The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: What Happened To Shane In The End?

Following the cliffhanger from the ending of the last episode, which saw Lazarus approaching Shane on her own to share the truth of his parentage, things were always going to get troublesome for Bex and her team. In the latest episode of the ongoing season of “The Hunting Party,” the central case of the week and overarching plot converge to offer a solid thriller spectacle, one which revolves around demons of Shane’s past and an evil psychopathic genius at the center of it. To top it all off, Bex has to join in an unexpected, uneasy alliance to save Shane’s life, making the episode all the more interesting in the process.

Spoilers Ahead

What is the motive of  Sidney Fairfax?

Before moving to the central case, it should be mentioned that Lazarus’ revelations quite expectedly throw Shane’s mind in complete disarray. He joins the team late and remains distracted throughout the case, something that comes to Bex’s notice. Contrary to her usual stoic, scheming, always-in-control persona, Lazarus appeared as an emotional, vulnerable mother to Shane, showing how grateful she is to learn she has a chance to reunite with his son after all these years. Despite knowing Lazarus’ notoriety as a serial killer in the past, Shane can’t find it in himself to outright reject her. 

Something about the rare variety of Pit escapees, the genius evils, makes for the most interesting cases of “Hunting Party.” In the first season, god complex-afflicted psychiatrist Dr. Ezekiel Malak, aka Dr. Darkness, turned out to be a terrifying antagonist as he went after Bex to prove himself as the chosen one with the power to hold dominion over those he deemed weak and unworthy to enjoy the gift of life. In the second season, as the seventh episode highlights, a similarly deranged psyche can be identified in renowned neuroscientist Dr. Sidney Fairfax. A professor in Cambridge, Fairfax believes in the nature vs. nurture debate regarding the root of psychopathic behavior; nature always triumphs—which is to say that the wirings of the brain of a psychopath are different compared to regular humans. As the episode begins in Cambridge in 1995, Fairfax is seen demonstrating his idea that, as is the case with a number of serial killers, the brain of an infamous Bay Area butcher exhibited a distinctive anatomical structure.

A reduced frontal lobe and reduced connection between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex noticed in serial killers are deduced by Fairfax to be the reason for their psychopathic tendencies. At the same time, these particular brain structures can also be seen in regular folks who have never shown any psychopathic tendencies, which raises the question: what differentiates killers from them? Fairfax believes there is a biological switch latent deep within the human psyche, which triggers such tendencies upon activation. To test his theories, Fairfax lures a homeless guy named John by promising food and money and, drugging him, takes Jack to a cemetery near Concord River to remove portions of his brain for his devious research. John is one of the nine victims in the infamous, unresolved Boston 9 case, where Fairfax was a suspect but couldn’t be convicted as he passed away in a car accident. At present, as Bex and her team get an alert about Fairfax’s return, they manage to deduce that his death was staged by Pit, which is surprising because, unlike other Pit escapees, he was not convicted of his crimes before arriving at the Pit. Additionally, Morales isn’t able to find anything regarding Fairfax’s therapy or psych evaluation in Pit, which suggests someone wiped out the details of his tenure in Pit and the fact that Fairfax was a key figure in the secretive facility. Bex goes through Fairfax’s old lecture videos and profiles him as a narcissistic psychopath whose social detachment issues started as a byproduct of being an exceptionally gifted genius/overachiever who couldn’t mingle with his batchmates. She further adds the desire of gaining power and control, which drives psychopaths, makes even so-called educated, accomplished, and respected figures like Fairfax believe there is nothing wrong in their actions of tormenting others. 

Soon, one of Fairfax’s former associates, Harvard neurologist Dr. Clive Alanson, is found murdered with his brain punctured with deep probing stimulating electrodes. Alanson was present with Fairfax in his 1995 lecture as he demonstrated Alan’s brain scan structure matched that of a serial killer. One of Alanson’s students, John, who discovered his body, reveals whoever probed the electrodes in Alanson’s brain didn’t do so just to kill his target, and the act is performed with surgical precision. 

