Why There Won't Be A Hunters Season 3
In 2020, Amazon Prime Video released the first season of "Hunters," a Jordan Peele-produced alternate history drama. Created by David Weil, the series is set in 1977 New York City and follows a group of Nazi hunters as they find out that a group of escaped Nazi officers is working to create a Fourth Reich (as in, a succession to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich) within the United States. The core group of hunters includes math genius Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman); philanthropist and Holocaust survivor Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino), who acts as leader of the hunters; actor and master of disguises Lonny Flash (Josh Radnor); forgery expert Roxy Jones (Tiffany Boone); combat expert and Vietnam war veteran Joe Mizushima (Louis Ozawa), and husband-and-wife survivors Murray (Saul Rubinek), an electronics expert, and Mindy Markowitz (Carol Kane).
All episodes of the first season were released to the streaming service at once on February 21, 2020, meaning that if you binged the whole season, then you may have gotten to the cliffhanger at the end of the season finale on the same day you started watching. At the end of Season 1, the hunters discover that Adolf Hitler is still very much alive; he's living in Argentina with his wife, Eva Braun-Hitler (Lena Olin), who was also discovered to be The Colonel, with their four identical-looking Aryan children. Hitler, as it turns out, is involved in the rising Fourth Reich.
With that kind of cliffhanger ending, fans of the show have likely been on the edge of their seat since February 2020, eagerly awaiting the next installment of episodes. Luckily for them, the wait is now over — Season 2 premiered on Prime Video on January 13, 2023. And on a bittersweet note, Season 2 will be the show's last.
Season 2 completes the story the writers of Hunters wanted to tell
In November 2022, Entertainment Weekly published an in-depth look into the second season of "Hunters," complete with interviews with the cast and crew. In the interview, it was confirmed that Season 2 would be the last for "Hunters." While creator David Weil didn't explicitly state why they decided to end the show in just two seasons, he did reveal what they wanted to accomplish with Season 2.
"For me, as a kid growing up on Long Island, being Jewish, there was always this frustration and anger that Hitler got away with his crimes, that he was never brought to justice, he was never arrested, killed, tried, that he made a decision at the end of his life," Weil said. "So 'Hunters,' being a show about catharsis, about Jewish empowerment, and about wish fulfillment for Jewish kids like me who grew up wanting to reclaim power, season 2, I hope, will be that catharsis." With the promise of Season 2 fulfilling that catharsis, it makes sense that they would end the story there — after all, the Season 2 finale is titled "The Trial of Adolf Hitler," which seems like a pretty good place to end the story of a group of Nazi hunters.
Further, Weil knows the weight that Adolf Hitler (played in Season 2 by German actor Udo Kier) brings to a story, especially an alternate history narrative, which he doesn't take lightly. Weil said, "I would only ever invoke Hitler if we're going to deliver justice in some hopefully satisfying way."
Weil wanted to evoke justice with the finale
Contains spoilers for the series finale of "Hunters"
In a January 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Weil discussed all of the choices that went into writing the series finale. One thing interviewer Christy Piña wanted to know was why Weil and the other writers decided to showcase Hitler on trial instead of having the hunters kill him once they tracked him down as they initially planned.
Weil said, "The question [of Season 1] is: What is the difference between revenge and justice? And which one ultimately would you choose if you had the option to do so? So, season two became an answer to that." He continued by explaining that the show's arc was really centered on Jonah's moral journey and, in the end, he chose justice over revenge. Additionally, the trial was the more impactful choice in terms of confronting Hitler. The creator continued, "Being able to put Adolf Hitler on trial in front of the entire world, for them to not only bring him to justice legally but be able to really detract from his lies, poke holes in those lies, show the fallacies of his ideology, was potentially even more important than just sticking a knife, a dagger, into his heart."
Weil also touched upon the decision not to continue on with a third season, noting that the characters' stories — and Jonah's, specifically, aren't over, even if the show is. "The future is a forever battle for him. It's a battle between normalcy and the superhero cape," he explained. "It's a battle between family and sacrifice ... I'd be so curious to see where he ends up and what he ultimately decides."