What was once a deliberate tonal variation meant to reflect a way of life was now just messily assembled episodes. Everything for the first few episodes of the new season feels rushed and sloppy, clumsily compiled and fragmented. This might make sense depending on when David Weil and the rest of the “Hunters” production team were informed about this season being their last. Everything up to episode 6 feels rushed like there’s a longer version of the season sitting in an editing bay somewhere, and I genuinely hope we get to see it. None of this is helped by the fact that their final season was shrunk by two episodes: where season 1 had 10, season 2 was only given eight.
All of this builds up to the fictional trial of the century: “The Trial of Adolf Hitler.” The implications of such a trial are enormous, and the final episode of the series does the best it can with its limited space to convey that significance. But as with much of the rest of the season, it just feels too rushed. Everything feels overly condensed and truncated at the expense of weight and emotional resonance.
Udo Kier has played Hitler before, but never seriously. Presumably, he didn’t want to try and empathize with a monster. “Hunters” doesn’t call for a campy portrayal of Hitler, though. That would only serve to disarm audiences, to make him appear to be acceptable in some capacity. Between the costume and makeup design, direction, and Kier’s performance, he’s rendered an impotent, incompetent, and irrelevant pathetic old man. He speaks of power while trembling, incapable of remembering simple things or controlling his ego and rage. The grandfather of modern white nationalism is reduced to the stature he deserves.