‘American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing’ Episode 2 Recap & Ending: Who Was Tamerlan Tsarnaev?

The first episode of “American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing” ended with the police and the FBI releasing the images of the suspected bombers to the media and the public so that they could identify the bombers and help the investigative team locate them as quickly as possible to question and possibly prosecute them. The police have done their job, and now their onward journey from here on is to control the number of tip-offs that come their way. Will they be able to come to a resolution soon enough?

“American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing” Episode 2 began with the infamous press conference conducted by the police and the FBI together, letting Boston know of the two men the investigation team is looking for. As the search for the two most wanted people in the city begins, there is footage of the bombers buying milk from a local grocery store not far from the bomb explosion. The men, being regular civilians themselves, are not panicking and worrying about the mayhem they just caused in the country. The body language shown in the footage shows they are content with carrying out such ghastly attacks and are calm about them. The investigating team is agitated by this footage and is keen to find out who these men are and how they ended up becoming terrorists.

The police and FBI initially did not get any help from the public after the photos were shared. The police have no time on their hands to wait for the public to report to them. With the pictures out for everyone to see and seek, there is a high chance of the men leaving town. Amidst all the chaos that was happening, the police were feeling dejected that they had not come up with any concrete reasons as to why they had not been able to get hold of the men. Even with plenty of manpower at their disposal, the police have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this way of approaching things was probably wrong, and they will have to face the wrath of the people and the media, who will make sure to question every move made by the investigation team, and rightly so. The police almost seem helpless when there is information about a gunfight that happened in Cambridge, near the MIT campus. The police, who had just finished a press conference, were shocked to realize it was not a minor shootout; a police officer was gunned down by two men, as per the CCTV footage, and the men were now on the run.

The whole point of killing the police officer was to take his licensed gun. This was the turning point the investigative team was waiting for. They were aware the two men, who happened to be the most wanted in the city, had just made the mistake of not just stealing the gun but killing an officer on duty. This would mean the men would have to serve a long jail sentence, but before all that, the law enforcement officers would have to arrest them and make sure they were captured alive. Capturing them alive would mean the investigative team would receive plenty of information about who financially backed them, who masterminded the whole plot, who helped them accumulate enough materials to make bombs, and whether they have a bigger network that is planning to carry out larger attacks around the country. The investigative team, including the FBI, has a lot of questions to which they need answers.


Did The Suspected Bombers Get Caught?

Initially, the killing of the police officer in Cambridge was looked at as a robbery gone wrong, but soon the men, the suspected bombers, hijacked a Mercedes owned by a certain Danny Meng, who was a tech entrepreneur. The men ended up holding him at gunpoint and hijacking his car by making him sit in the passenger seat. Danny is not sure if he will live to see the end of this drive. As his car was being driven, he knew the men were robbers and probably looking to leave the city as soon as possible. Danny informs them that there is a shortage of gas in the car. This was the presence of mind Danny used, and at the same time, he remained calm while executing his escape plan. Danny, at the gas station, manages to run away from his car and heads to a nearby grocery store to hide and convince the store owner to help him. Before Danny left the car, the men revealed to him that they were the bombers and that they were on the run from the police and law enforcement. Danny makes a call to the police from the grocery store and lets them know all the information they require regarding the car, its location, and his location. Though the local police in Watertown treated this as just a case of carjacking, they were in for a rude shock as they tried to chase the boys down. Danny’s calm demeanor and presence of mind helped the police catch two men who they suspected to be robbers, but turned out to be the Boston Marathon bombers, as they had confessed to Danny.

Danny had revealed to the Watertown PD that the men claimed to be the bombers of the Marathon. John Maclellan and Jeff Pugliese the Watertown PD officers get into a high-speed car chase, which entered a residential area of Watertown County. The police were expecting some retaliation from the men who hijacked and robbed the car, but a gunfight begins from their end, followed by bombs being hurled. This scene suddenly turns violent and becomes a war zone because the gunfight goes on for a long time until the men end up burning through all their ammunition, and one of them tries to confront the police. The policeman manages to get hold of the person, but he is run over by his accomplice and gets dragged for a while.

The horrifying image and the footage of the gunfight are some from a book of terrors where, right in the middle of a residential area, the police and the suspected bombers start the gunfight. The police repeatedly asked the residents to stay indoors, and by a miracle, none of the bullets hit any bystanders. The Watertown Police are shocked to know men who they believe have just stolen a car have such heavy munitions, which again included a pressure cooker bomb, the device used for the marathon bombing as well. Once the first bomber is caught by the police, he is unfortunately pronounced dead on arrival. The Watertown police are then informed that the man they caught was one of the bombers from a few days before. The police, though, lose sight of the other suspected bomber, who abandoned the Mercedes and went into hiding.

The police would find it difficult to trace the last man standing, especially since the man could be hiding anywhere. The man who died is identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Chechen national who had moved to America with his parents and siblings and had been a resident of Boston for many years. Tamerlan turns out to be a local boxer who was trained by his father. He was an Olympic prodigy. As his coach states, Tamerlan was not selected for the American Olympic team because he was yet to become a citizen, which was required to qualify for the country’s Olympic team. This put the man on the back foot and led him down a rabbit hole of extremist ideology, where he somehow became convinced his Muslim identity was the reason he was not selected for the Olympic team.

Soon after his best friend Brandon Mess, a Jewish kid, was killed, Tamerlan soon left for his home country of Dagestan, near Russia. As per his coach, the man returned as a radicalized person. The man’s not being selected to represent the country he has lived in for so long left a deep impact on him as a person. There is no clarity on who pushed his radicalized thoughts to the brim, but the man was sure of his assumption and wished to exact revenge of some sort against those he felt wronged him. He managed to bring his brother Dzhokar Tsarnaev to the other side of his religion, and Dzhokar turns out to be the other surviving suspect of the Boston Bombing who is on the run. The younger brother managed to not just kill his brother but also escape from the authorities to save himself from a long jail term that was waiting for him.


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Smriti Kannan
Smriti Kannan
Smriti Kannan is a cinema enthusiast, and a part time film blogger. An ex public relations executive, films has been a major part of her life since the day she watched The Godfather – Part 1. If you ask her, cinema is reality. Cinema is an escape route. Cinema is time traveling. Cinema is entertainment. Smriti enjoys reading about cinema, she loves to know about cinema and finding out trivia of films and television shows, and from time to time indulges in fan theories.

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