'Hunters' S2 Cast: Why Hunting Nazis Is More 'Relevant' Than Ever

Season 2 of Hunters is available to watch on Prime Video now but one member of the cast thinks in this day and age, a show about hunting Nazis is sadly more relevant than ever.

After an almost three-year wait, stylish action drama Hunters returns for its second and final season, with the likes of Al Pacino, Logan Lerman, Josh Radnor and Carol Kane returning.

The show follows the Jewish "Hunters" in the 1970s as they track down members of the Nazi party who fled Europe after WWII.

Newsweek spoke to returning stars Lerman and Radnor to hear what's in store for Season 2.

A 'Sadly Relevant' Story

Season 1 of Hunters introduced audiences to a (hopefully) fictional world in which Jewish Holocaust survivors set about hunting Nazis who were infiltrating America during the 1970s.

Season 2 sees them continue their mission, but former How I Met Your Mother star Radnor made a macabre observation when promoting the new season.

"Nazi-hunting felt perhaps a touch quaint and fantastical when we debuted season one in 2020. Now feeling (sadly) a touch more relevant," he wrote on Instagram in early December, at a time when antisemitism was being discussed online.

This was due to multiple comments made by Kanye West, as well as incidents involving Whoopi Goldberg and even Wednesday star Jenna Ortega.

Newsweek asked Radnor what made him draw on the comparisons.

"Once the trailer came out, and I realized we were starting to publicize [Hunters Season 2] I thought, 'oh, yeah, this is not just like a fantasy show.' This is grounded in the sad facts of antisemitism, which is just a virus that seems to just flare up, and it feels like there's a flare up right now, and that's always alarming," Radnor told Newsweek.

"It might start with with Jews, it never ends with Jews. Everyone gets swept up in in these kinds of 'isms.'

"One of the things I love about Hunters is it's not just Jews hunting the Nazis. It's a full makeup of all kinds of people, because everyone suffers under that kind of prejudice and persecution and genocidal tendencies," Radnor explained.

In October 2022, after Ye (Kanye West) had openly tweeted and said antisemitic comments, there was a fear that antisemitism was on the rise.

On October 22, the Goyim Defense League hung a banner over a Los Angeles freeway reading "Kanye is Right" about the Jews with a number of people raising their arms in a Nazi salute spotted over the interstate 405.

Why Hunters Took So Long to Return

On February 21, 2020, all ten episodes of Hunters dropped on Prime Video to great acclaim. It marked Pacino's first-ever TV series lead role, and earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.

After this, the pandemic delays and shooting location challenges meant that it would be almost three years before Hunters would return.

"Hopefully some of the viewers from Season 1 haven't lost momentum and they are interested in waiting for this," Lerman told Newsweek.

He returns as the series lead, Jonah Heidelbaum, who has done a lot of growing and maturing since we met him in the first installment.

"It's been a minute, I think part of it was, and this is really just me speculating, but part of it was just wanting to get the scripts right before jumping in. Not just winging it."

Season 2 sees the Hunters take their mission to parts of Europe, while the Season 1 finale (spoiler) revealed Adolf Hitler was still alive in his 80s living in Argentina.

Lerman continued: "It was a whole thing where we were like, 'we can't work there now, we can't work there now. How can we do this in California, versus shooting all over Europe, and in South America, which was originally the idea?' So those things were hiccups in the plan. And then it was problem solving, figuring out how to do it. And I think they did a fantastic job."

While Pacino's character (spoiler) was seemingly shot and killed by Jonah in the season finale of Hunters, after it was revealed he was not whom he claimed to be, Pacino is returning for the second season, and Lerman was back on the promotional trail with his co-star in advance of the new episodes.

"In interviews, when we were doing press, it was just reuniting with a good friend, and having fun and being able to spend the day together," Lerman said. This relationship between himself and Pacino was formed on the set of Season 1 where Lerman got an acting education.

"Working together was [an education], you know, spending time in rehearsals, and in the first season, when we had when we had work to do together we spent so much time together.

"I just listened a lot. Our rehearsal process is educational, being able to go back and forth. We learned from each other's rhythms and learned from how we work. It's just an incredible experience for an actor," Lerman said.

All eight episode of Hunters Season 2 are available to watch on Prime Video now.