(Jewish Group) Television's goriest Holocaust revenge fantasy has had a change of heart (SPOILERS)

[Behind the Aegis]

Television’s goriest Holocaust revenge fantasy has had a change of heart — will it matter?

This article has SPOILERS, so if you haven't seen season 2 of "The Hunters" yet, STOP READING NOW!!!

“Hunters” season two opens in Austria and, even before it showed a pair of severed eyeballs affixed to a butter sculpture as a Yiddish version of Kelis’ “Milkshake” plays, the show sent my stomach lurching.

The story, which in its valedictory season follows the same multi-ethnic squad of Nazi killers as they track down Hitler, picks up with a familiar setup. A woman all in white, with a frosty, vaguely European accent, enters a candy shop in the fictional alpine town of Van Glooten during a butter sculpture contest. It’s 1972, but she is pulling from a 1940s playbook, interrogating the proprietor, first about his store and finally, his ethnicity. She’s spotted a faded outline of a removed mezuzah on the doorpost. The owner denies being Jewish, but she doesn’t buy it.

“Before the war this town was home to 1,000 Jews,” the woman explains. “There were orders for them to be deported July 22nd, 1942. But they just disappeared … Perhaps they put on a cross, took their mezuzahs down and became Christians. But Christians they cannot be. A rat cannot be a lion.”

I began drafting an email to the USC Shoah Foundation for comment. I couldn’t believe that this show, which the Auschwitz Memorial Museum blasted for fabricating a gory game of “human chess” at the camp, would begin its second season by suggesting that 1,000 Austrian Jews escaped the Holocaust by pretending to be Christians. It was precisely the kind of revisionism that angered the show’s critics. Worse, it was fuel for deniers and minimizers.

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Personally, I enjoyed the first season and was pissed at the griping and kvetching that many people puked out. This is a FANTASY show, it is not a fucking, goddamned documentary! The only "issue" I had with season 2 was the trial (which I won't discuss here unless asked) and that Logan Lerman was never naked!

[hlthe2b]

1. I haven't even watched a promo yet, but noticed that it had Al Pacino

and had it "watch-listed" for that reason alone. No?

[Behind the Aegis]

2. I am not sure what you mean.

If you are asking if Al Pacino is in season 2, then yes, he is.

[hlthe2b]

3. I was asking if I was wrong to plan to watch it?

In avoiding the "spoilers," I was asking if you liked it.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Ooooooh! Now, I understand.

I will say it is much less bloody than season one, still fairly violent, but not as overly graphic. The second season is more psychological IMO. Jennifer Jason Leigh is a GREAT addition to the cast. Sadly, there was NOT enough of Carol Kane, whom I just adore. Episode six is a seemingly "one off" but it will make sense at the very end, and it was...heart-wrenching, especially as a Jew.

My husband and I both enjoyed it. The ending was open ended, but this was the last season. The last episode had a flaw, IMO, and after you watch it, you can ask me about it. I could tell you, I guess, as it would not make a big difference in the viewing experience.

If you liked the first one, you will likely enjoy this one, but it is a different quality.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. Heavy spoilers in this article so I will just post a link (read after watching season 2).

‘Hunters’ Creator on Telling an Urgent Story of Antisemitism and Neo-Nazism in Season 2