J.J. Bailey’s The Hunting Party, whose 10th and final episode drops April 7 on NBC, follows the aftermath of an explosion at The Pit, a top-secret black site prison where the worst serial killers in the United States have been stashed and experimented on for unknown amounts of time.
The explosion sets dozens of killers free, changed in surprising ways by their incarceration but just as deadly. Criminal profiler Rebecca “Bex” Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) is asked to lead a team to round up the killers, including her former partner Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), CIA agent Ryan Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), and Pit prison guard Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie), before all hell literally breaks loose.
At WonderCon, alongside other press members at several roundtable interviews, The Direct’s Jeff Ewing interviewed Roxburgh, McKenzie, Weschler, Sabongui, creator J.J. Bailer, and producer Jake Coburn about the process of designing deplorable killers, character secrets, what they’d like to see if the series gets a second season, and more.
Melissa Roxburgh & Josh McKenzie Talk Hypothetical Season 2
From a Possible Arch-Nemesis to Further Character Discovery.
- The Direct: "Obviously the premise of the show, you have all these killers, not just like the peak of their villainy, but also they've been adapting and doing new things... So, assuming that it gets the Season 2, and you had like an arch nemesis, what traits would you think would make a great arch nemesis for your character this Season 2?
Melissa Roxburgh: Oh my word, I wanna think about this one... oh, wow, I don't know!
Josh McKenzie: We have, like, always fantasized about having one. Obviously, procedurally, we have a killer every week, right? But having one killer that creates an arc..? Because at the moment, the season arc is the conspiracy. But if you attach a killer to that conspiracy or that season arc, it would be, what would that look like?... [Maybe the arch-nemisis] would be a personification of the Pit?
Melissa Roxburgh: Go on, keep talking, because I feel like...
Josh McKenzie: Well, I think the problem is [that] no one's really out to get Melissa specifically, Bex, specifically. So you'd have to create a reason for somebody who want to, like, be directly against you or a killer, that you would have a direct, like, hatred or, like a dry—
Melissa Roxburgh: I mean, I have my... yeah, but he kind of got him...
Josh McKenzie: He got 'em.
Melissa Roxburgh: I want to say it's another profiler of some kind.
Josh McKenzie: He uses his talents for bad.
Melissa Roxburgh: I don't know what that would look like. I really want to think about this one.
- The Direct: "[Josh], your character has so many reveals of a very twisty back story, and assuming there's a Season 2, is there anything you could tease that you know about the character that you would like to come out?
Josh McKenzie: Without giving anything away, I think he's driven by wanting to know who he is and discovering that with the audience, is what I hope for for Season 2, and what I think would be where they would take it.
I mean, again, it's a procedural, so things tend to be very slow, they like to parse out these character arcs. So, I can't imagine it being very quick gratification, but I'd like to see just more exploration, more discovery, I think, more on these themes of nature and nurture, all these interesting things that we discovered.
What makes a person a serial killer? What were they doing in the Pit? What does that have to do with Shane? All of these things are kind of building to a certain fulcrum point for him of self-discovery. I've never, and I don't want to give a spoiler or anything, but I've never thought of him as a bad person, but I think he's very confused and needs to know.
He's at a point in his life where he has to know things and what he's willing to do to get those answers; that's what's going to be interesting to explore.
The Hunting Party's Creatives on What They Want In Possible Season 2
"I'm Really Excited to Explore More About the Purpose of The Pit..."
- The Direct: "Is there anywhere you weren't able to go yet in Season 1, If it gets a Season 2, that you really, really, really want to get to, because you tease a lot."
JJ Bailey: I'll say for myself, I'm really excited to explore more about the purpose of the Pit, I think that's something that people have asked a lot of questions about, and it's something we have talked extensively about, and to finally kind of get to it would be really exciting.
Jake Coburn: I completely agree. I was going to say something different, though, which is in addition to that... we didn't have a lot of time in the first season for, what I would call, just team down beat moments, and watching the season now, they're some of my favorite moments of the whole season.
And so wanting to have more moments that are just character moments. There was a beat in Episode 8 that just aired, when Shane and Hasani are flying back after saving the day, and Hasani is talking about... he's just sort of monologuing, thinking aloud. And then he looks over, and Shane's asleep...
JJ Bailey: He's baring his soul.
Jake Coburn: And there was a big debate about whether or not we needed the scene, and we fought hard for the scene because we felt like it really showed these two characters in a way that was powerful, and I think it worked. And from the feedback we've gotten so far, people really liked it. So doing more pure character with the team would be super exciting, and I'm curious...
Nick Wechsler & Patrick Sabongui on Their Season 2 Hopes
The Hunting Party Stars on How They Want Their Characters to Grow.
- The Direct: "I wanted to talk to you, Nick. Oliver has a bunch of secrets, and that's a big central arc in Season 1. Obviously, we haven't seen the end of them in certain ways, so I wanted you kind of to talk about what's going on with Oliver now that, by the time this airs will know more, and [about] what you hope we can discover further if it gets to season two."
