Hunted Season 4 Episode 2

Episode 1

Episode 2 of Hunted picks up exactly where the first episode left off.  The Hunters are on the door step of Nick Batchelor and Paul James - two ex-drug addicts and convicts who are determined to show it is possible for people to change.

The Hunters have tracked them to a friend's house in Bristol and have sent in a ground team to catch them.  Nick is outside having a cigarette where he is spotted.  A chase ensues and he is caught.  In the chaos, Paul escapes, but not for long, as he is caught hiding in a truck.  After five days, the two friends have been caught by the Hunters.  Honestly, I think they were a little sloppy.  They made grand claims about not letting their guard down, but that's exactly what happened.  Nick should have known better than to have a cigarette in the open air.

Time on the run: 5 days
Status: Caught

We now move onto our next fugitive: Royal Marine commando Matt Mason.  His plan is to go rural, specifically to hide out in the Brecon Beacons in Wales.  He is an experienced mountaineer and is confident that the Hunters won't find him here.  He has no qualms about sleeping rough or using a compass and map to navigate.  However, what he has in confidence and experience, he lacks in technological saviness.  The Hunters interview Matt's wife and search his house.  While Matt's wife stays mute, the Hunters recover Matt's phone and external hard drive.

Upon further investigation, they learn that Matt is naive when it comes to technology.  The Hunters discover reams of search results all relating to Matt's plan while on the run.  They find clues and maps concerning where he is heading and they discover he is planning to move through the Brecon Beacons. 

But Matt is so confident in himself that he decides to taunt the Hunters.  He washes in a mountain lake and uses a T-shirt to dry himself.  A t-shirt that says "come and find me." He mails it to the Hunters with the plan of being 150 miles south in Abergevenny when they receive it.

However, unbeknownst to him, the Hunters know his next step and send ground teams, a dog and drone to intercept him.  Matt plans to travel to Abergevenny, where he desperately needs to resupply, by bus.  But as time wears on, his cockiness erodes, as he wonders whether he has made a mistake.  He asks the locals whether they can drive him to Abergevenny.  They refuse and then grass him up. 

He decides to get on the bus and the Hunters think they have him trapped.  They are watching every road and aim to box him in.  However, Matt becomes increasingly anxious on the bus and ditches out early.  And, more than this, he has completely evaded the Hunters.  The last we see of him, he is planning to go off-grid again.

To be honest, I think Matt demonstrated a naivety that I wasn't expecting from him.  Everybody knows just how much information is being collected from us via the internet.  While deleting your search history doesn't actually do all that much, it is still a precaution worth taking.  And it's also not a good idea to use buses or trains.  The Hunters could be waiting for you at the other end.

Time on the run: 10 days
Status: At large

Our final fugitives are our two nurses from Devon, Emma Davidson and Jess Kirkham.  They've hitch hiked to the Lake District where they are staying in a caravan park.  Their plan is to hitchhike to Penrith and catch a train to Glasgow where they will stay with a friend.

We quickly see that Jess is the leader of the two - she describes herself as very bossy and this bossiness rapidly becomes a bone of contention between the two friends.  They have a fight and this definitely won't be the last fight they have.  They approach a garage owned by a Keith Dawson and ask if they can have a lift in exchange for doing some work.  Keith agrees, but then tweets out a picture of them.

The Hunters of course see it and contact Keith.  However, Keith doesn't rat them out, which was a bit weird.  I'm not sure why he tweeted the picture of the girls.  Was it just a taunt? Anyway, the Hunters access the CCTV at Keith's garage and spot the girls being driven to Penrith.  At the station, they don disguises and decide to travel separately without communicating until they reach their contact.

But the Hunters see right through their disguises and send ground teams to Glasgow.  While on the train, Emma starts becoming paranoid and anxious.  Their relationship was founded on the confident Jess always comforting and supporting the nervous Emma.  Without Jess by her side, Emma feels lost and she decides to break the plan.  She sneaks a note to Jess saying that at Glasgow, Jess will follow her a safe distance away until they reach their contact.

Jess is angry at the change of plan feeling that Emma has placed an immense amount of pressure upon her.  They argue and just as it looks like the two will fracture, they reconcile.  Emma holds the information for the contacts and the two realise they're stronger together than apart.

The two reach their contact who takes them into Perthshire.  Their contact is an old family friend called Grenville Botham - an ex-marine.  He has a network of ex-marine associates and plans to use them to help the girls.  However, the Hunters spot both he and the girls on CCTV and start tracking them.

Grenville takes the girls to a safehouse where they will stay for forty-eight hours.  In the meanwhile, he gives them a phone and says he will send a coded text containing instructions.  But the Hunters are of course tracking Grenville's phone and see straight through the message.  They discover the girls are going to be picked up by an Ed Anderson who shelters them within the Royal George Hotel.  They send teams to intercept, but Ed has already arranged for Stewart Mcrae to pick them up.

Suspecting Ed will take the girls to his house, the Hunters send teams to lie in wait.  But Ed unknowingly outsmarts them by instead taking them to his sister's house, as she is out of town.  The girls are hidden there, but let their guard down by sunbathing out in the garden.  The Hunters refused to give up and prowl around searching for Ed's car.  They spot it, just as Ed spots them and warns the girls.  Have Jess and Emma been caught? We'll have to wait until next week to find out.

But it'll be interesting to see what will happen if they aren't caught.  Will they stick together or will they separate? Although they reconciled here, as the pressure builds, they may split for good.  Historically, pairs that have separated have done very well.  Lauren and Emily separated and won the first series.  Ayo separated from Madu and won series 2, although Madu was caught.  And the legendary Bob and Alex Ayling separated and once again won.  We can only wait to see what happens.

Top three tips for going on the run

1. Wipe your internet history.  You don't need to be a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist to know the government has reams of data on all of us.  And where do they get that from? The internet.
2. Don't use buses or trains.  Both Matt and Jess and Emma did this and were lucky not to get caught.  What do you do if you get off at the other end and the Hunters are waiting for you?
3. Don't get cocky.  I know the temptation is always there to taunt the Hunters, but it rarely ends well. 

And, as always, don't tell me your plans for going on the run in the comments below.  As we've discovered in this episode, the Hunters pay a lot of attention to internet and social-media based information.  Although, I wonder what the Hunters would make of my little blog if I ever went on the show.