The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: Did Bex Reveal The Truth About Shane’s Parentage?

After almost a month-long hiatus, the second season of NBC’s thriller series, “The Hunting Party,” returns with an exciting new case as the fifth episode, “Noah Cyrus,” focuses on the titular cult leader/serial killer Pit escapee. Coming to the overarching Lazarus plotline, following her conversations with Morales and Shane, Bex was able to identify Shane’s mother to be the former serial killer/’Pit Graduate’ Colonel Lazarus, who is the chief of Pit inmate recovery operations at present. While Bex ponders about the decision whether or not to tell Shane the truth about his parentage, Lazarus, who is aware of her son’s identity, is already taking necessary measures to keep her cover from getting blown.

Spoilers Ahead

Thirteenth Hour Massacre and Noah’s Past

The episode opens with a flashback set ten years ago in Aurora, Illinois, as FBI agents swarm the compound of the Thirteenth Hour cult, led by a charismatic, manipulative Noah Cyrus, who has gathered his subjects to deliver a final sermon. A narcissistic trickster, Noah is an expert in brainwashing vulnerable minds, whom he has convinced to reject the established systemto form the cult’s own narrative, which revolves around deifying Cyrus. The FBI raids Cyrus’ compound, as he and his cult members were suspected to be plotting a courthouse bombing. Knowing there is no escape, Cyrus convince the present cult members to drink poison, promising them liberation in the afterlife. Before FBI operatives barge in and incapacitate Cyrus by clipping his shoulder, ten among his fifteen followers perish. In addition to brainwashing vulnerable people and persuading them to plot acts of terrorism, it is revealed that Cyrus has murdered a dozen more individuals. Their corpses are found in his compound. The world learns about Cyrus’ demise, but in reality, he is kept in Silo 12 of Pit, where, in the name of conditioning, he is subjected to questionable psychotherapy sessions.

In the present, following his escape from the Pit, Cyrus has been able to track down his followers who survived the massacre a decade ago and, using the ‘resurrection’ gimmick, is trying to plot another major crisis. After Bex and her team are informed about Cyrus’ return on the exact day when he was detained a decade ago, they are quick to deduce he is onto something. 

Going through Cyrus’ profile, the investigators learn that as an orphan, he grew up under the care of his strict maternal aunt and started showcasing psychopathic tendencies from an early age as he murdered his school teacher during his high school years. Cyrus evaded prison time upon being diagnosed with schizophrenia, and while spending years in psychiatric care, he learned the art of manipulation, which he put into practice to build his cult. Bex theorizes as a psychopath, Cyrus’ satiated massive ego and narcissistic tendencies by subjugating the minds of his followers and gunning down anyone who proved to be detrimental to his crude ploy. While the nature of the therapy he was subjected to in the Pit remains unknown, the investigators learn from recorded footage of his psych evaluation sessions. Cyrus’ obsessiveness with exerting control over others’ minds is revealed.

Following Money Link, Morales is able to track down the location of Tyler, one of Cyrus’ recent followers. Bex, Hassani, and Shane learn that Cyrus has managed to rebuild his cult by gathering a new flock, and they are preparing for another bombing which is gonna happen in a couple of hours, matching the exact time when Cyrus was shot down by the FBI years ago; but the place of the crisis is still unknown. As the team races against time to find Cyrus and prevent the upcoming crisis, Bex is perplexed by pondering how Cyrus is able to brainwash people so easily within such a short period while it took him years to build his cult back then. 

What Happened to Cyrus in the Pit?

