grab the audience’s attention and sympathy and get us invested in how this story plays out, yet we’re interested all the same by the time “LB” has finished. It really comes down to the characters, particularly the protagonist, who starts picking up the storytelling burdens in this installment.
Sam’s mission to infiltrate the Turner household continues, but with an added wrinkle: Hasan, another member of the team, has been betrayed and captured and will surely talk if he’s interrogated for long enough. To keep the operation secure, Sam is ordered to find and covertly kill Hasan, but she’s conflicted when Hasan claims to have information about whoever betrayed her in Tangiers. She’s further distracted from the mission by the news of a former colleague’s brutal murder, and suspects the culprit is part of the larger conspiracy.
The two storylines at play in “Hunted”, the conspiracy of betrayal and the current mission in the Turner household, are far more integrated in this episode and it benefits enormously from this. It means the script can jump from building the tension in one plot to building tension in the other, rather than have a lot of dead air like the last episode did. Knowing the conspiracy will affect the Turner mission makes it a lot more interesting and suggests to the audience they should get more invested and pay close attention. This is hugely important for “Hunted”, a show that seems to have skipped the important step of giving the audience a hook.
Sam is becoming a far more compelling protagonist and Melissa George is rising to the challenge of playing a complex and deeply emotional character with a strong stoic façade. The explanations of her background and the character beats are rarely verbal and always subtle, coming through the performance or in the midst of some other scene rather than being explicitly presented to the audience. Watching Sam struggle with complex moral dilemmas and questions of what it’ll take to accomplish her mission winds up being really interesting, because like her, the audience can see difficulties with every choice. We empathise, and that’s the road into caring about the show.
It’s take on espionage is also becoming more nuanced and interesting. The dark, drama-driven “Spooks”-esque take on the profession is still there, but “Hunted” is taking the time to explore what distinguishes the team at Byzantium from other spy characters we’ve seen in fiction. These aren’t hardworking patriots, but professionals in it for the cash. The dilemma around how to deal with Hasan has consequences and implications completely different to what spy shows normally deal with. Much like with Sam, this gives the audience an in to caring about the rest of the team, though most still seem devoid of personality.
There are a couple of great action scenes, some tense chases, and a clear demonstration that this production team knows how to put together a spy show. What they’re weaker at is putting together an interesting and compelling drama, but they’ve improved a lot since the show’s premiere. Unlike the premiere, viewers will care about Sam and the team by episode’s end, and they’ll want to know what happens in episode three, all of which is a huge win for “Hunted”.
Score: 7/10
