‘61st Street’ Recap: ‘The Hunter and the Hunted’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Two of ‘61st Street’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.

One thing that we can all agree upon, is that the crime drama tends to glorify what a manhunt looks like, and it makes sense as to why they do. After all, we tune into these shows to satiate a need for justice, since the everyday world tends to be free from it more often than we’d like. So, seeing fictional law enforcement officials… go the extra mile in an intense manner after a horrible crime has been committed, helps us to achieve that. For it is a noble quest that we are now invested in, and we have to see it come to its heroic close and well… while that does indeed end in a manner we prefer, it is problematic to put such a process on a pedestal and give it a heck of a paint job in print and on screen. Because in reality, the manhunt is an ugly process.

One where suffering hangs over it since a horrible act has taken place, and people are mourning and healing and are scared and broken because of what just happened, and it is also a process where lives are at risk if the offender is dangerous and, on a spree, and well, this is another reason why the AMC and ALLBLK series, 61st Street, deserves our attention and praise. Since its next episode offered the audience the manhunt in the raw, and all the horror that comes with it, especially when the hunted is in fact… not a monster in the slightest… but the wrong person at the wrong place in time, and that made ‘The Hunter and the Hunted’ quite the powerful tale. One that also took the time to really break down the impact of crime on a human and fundamental level.

Since it did show us how the death of Detective Michael Rossi sent shockwaves through the precinct and his family. For a life was lost and that void does have an impact on the people that knew the fallen and it was powerful to acknowledge that and check in on Moses’ family as well. Because hearing that a family member is being pursued by the police as the primary suspect in a murder no less… also has a profound impact upon the folks surrounding the accused, and that made for some powerful and heartbreaking moments. The kind that injected humanity into this oft romanticized sequence of events. But what is genuinely amazing, is that the story did not allow for sympathy and humanity to shift the focus away from the commentary established in the ‘Pilot’ episode.

For it also put us alongside Moses as he ran from the cops and seeing him be hunted by police officers and experiencing that fear firsthand made for some poignant moments. The kind that truly demonstrated how corrupt officers will stop at nothing to get the justice they believe in their heads is proper and deserved, and how far they’ll go to truly paint African American suspects as subhuman and natural born thugs. As evidenced by how Brannigan chose a terrifying image of Moses to release to the press and through his illegal discussions with Detective Logan and well… had it not been for Moses’ friends stepping in and getting Franklin Roberts involved with the case there was a fair chance that Moses would have been become just another statistic and another notch on Brannigan’s belt. 

But thankfully, he’s in custody. Giving him a chance to tell his side in the courts. But even that, provides the viewer with trepidation over hope. For the courts are likely no better than the precincts and Franklin and Moses have one hell of an uphill battle ahead of them. But while we wait to see how that takes shape, we can in fact, bask of the wonder of another powerful chapter in this tale. One that held nothing back in its deeper examination of a broken and unjust system that brings the hammer down upon Black people in America, and in its examination of the emotional impact crime has upon us all and well, once again… this is a story that leaves us eager to continue the journey. To see what other harsh lessons about our world await us down the line as this corrupt case, goes to trial. Until next time.  

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