The Hunting Party

- Previously on "The Hunting Party"...

- I don't know what I imagined

finding my mom would be like, but it wasn't this.

Look, I know it's hard

finding out the truth about your biological mother,

but Lazarus--

- Just another psychopath from the Pit.

- You have no idea what you're into.

- She's trying to turn serial killers into weapons?

She's building an army.

- Got a live one here for you. Just need your signature.

Don't normally ask, but

what is this one?

Phyllobates terribilis.

It's a poison dart frog.

They secrete a toxin that causes paralysis,

heart failure, and death within minutes.

There's no known antidote.

If you say so.

Be careful with that, kid.

Mm-hmm.

Nate.

Nate? -

Nate!

Nate!

Nate.

- Help! Oh, my God!

Guys, help me!

- Do you all have any idea how crazy this sounds?

- Yeah. - Colonel Lazarus,

one of the most highly decorated officers

in the United States military

is actually a convicted serial killer

who was given a new identity

while she herself was an inmate in the Pit

and then released back into the world?

She was the first graduate.

And now she's a true believer in the value of the program.

- That's why she used a false flag attack

against the prisoner transport,

to assume control of the whole task force

so that she could get her hands on more inmates.

- Mallory, she doesn't think psychopathy is a disorder.

She thinks it's the next step in human evolution.

- We get this is a lot to take in.

Well, good.

Do you not believe us?

Yes, I do believe you.

Problem is I'm not sure anyone else will.

- OK, look, I know that we've had our differences,

but we need you back in charge

of this task force because right now,

we are working for an actual psychopath.

- With your backing, we can take her down.

Elizabeth, this is not politics.

We need to take action.

Everything's politics,

especially this.

Colonel Lazarus has a lot of friends on the Hill.

So if you want my help, I need rock-solid,

irrefutable evidence.

Get me proof that she's gone rogue,

that this top secret lab even exists,

and that inmates are being hidden there.

Otherwise, it's just she said, they said,

and my money's not on you.

But right now, you've still got killers to catch.

Morales, what do we got?

Inmate L23, Xander Wax.

A self-checkout scanner in Washington, D.C.

picked up a partial fingerprint.

You know this guy, Bex?

- I do. He's not from D.C.

- Well, not all killers go back home, apparently.

What are we dealing with?

- We are dealing with a very smart individual,

highly educated.

Xander Wax was a biochemist by training,

confirmed to have killed at least ten people.

But that number is believed to be a lot higher.

How much higher?

Estimates are north of 20,

but it's possible he had as many as 40 victims

because his kills were often mistaken as heart attacks

or strokes.

- Huh. How'd he pull that off?

- He used highly lethal animal venoms as poisons.

Snakes, great.

- What made Xander so difficult to catch

is that he had no discernible victimology.

Instead, he would leave neurotoxins

on public objects for random people to interact with.

Gas station pumps, buttons in an elevator,

sugar packets in a diner.

He didn't care who he killed.

For him, the thrill was the randomness of it all.

He would relish in the feeling of power and control

knowing that at any moment, some unsuspecting victim

would come across one of his laid traps.

The anticipation of it was his high.

How'd this guy get caught?

- They worked backwards through his college days.

A suspicious dorm room death was just the break they needed.

He killed his roommate.

It was his first kill

and his only impulsive, targeted victim.

As is often the case, Xander's MO evolved from there,

driven by his compulsive desire to re-experience that thrill.

All right, let's get to D.C.

before this monster sets any more traps.

Damn it.

Damn it.

- Who are you?

That looks painful.

OK, but my point is,

humans twist themselves up into knots

making up stories about Adam and Eve, gods and souls

because people desperately want to believe

that they're different than all the other animals

that live on this planet.

We're superior.

Well, I got a little secret for you, Doc.

We're just primates with overactive imaginations.

Expand on that.

- We don't have any more right to exist

on this minor planet of a very minor star

than some lizard.

Human civilization needs to constantly be reminded

that we are byproducts of chance, randomness,

entropy on a cosmic scale,

dispersion of energy, mud brain.

And if my actions made other people a little more self-aware

of the meaninglessness of their existence,

I did them a favor

'cause the world is chaos and we are all at its mercy.

- Wow. I bet he's great at parties.

Yeah, your average psychopath

doesn't usually express this kind of deep nihilism.

Where does a guy like Xander get it from?

- He had a fairly stable childhood.

His friends and neighbors described him

as gifted and kind.

However, unlike most serials,

there was one traumatic incident

that shaped his interpretation of reality.

When he was only ten years old,

his parents died in a car accident.

They hit a deer, lost control of the vehicle,

rolled off a 30-foot embankment.