Nick Wechsler: Well, through Season 1, I feel like he's on a bit of an island. He feels like this guy is coming at him. He knows, as Bex gets closer to him, he knows 'I can't control the narrative.' She spends more time with him, and we have a fraught past, so I know that that there's this [sense of] 'if he's whispering in her ear about me, it's gonna... you know.'
So that's poisoning the relationship with this person that's been very important, and that's a hard thing to work through. But yeah, he's got darkness, he's got secrets, and there's a personal cost for his involvement. I'm excited for people to see what that's about.
But yeah, in Season 2, I'd like to go further down the rabbit hole of, 'who is...?' Because there's always there's always someone behind every person, you think you've cut the head off but there's always someone else. And I'd also really like to see us dive into what the experiments that were being done.
I'd almost like to see us discover that what was being done to them was pretty monstrous. Not that I really want us to humanize the killers too much, but there's like... when you think about capital punishment, there's this thing where it's fucked up, it's immoral. How is it right to solve a murder with a murder, or whatever?
But I'm also like, 'well, I don't really want that guy around, I don't feel too bad if this person is killed,' but it's this weird, conflicting thing. So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's a similar thought, 'is it okay for us to experiment on these people just because they're monsters?' Because every monster was made, you know, so I'd like to dive in.
- The Direct: "So Patrick, Jacob is a one of my favorite characters, a really linchpin for the team, very intelligent, you know, very critical, obviously, almost in some moments, like a mentor figure in some ways. So I wanted you to kind of tell me, if there's a Season 2, what would you like to see explored with the character? Where would you like to see the character go?"
Patrick Sabongui: One of the things I love about Jacob is his moral compass. I think he's the kind of guy that wouldn't burn a man alive if he was tied to a chair. You know what I mean? Like, I think he's got, like, a sense of values and ethics, but I think...
Nick Wechsler: Except when he shot that guy in the head...
Patrick Sabongui: Well, he was gonna divulge a secret that was an operational necessity. But it's exactly that, this conflict that he's constantly in between his values and the operation. And I think a lot of servicemen and women who have to operate in the arena of war have to face those challenges, and I think that takes a toll internally on us as humans.
You know, these things that we are compelled to do, that become a duty and a responsibility still come at a very deep human cost. So I would like to explore the dark recesses of his past, how he's coping with it, how that's reconciled with him, himself, and how that manifests in his personal life, his private life.
We know that he's got four kids and that he has this family that he's also responsible for. What is that like having to serve overseas for decades chasing counter terrorism operations, and the things he's seen and done and the things we've seen him do on the show, and then go home and tuck his kids in bed at night.
Has he even been there? Has he been present? Has he been absent? And what is that inner conflict for him, between being a human and a father and a provider, but also a company man?
The Hunting Party Creatives on What Kind of Serial Killer They Won't Create
"We Have Some Third Rails on the Show That We Won't Do."
- The Direct: "Obviously, by the very premise, these are the most dangerous killers. So, you have to be outside the box, live up to that reputation a little bit. What was the process like for you of designing and coming up with these villainous characters that we know from the drop? And are there any that you were like, 'no, no, we can't do that,' or that you're shelving? A little tease?"
JJ Bailey: So I'll say, first of all, Jake and I talk a lot about, sort of the tone of the killers and [how] there's sort of a little bit of an indescribable feeling of just like, when you kind of get that shiver down your spine, of like, 'ugh, that's what they're doing?' That's kind of where we feel like the sweet spot is.
And I'll say we have some third rails on the show that we won't do. A killer who goes after kids is one; we both have young kids. We always talk about our show being... as much as it's about serial killer stuff, we want it to be a fun ride, and we feel like kid thing is not necessarily a fun ride for us. So we stay away from that.
Jake Coburn: There are other shows that can do it, and it works for them, and they're hugely successful shows, but just for us, I think tonally we want to keep it sort of gripping and thrilling without ever getting grim.
JJ Bailey: ... Always a little bit left of center, we always want our killers to feel a little bit off. We say, you know, they're the worst killers in the world, and we want them to be really bad, really bad, really bad, but always something interesting about them, and to the point where maybe that thing that's interesting about them is the reason they were brought to the Pit, as opposed to the fact that they were just a bad serial killer...
I think that's key for us. Yeah, even though you don't agree with what they're doing, you need to understand, you know, we were talking about the David Ramsey episode where he's building his own, Arlo is building his own version of The Pit, essentially, you know, grabbing people and then putting them in through his version of the therapy he experienced.
Because for him, it was a revelation. So he's almost like proselytizing. And even though what he's doing is insane, you can understand it makes an insane sort of sense. And the best killers, I think, for us, always have a real clear logic, even if that logic is completely insane.
JJ Bailey: I think that logic, we talked about our show not being a who-done-it, but being a sort of, why don't I think that logic is sort of where we always gravitate towards, is we want to understand what they're doing by the end. And that should feel a little off, right? But still, you can wrap your head
The Hunting Party is streaming on Peacock.
