Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hunters’ Season 2 on Amazon Prime Video, in Which the Al Pacino-Led Series Returns to Face Down the Biggest, Baddest Big Bad Ever

Three years after its debut, Amazon Prime Video series Hunters returns for a second, and reportedly final, season of alt-history Nazis-among-us/Hitler-ain’t-dead nuttiness – and yes, it still boasts Jordan Peele as an executive producer. Creator David Weil’s first season was notable for stirring up some controversy for some of the show’s Holocaust-related imagery, and for casting Al Pacino in his first significant television role. The second go-round begins with a recap, reminding us of the following: One, “an elite team longing for Nazi slaughter” formed to hunt down Nazi stragglers after the conclusion of World War II. Two, “they are among us and they have plans,” which further solidifies the Hunters’ mission – except they broke up at the end of season one. Three, that Pacino’s character was actually a face/off, identity-theft type situation and he’s also dead now, one of the season finale’s big twists. And four, HITLER LIVES, the other of the finale’s big twists. We pick up now with the introduction of a new character played by a significant star who seems perfect for this goofy, but compelling series.

HUNTERS SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Tilt down from a lovely mountain landscape to a riverside village in the midst of Van Glooten’s Day, complete with butter sculptures and enough lederhosen to choke a sperm whale!

The Gist: No lederhosen on this lady: She’s dressed all in white, and she’s played by JENNIFER JASON LEIGH, thank you. Her name is Chava Apfelbaum and she walks into a candy shop and talks to the owner about a Brady Bunch butter sculpture, and also about whether he’s a Jew or what, because the shop once belonged to Jewish people. She says things like “Das ist gut!” and “Wunderbar!” and “Marcia Marcia Marcia!” before she reveals her concentration-camp tattoo on her wrist and cuts out his eyeballs.

Cut to: Al Pacino. Yes, Al Pacino! He’s looking directly into the camera when he says, “You look as if you’ve seen the ghost.” But he’s not a ghost, this is a flashback to 1975, two years before the events of season one, and four years before the events of season two. Pacino’s character, Meyer Offerman – although he’s really Wilhelm the Wolf, his face surgically altered – holds court in a restaurant; he sees a man in the background and acts spooked by him. That man (Miles Anderson) will stalk him and eventually track him down because he knows Meyer’s secret, and their conversation will reveal that Wilhelm wasn’t just THE wolf, but simply A wolf, because the man is also a wolf.

PARIS, 1979: Our primary protag Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman) hangs out in a brothel, but not to purchase services. No, he pokes his nose into rooms and then leaves, and we know he’s not just a skeevy perv, because he’s one of the Hunters, and he must be Hunting somebody. He goes home to his sweetheart fiancee Clara (Emily Rudd), who proves to be a big-time CHiPs fan: “I promise I won’t call you Erik Estrada while we’re having sex again,” she jokes. She doesn’t seem to know that her BF is a secret agent who murders people, specifically Nazi people. Nazi people like Biff Simpson (Dylan Baker), who, staring down the barrel of Jonah’s gun, spills a big, fat bean, and I mean a humongous bean, the biggest bean there’s ever been: Hitler is still alive. I mean WE know that already, but Jonah didn’t, and this is what your English teacher called “dramatic irony.”

PASADENA, 1979: Millie (Jerrika Hinton) is in the confessional, confessing things, until she whips out her gun – this priest is actually an SS SOB. She’s still a Hunter, see. And she tries to bring Father Sieg Heil to justice for murdering children, but a judge throws the case out. Frustrating. SOMEWHERE ELSE, 1979: An old man shaves his face for supper, but he doesn’t shave the Hitler mustache because he’s HITLER, and he’s played by Udo Effing Kier. (Still got the stache after all these years, ugh.) He sits down with Eva Braun (Lena Olin) for a yummy pork dinner with an unlikely guest: Joe Mizishima (Louis Ozawa), a Hunter. What’s he doing there? Did he switch sides or is he undercover? TO BE CONTINUED, people!

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? File Hunters alongside other alt-history/conspiracy fiction such as The Man in the High Castle and The Plot Against America.

Our Take: Those who griped that the first season of Hunters was too all-over-the-place will still have that ax to grind. The opening salvo of season two is rife with gruesome violence, bleak laughs, stupid kitschy pop-culture references, earnest references to Holocaust trauma, meaty moral quandaries and a depiction of elderly Adolf that’s simultaneously scary and ludicrous. Bottom line: You shouldn’t take any of it seriously, except for the parts you should take seriously.

Weil successfully sows intrigue by following up on the juicy-as-a-million-grapefruits cliffhangers from the previous season. Jonah once executed a man for living a double life, and now finds himself… living a double life. Millie struggles to work within the confines of the law. The narrative contorts itself so Pacino can still headline the series; using flashbacks in this manner is kind of cheating, but when the product is entertaining like this, we can let it slide (and it’ll be interesting to see how the 1975 storyline ties in with the events of 1979). And resurrecting Hitler is a bold maneuver, the biggest bad of all the big bads returning to hopefully be dismembered or something awful that he totally deserves.

Hunters isn’t quite on par with Quentin Tarantino’s Hitler-resurrecting capabilities – the series sometimes seems to be taking cues from the filmmaker – but frankly, nothing alt-histories history like Inglourious Basterds. The pace is swift, the dramatic developments are reasonably compelling and one hopes that Kier and JJL get opportunities to let rip a few times over the seven remaining episodes. If they don’t, then Weir is blowing it. Blowing it!

Sex and Skin: Jonah pokes into rooms and watches people poking.

Parting Shot: HITLER STARES INTO THE CAMERA IN EXTREME CLOSE-UP.

Sleeper Star: Can someone playing Hitler truly be a “sleeper” star? It’s debatable, but Udo Kier-as-Der-Fuhrer is the only thing that can trump Jennifer Jason Leigh as an eyeball-gouging Nazi hunter. Kier, if you’re not aware, is a character actor who frequently plays sinister, terrifying mofos – notably in a handful of Lars von Trier films, which pretty much says it all, re: his screen presence.

Most Pilot-y Line: Biff maybe delivers this season’s thesis statement: “Let me live and I will bring you to Adolf Hitler in the flesh and blood!”

Our Call: If you’re not gonna stick around to see what happens to Old Man Hitler, you’re incorrigible. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.