The Connection Between Dulles and Fairfax

Bex makes an assumption that during the thirty years Fairfax spent in the Pit, he was not held captive as a prisoner and, in fact, he was honing his skills as one of the researchers of the Pit. This assumption proves to be true when Morales digs up the files of Tom Beecher, a pit escapee whose experimental brain surgery was conducted in the Pit by the project overseer, Henry Dulles, and she finds Fairfax’s signature on them. Fairfax chooses one of Dulles’ former students from MIT, Willa Sanchez, as his next victim, while Bex calls former Pit researcher Dr. Charles to get intel about Fairfax’s activity in the Pit. Charles reveals Dulles encouraged Fairfax’s experimentations, which were aimed to turn off the biological switch in serial killers, even if it came at the cost of using Pit inmates as their lab rats. Fairfax also believed that he could turn a regular human into a raging killer merely by altering brain structure and had free rein to prove his theory in the Pit as Dulles allowed him the opportunity. As the team approaches Willa in the hospital, they learn of her connection with Dulles, and Bex asks Morales to pull up everything she can on the former chief supervisor of the Pit. Right at the moment, Shane confesses that unbeknownst to the rest of the team, he had gained Dulles’ files with the help of his daughter, Sarah. As Morales and Pack go to Shane’s apartment, he makes it clear to Hassani and Bex that in his mission of learning the identity of his mother, Shane secretly investigates along with Sarah. Shane has also lied about Dulles’ death, and coupled with the shocking revelation, this puts Shane in a team spot, as his friends have a tough time trusting him. As if the timing couldn’t be any worse, Shane confesses that he has found out that Lazarus is his mother, and seeing his friends/colleagues react normally, he figures out that they have kept the whole affair a secret from him as well. Feeling betrayed by his friends, Shane angrily leaves to meet Sarah Dulles, while he is still in Boston. 

Morales and Peck find out Dulles had conducted a brain mapping study of his thirty students back in 2002, among which Willa Sanchez’s file is present. Dulles shares his findings with Fairfax, which explains how he is able to find new victims and evade the authorities with ease. Shane comes across one of Fairfax’s latest victims by entering Dulles’ house and manages to incapacitate him before he goes on a rampage with the troubling brain-probed condition. Shane manages to call Bex and Hassani to share his location before getting ambushed by Fairfax, who takes him to Dulles’ secret underground lab, with the agenda of subjecting him to his morbid experiment. 

What Happened to Shane in the End?

A flashback to Shane’s childhood shows that in the Pit, a young Shane was subjected to visual empathy-removing stimulus tests by Fairfax, who believed he could ignite psychopathic tendencies in the son of the Pit’s most notorious inmate, Evelyn Lazarus. Shane was born in the Pit. Thanks to Dulles’ intervention, he was able to escape Fairfax’s tests and got to have a normal childhood in a safe environment, which proved Dulles’ theory about nurture being the most important factor in psychological issues. At present, Fairfax considers this coincidence of crossing paths with Shane after all these years as a divine providence, and he is eager to put his theories to the test by subjecting him to deep brain stimulation like his other victims. The fact that Shane himself is struggling with the nature vs. nurture debacle ever since learning the true identity of his mother makes this situation even more intriguing. As Fairfax drugs a restrained Shane with a sedative, he starts hallucinating his past self and the memories lying dormant in his psyche. 

Bex and Hassani reach Dulles’ house and find Fairfax’s third victim. Bex is able to sense something is off upon not being able to find Shane, and she makes a desperate decision by directly calling Lazarus to seek his help, given she knew both Dulles and Lazarus. The colonel directs them to the underground secret lab, as Bex and Hassani find Fairfax is holding Shane as his hostage. Bex manages to distract Fairfax long enough by sharing how foolish his attempt is to turn Shane into a psychopath, as she acknowledges his worth as a friend. This allows Shane enough chance to move from Hassani’s line of sight, who shoots Fairfax dead. While returning to the States, the trio make amends as Shane reveals the struggle of coping with the fact his mother was a murderer, which he had to deal with since his teenage years, long before he actually got to learn who she is. This resulted in him distancing others, a mistake he will not make further when it comes to Bex and Hassani, as Shane cherishes the bonds he shares with them. 

Bex gets summoned by Lazarus, who thanks her for saving Shane’s life, and now that secrets have come out in the open, the colonel tries to convince Bex that she has truly reformed after returning from the Pit. Needless to say, being aware of the heinous experimentations that were done in the Pit, Bex knows how much truth there is in Lazarus’ words. Returning to Morales and Hassani, she rightly mentions Lazarus as one of the most dangerous sociopaths, whom they need to stop at all costs. Interestingly, Shane is not present with them, which might hint that a rift might still be present among the team members, as Bex and the rest of her team might be planning to keep Shane out of the Lazarus investigation given how much personal stake is involved. 

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