We’re in for episode 3 of Hunters, and if I’m being honest, what I’m considering this show’s last chance to get me fully invested. The pilot was a half-cooked, disjointed, unfocused plea for attention. Episode 2 put some color into the pilot’s jagged lines and brought a few of those loose pieces together. So this week I could only hope that episode 3 would be able to keep the trend going.

In our latest installment, we get the dirt on Regan, (who is apparently named Allison Regan) and when I say dirt, I mean the whole dump truck. Plenty of flashbacks during the course of the episode give us some serious insight into who (what?) she is, and how she has arrived at her current perspective. In the context of tracking Hunters, a link between them and a heroin outfit in South America is uncovered, and of course, Jackson thinks that Regan is the perfect person for the job, and her Pips are all too happy to join her. Our team enters the hot zone, and before long, we’ve got sketchy mercenaries, gunfire in the dense foliage, the unshakable feeling that we’re being watched and everyone’s favorite croak rattle (seriously, I’m over it).

Making contact with, and penetrating the drug compound ends up being every bit as dangerous as it sounds, and then some. As one might imagine, not everybody makes it to the end, but MAN, what an end it is! Like I mentioned earlier, I was down to my last few chips with this show, but those last few moments got me right back into the game. It looks as though we’re getting closer to payoff territory here, like we’re about to learn some important things about the Hunters, and maybe start seeing them in their truest form. I expect the awkwardness of the first couple of episodes to dissipate, and that the action factor gets cranked up significantly.

I’ll go ahead and give this episode 3.5 out of 5 stars. The suspense was well-established, and the ending was a nice touch. I’m looking forward to next week.