In The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 3, the team chased a killer who completely changed his targets after leaving the mysterious Pit. While Bex focused on capturing this dangerous man, her separate search into their new boss, Colonel Lazarus, led to a major discovery. This episode, titled “Zack Lang,” gave important new details about the team’s main target and their mysterious commander.
The Case of Zack Lang: From Robin Hood to a Killer of the Poor
The team’s mission was to find Zack Lang, a serial killer originally known for attacking wealthy people in New York. His old pattern of stealing from and killing the rich had given him a strange public image, with some people even seeing him as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood. However, Bex and her team quickly saw a troubling change. After his time in the Pit, Lang was now killing poor people, but he was dressing his victims in expensive suits and jewelry.
This shift was confusing at first. Lang’s original anger seemed directed at the rich, but now he was targeting a completely different group. The team had to understand why his behavior changed so much to predict his next move and catch him. The official description for the episode noted that Bex saw a “sharp contrast between his victims in the past and present,” which forced the team to look into Lang’s personal history to stop him.
Zack Lang’s Past and His Father’s Influence
To understand the killer, the team looked into Zack Lang’s childhood. The root of his anger was linked to his father, who valued money and social status above everything, including his family. A key event happened when Lang was a teenager. He killed the family cat and dressed it in his mother’s jewelry, apparently in a twisted attempt to get his father’s attention or approval. Instead of getting help for his son, Lang’s father was terrified and kicked him out of the house.
This rejection became the core of Lang’s motivation. His early killings of rich people were an outlet for his rage against a father who cared more about wealth than his own child. As one recap pointed out, “It’s always daddy issues” on this show, which deals deeply with the psychology of its killers.
How the Pit Changed Zack Lang
The Pit, the secret facility where dangerous people like Lang are held, played a big role in changing him. Reports say the Pit’s goal is not rehabilitation or real therapy, but research. The methods used there often make the people inside more dangerous, not less.
For Zack Lang, two important things happened because of the Pit. First, he took part in “rage room” therapy, where he was allowed to destroy a room set up to look like his childhood bedroom. This likely fueled his anger instead of calming it. Second, and more importantly, after he got out, Lang found out that some cryptocurrency he bought years ago had made him very wealthy. He was now a millionaire, which changed his view of himself completely.
With his new money, Lang no longer saw himself as an outsider fighting the rich. He now belonged to the group he once hated. His urge to kill did not go away, so he turned his violence toward the poor, the people he now felt superior to. He even created a fake business to hire men who looked like his father, giving him a pool of victims he could dress up and kill, acting out his deep-seated revenge over and over.
Bex’s Strategy to Capture the Killer
Facing this new version of Zack Lang required a smart plan from Bex. She realized that talking to him directly might be the only way to prevent more deaths. In a tense confrontation, Bex used what she knew about his past to connect with him. She did not tell him he was crazy for hurting the cat all those years ago. Instead, she said she understood he was a teenager who needed help back then, and maybe he still needed help now.
This approach worked. Bex’s words managed to stall Lang, creating an opening for the team to move in and capture him alive. This was a significant win, as it meant another killer from the Pit was back behind bars instead of dead, and they could potentially learn more from him.
Bex Uncovers Colonel Lazarus’s True Identity
While the manhunt for Zack Lang was happening, Bex continued her secret investigation into Colonel Lazarus. Lazarus is the team’s new, mysterious commander who took over suddenly, and her past is completely hidden. Bex had one solid clue: Lazarus could run very fast. To run a mile as quickly as she did, she likely had formal training, probably on a high school track team.
Bex started searching through old high school yearbooks but had no luck. Her teammate, Morales, then gave her a crucial idea. He suggested looking at old physical files that had been digitized. The theory was that while Lazarus could erase her current identity from the internet, there might still be paper records from her childhood that were scanned into databases. This search method worked.
Bex found files about a high school track star named Caitlin Taylor. This discovery was huge. The files showed that Caitlin Taylor was charged with murder before she changed her name and disappeared.
This means Colonel Lazarus was once Caitlin Taylor, a teenager accused of a serious crime. This information changes everything the team thought they knew about her. She wasn’t just a strict military officer; she had a violent past long before she was involved with the Pit. As one review noted, this proves she is “a real person and human being choosing to be bad,” not just a product of the Pit’s conditioning.
What Lazarus’s Past Means for Shane and the Team
This discovery has special importance for Shane, one of the team members. Shane has a personal connection to Lazarus, as she is his biological mother. Finding out her real name and her violent history as Caitlin Taylor makes her more real and more frightening.
The episode highlights the difference between Shane and his mother. Shane is portrayed as thoughtful, kind, and protective of his friends. In this episode, he knew his teammates’ coffee orders, made them laugh, and was the first to break down a door to help Bex. Lazarus, on the other hand, has built a life on secrecy and violence. The show makes it clear that Shane is not like her, emphasizing that “he’s different from Lang and his mother because he doesn’t thrive in despair”.
The team’s strong bond is shown as a direct contrast to the lonely and hate-filled lives of the killers they chase. Their friendship and care for each other is what sets them apart.
Key Moments and Fan Reactions from the Episode
The episode had several memorable lines and moments that fans discussed. When the killer was described as a “millennial Robin Hood,” Hassani, a team member, replied with a sarcastic “Eat the rich. How original”. Another team member joked that “All of our killers have daddy issues,” pointing out a common theme in their cases.
Fans also loved the small details that showed the team’s closeness. Many viewers were delighted that Shane knew everyone’s coffee orders, and others appreciated Hassani’s immediate instinct to check the locks and windows when he visited Bex’s new apartment, making sure she was safe.
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Where to Watch and What Comes Next
The Hunting Party airs new episodes on NBC, on Thursdays at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. For viewers who missed the episode, it is available to stream on the NBC website and app the next day, and it is also expected to be on Peacock.
The reveal of Lazarus’s identity as Caitlin Taylor opens up many new questions. What exactly did she do as a teenager? How did she go from a murder charge to a high-ranking military position? Most importantly, how will Bex use this information, and what will happen when Shane finds out the full truth about his mother’s past? The team now has a critical piece of the puzzle in their mission to understand the true nature of the Pit and the people who control it.
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