At the command center, Ben performs a background check on Tyler’s construction company, which reveals a large amount of ammonium nitrate—a core ingredient for explosives—and building materials were ordered to be delivered to a vacant warehouse in downtown Elgin. As the team raids the warehouse, they come across a white room—which Hassani identifies as a chamber that was used for psychological torture through complete sensory deprivation by the Iranian government. As Bex asks Morales to perform another thorough background check of Cyrus’ time in Pit, it is revealed that he was subjected to white room experimentation as a part of Rogerian therapy performed by a psychiatrist of Pit. Through positive affirmations, the medics of Pit feed Cyrus’ delusions of grandeur, and the white room torments breaks his mind badly enough to let him fully believe that he is a godsent messianic figure sent to earth to guide his followers to salvation. After escaping from the Pit, Cyrus is using the instrument of his torments to convert vulnerable people into his mindless followers by breaking their psyche.

As Bex spots clear signs that indicate Cyrus and his gang left the warehouse mere minutes ago after presumably being tipped off, she suspects someone in the command center is acting as a mole. She asks Morales to do a background search of all the members of the team, as she can’t trust Lazarus’ associates like Peck and the rest of the intelligence officers. Morales asks Ben to check on personal files of all the members of the command center by combing through the server room. In the meantime, the situation turns worse with Cyrus and his crew taking over a local news studio, and Puppy Perkins, one of Cyrus’ former followers who has been recruited back to his cult, begins making a dramatic speech about his second coming—needless to say, which is a veiled, ominous threat about the bombing. As Morales desperately tries to shut the broadcast down by working her tech magic, the team rushes to the TV studio to capture Cyrus and locate the bomb before something unthinkable happens. 

Meanwhile, Peck, who has been suspicious about the existence of a mole as well, mistakenly considers Ben to be in cahoots with Cyrus and holds him at gunpoint. Bex and co. apprehend Cyrus’ team and quickly overpower him but fail to find the bomb. Shane finds a corpse in Cyrus’ truck, which is revealed to be a certain Jack Davis’. As it turns out, Jack, one of the new followers of Cyrus, had introduced his brother, Norm—a member of the FBI’s PIT escapee recovery team—to the charismatic cult leader. Cyrus subjected him to white room treatment to brainwash him into planting a bomb in the command center. Upon learning Cyrus was misguiding his brother, Jack tried to stop him but ended up being gunned down by Cyrus. As Morales shuts down the broadcast and Bex manages to corner Cyrus, Norm takes Morales hostage and threatens to detonate the bomb rigged in the command center unless Cyrus is released. Peck returns to the scene after clearing his misunderstanding with Ben and tries to take control of the situation, to no avail. Morales shows her courage and presence of mind by trying to negotiate with Norm. She reveals how Cyrus exploited him for his own selfish purpose by showing him the conversation between Bex and Cyrus, where the cult leader admits to killing Jack to suit his ulterior motive. This shocking revelation startled Norm, giving enough time to Morales to seize the trigger of the bomb and Peck to detain Norm. 

Later on, Peck approaches Morales to appreciate her for her negotiation skills and, strangely enough, seems to be on friendly terms with her. While transporting Cyrus back to Pit, the FBI vehicle is stopped by mysterious  mercenaries, both masked and armed, who shoot the security and Cyrus to death. While Lazarus seems to be the obvious suspect behind the killings, it remains unknown whether other former prisoners met the same fate and what Lazarus’ motive might be behind such a dastardly action. 

Did Bex Reveal the Truth About Shane’s Parentage?

Speaking of Lazarus, Bex shares her findings with Morales and Hassani, mentioning that the crooked chief of recovery operations and former Pit inmate, Colonel Lazarus, is Shane’s mother. While Bex remains adamant that they should reveal the truth to Shane, Hassani seems to be in a conflict, fearing the truth might affect Shane’s psyche. Following the successful completion of Cyrus’ investigation, Bex and Shane gang out, when their conversation drifts to Shane’s parentage. Shane apologizes for not coming clear about his motive to join the investigation team sooner and reveals now he is quite content with never knowing the truth about his mother’s identity. He has accepted that his mother’s past will not define his present and future. Realizing that Shane is content with not knowing the truth, Bex decides to keep Lazarus’ identity a secret from him. Needless to say, she will eventually regret this decision soon enough when Shane inevitably learns both the truth and the fact that his team kept it a secret from him.

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