Contributor: Bronzethumb
Written by Christian Spurrier
Directed by Alrick Riley
“Hunted” continues to capitalise on the goodwill it garnered in the previous few episodes with “Polyhedrus”, an installment full of tense spy moments, in-universe reveals and genuine questions about the morality and fates of certain characters. It helps that the complexities of the first few episodes have streamlined considerably, the characters other than Sam are getting more sympathetic moments, and Sam’s personal mission is being tied even closer to the Turner mission.
Sam investigates a lead that could tie Polyhedrus, Hourglass, the Khyber Dam, the mission to Tangiers and Stephen Turner to one another. Meanwhile, Byzantium intercepts a message to Jack Turner and suspect he’s going to have a foreign dignitary assassinated in order to secure the Khyber Dam project. The suspicion seems to be borne out when Ian, still undercover as a petty crook, is contracted to help secure tools for the assassination, but the truth quickly becomes something else entirely. And Stephen Turner investigates his suspicions about what Jack is doing.
The best move “Hunted” has made since the beginning of the season is making the Turner mission a big part of Sam’s revenge quest. The latter is something we’ve been invested in from the start, thanks to actually seeing the events that led her on this mission, but until we had a similar emotional hook into the Turner mission, it’s been a weight around the show’s neck. Here, the marriage of the two is a driving force for “Hunted”, with the two playing back and forth at each other and keeping there from being any long, dull stretches.
The main thrust of the episode is investigating and stopping the assassination of Fatima Zahir, who was briefly and well-introduced, and those sequences wind up being incredibly tense and watchable. It recalled the glory days of “24″ and “Spooks” — especially the scene where Zahir is giving her speech and the director frames and cuts things brilliantly, really giving the audience a sense of not knowing where the danger is coming from. The conclusion to this storyline is interesting and no less intense, and sets up some interesting conflicts for the final two episodes.
“Polyhedrus” also saw some more of Stephen Turner, who is probably the most out-and-out sympathetic character in the whole show and is well-played by British actor Stephen Campbell-Moore. The character spent the first few episodes of “Hunted” not really doing anything, but here, he’s finally getting off his backside and contributing to the plot and the general sense of intrigue that permeates the show. “Polyhedrus” is as much the story of Stephen as a tragic hero whose world is slowly crumbling around him, and the final scene really makes it a toss-up whether this character will choose the side of the angels or not.
“Hunted” continues to move at a good pace, keeping things tense and interesting and generally erasing a lot of the sour taste left by the first few episodes. With only two episodes left, there’s a real feeling that things are ramping up to a big showdown with all parties involved and an investment in what happens to all these characters. It’s a dramatic transformation, and hopefully “Hunted” will continue getting better and better on the road to its finale.
Score: 9/10
