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'Hunters' Episode 2: Jonah’s misplaced compassion in freeing a Nazi shows the difference between him and Meyer

As much as Meyer tries to convince Jonah that the justice that is being meted out by his team is deserving, Jonah can't accept the extremities that they go to
PUBLISHED FEB 21, 2020
Al Pacino as Meyer Offerman and Logan Lerman as Jonah Heidelbaum (Amazon Prime Video)
Al Pacino as Meyer Offerman and Logan Lerman as Jonah Heidelbaum (Amazon Prime Video)

Spoiler alert for 'Hunters' Episode 2

The second episode of 'The Hunters' is not as long as the premiere clocking in at 62 odd minutes and it doesn't pack as many details as the first episode either. However, there is one thing that the episode does make clear. The horrors that Jewish people faced during what Nazi Germany claimed was the Third Reich is not something that people today can completely understand. It is not an experience that can be empathized after reading about and drawing a picture in your head, and that is what the show tries to nail with its second episode. 

From the beginning, 'Hunters' has been a tale of revenge as Meyers and his group goes about tracing Nazis in '70s America and killing them before they can kill the Jewish population that did manage to survive the war. After Ruth's death, her grandson meets Meyers at a funeral and through a chain of events ends up joining the 'Hunters' as a new member. Meyers and his grandmother have lived through the horrors of the concentration camps as they watched their family and friends killed every day. So something that Meyers might think of as justice is not something that Jonah can relate to or come to terms with. 

A still of Meyer from the trailer that plays out in Jonah's head in 'Hunters' (Amazon Prime Video)

From the beginning of the episode, we are clearly shown the divide between how Jonah perceives the Hunters and who they really are. He is not a welcomed member as most of them are against "a kid" joining their team as he stands up for himself and proves his worth by decoding a letter that Richter had sent to some woman named Gene. As Meyer introduces Jonah to Sister Harriet (Kate Mulvany), Roxy Jones (Tiffany Boone), Mindy (Carol Kane) and Murray Markowitz (Saul Rubinek), Lonny Flash (Josh Radnor) and Joe Torrance (Louis Ozawa Changchien), Jonah imagines their introduction as if it happened at a young girl's bar mitzvah. It is cut like a trailer of a movie, and it's silly. But this outlook gives us an idea about how serious Jonah really is about all of this. 

He has heard gut-wrenching tales about the suffering of Jewish people at the hands of Nazis and yet, he cannot take Meyer seriously. He constantly draws parallels between Meyer and comic book superheroes such as Bruce Wayne who is Batman or Professor X, the man who brought together mutants in the 'X-Men' comics. He looks at all of this as an action-packed adventure and the end goal is to be able to do learn more about his grandmother. He even names himself the "Codebreaker". 



 

This is exactly why Jonah getting sick after watching the Hunters torture a Nazi radio engineer doesn't come as a surprise. The horrors that his grandmother and Meyer experienced until now did not carry weight. However, after watching Carl, the radio engineer charged with thousands of counts of murder by the Hunters and is pronounced guilty, Jonah is unsure. Then when Lonny finds a secret room where a message is being broadcast on the radio, the Hunters want to get more information from Carl as he is their only lead. Joe ends up torturing Carl by playing music at high volume, enough to cause damage to Carl's eardrums. This is when Jonah shows the first signs of discomfort with what Meyer and his team have planned.

Then when everyone goes to the secret room to investigate further, Jonah is left outside to watch their prisoner. Jonah ends up being convinced by Carl that his evil actions when he was in Germany were purely influenced by his abusive father who did not respect music. The sad tale disturbs Jonah enough to untie Carl's rope restraints. He doesn't understand how well-versed such men are when it comes to convincing people that they are not at fault. In the last episode, it was Biff Simpson who went rabid after he was recognized by a guest as Nazi, and now it is Carl. 

So yet again, unsurprisingly, Jonah is attacked by Carl who tries to use Jonah to get away from the Nazi hunters, but Joe shoots him down and with him goes the only lead that the Hunters had. After witnessing his grandmother being shot, this is the second murder that Jonah witnesses and it takes a toll on him. As much as Meyer tries to convince him that the justice that is being meted out by his team is deserving, Jonah cannot accept the extremities that they go to because he has until now believed all of what Meyer is doing to be illegal and also morally wrong. 

So when Meyer takes Jonah to the congregation to recite the Kaddish for his grandmother, he also asks Meyer if he can tell one for the man who died. Carl's blood, still visible to Jonah as he looks at his fingers shows how much this death has affected him. He wonders why Meyer wouldn't call it in, involves the police instead of killing Nazis because the question that begins to haunt you then is what makes you different than them. This is a question that Jonah will grapple with in the future as well. 

What happens after is something that you would have to catch in 'Hunters' Episode 3 on Amazon Prime Video from February 21.

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