‘The Hunting Party’s Melissa Roxburgh on Whether That Character Is Really Dead: “No One’s Safe”

[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Hunting Party.]

In Season 2 of the NBC series The Hunting Party, Bex Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) gets the team reinstated so they can continue capturing the most dangerous killers from the top-secret prison known as The Pit, but now they must do so under the command of Lazarus (Kari Matchett). At the same time, Shane (Josh McKenzie) is still in the dark about his own personal connection to their new boss while questions swirl around Hassani (Patrick Sabongui) and what things are like for him outside of work. And while Bex is reeling from the loss of her old partner, the secrets everyone else is keeping seem to be piling up.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Roxburgh discussed whether we should really trust the fate of Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), what it will be like to have Lazarus in charge, how the team will have to come together for each other, having the audience know more about Shane than Shane knows about himself, this season’s stellar guest cast, and how often the team will have to face darkness and choose how to handle it.

Collider: After everything that happened by the end of the finale of Season 1, what were you most surprised about when it came to where you’d be taking things in Season 2?

MELISSA ROXBURGH: Season 2 feels a bit elevated in the sense that they’ve taken the same kind of killers that we had in Season 1, but they’ve given them weirder storylines. It’s just a little odder, which makes it more fun. We’re on a bit more of a ride in Season 2. And then, obviously, the cliffhangers that we left in Season 1, coming into Season 2, those were shocking to me. I was not expecting them. The writers really went for it.

Both Melissa Roxburgh and Her ‘The Hunting Party’ Character Bex Are Devastated About the Loss of Oliver Odell

"I loved working with Nick [Wechsler] and I loved his character."

I’m a bit torn with this series telling me that Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler) died because this series also tells me not to trust anyone. Is he actually gone? What were you told about what that storyline would be? How do you feel about how all of that is playing out?

ROXBURGH: I have not been told any side secrets. As far as we know, that character died, and Bex and Melissa are devastated about it. I loved working with Nick and I loved his character. To your point, you can’t trust anyone, so I don’t even trust the writers. I don’t know if, at the end of this season or midway through the season, they’re going to be like, “He never actually died. He’s been doing a side mission.” I have no idea. I hope that’s what happens because I don’t want to believe it.

This is the perfect show to have a reveal for why they had to fake his death.

ROXBURGH: A hundred percent. We’ve got a lot of plot twists, which makes it fun for us because we don’t really know what’s going to happen. And this could be one of them.

How will the events of last season and the shakeups of this season affect the team and the dynamics you guys built together, especially since some of you know certain things about your co-workers while others don’t?

ROXBURGH: That’s been the name of the game since Season 1. Some of us know stuff, some of us don’t. We’re all trading information. Going into Season 2, we still have the Shane-Hassani-Bex trio that confronts everything in the field, and we still have Morales in the command center, but we do actually get a couple new faces that will be with us for the season. And then, you have Lazarus come in at the end of episode one in Season 2 and that shakes things up. It makes things way more complicated because we don’t think Lazarus is a good person. And so, now what happens now? What happens when the bad guy is in charge of us? Season 2 is going to be fun.

Lazarus has been an interesting and mysterious character from the beginning. It just feels like we don’t know anything about her. When we find something out, we don’t’ know what to make of it. What sort of leader will she be?

ROXBURGH: We don’t know. We’re going into episode nine, filming wise, now and storyline wise, as far as I can say, the team is in it. We are very much in the pot and we’re figuring it out, but I don’t even know how that ends.

Bex and the Team Will Continue to Be Suspicious of Lazarus and Her True Motives

"They only trust themselves."

Are there times when the team feels like Lazarus is behind them, or are they always suspicious of her?

ROXBURGH: I think that they’re always going to be suspicious of her. Given how they handled AG Mallory, I think that they’re really only trusting themselves fully and going off their knowledge, versus why the higher ups are doing what they’re doing. They’re also trying to figure out The Pit mystery themselves, and I feel like they keep getting thwarted in that. The information that they’re getting is wrong or secret or they get curveballs thrown at them, so they only trust themselves.

As the audience, we know a little bit more about some things than the characters do. We know that Lazarus is Shane’s mother. We also know that she used to be an inmate at The Pit, but that’s not widely known among all the characters on the show. Will that make things interesting, as more of that gets uncovered and revealed?

ROXBURGH: For sure, and I think it makes such an interesting dynamic for the team because it puts Shane in a weird position. He doesn’t know, so what happens if he finds out? If he is the son of a serial killer, what is he? Is he good? Is he bad? Does he have the same genetic makeup that she does? And I think for Bex, given that she’s a profiler and given that she does have such strong feelings, team wise, friend wise, and maybe more, it puts her in a position of, now what do I do? Now that I have this information, where does that leave us?

I found the case in episode two, with the victims trapped in resin, to be particularly creepy. I also liked how much it draws your team in because you work so closely with Niecy Nash-Betts’ character. How did you find that case to explore? What was it like to work with her? How creepy was it to see what the people frozen and resin would look like?

ROXBURGH: To be quite honest, the resin was a lot harder for our team to figure out because I don’t think it’s a common storyline. I hope it’s not. So, it was interesting seeing the special effects and the art department and the set dec create these resin people. And then, for the end product, we had real people, not mannequins or dummies, standing there in a way where they actually looked dead behind the walls. That was dark for me. There have only been a couple of moments in the show that have gotten me, and that was one of the ones that got me. It’s such a cool storyline. I’ve never seen that done.

You have a lot of recognizable faces this season, including Eric McCormack, Niecy Nash-Betts, Elizabeth Gillies, and Kelsey Grammer. What’s it been like to work with the guest stars this season? It feels like you’re really upping your game with that cast as well.

ROXBURGH: Yeah. With Season 1, we had some really talented actors. And then, with Season 2, there are a lot of notable people that have fan bases. What’s fun for us is seeing these people that I have personally known in other roles do these dark characters. It’s out of left field for me, knowing these actors. And then, it’s also just really fun playing with people who have had such extensive and prolific careers. Eric McCormack has done so much. I got to work with him on Travelers in Vancouver, and now he’s coming onto our show to work. It’s fun when you get to play with people that you’ve played with in the past. We have some really fun ones coming up. This last episode that we just did was someone else that I’ve worked with. It’s cool. The sad thing is that we don’t get to play with them for a lot of the episode. The two storylines converge at the end, so we only have one or two scenes with them. Those scenes just become so special because of that.

Each of the Characters in ‘The Hunting Party’ Are Dealing With Their Own Demons in Season 2

"What becomes of us?"

To preview episode two in a non-spoilery way, there’s an interesting moment when Niecy Nash’s character tells Bex that the darkness can creep in and take over. And then, you have Shane saying that when the darkness creeps in, you just have to turn a light on and figure out what that light is for you. Is that something that will play a role in Season 2, where we will see these characters in moments where they have to choose between the light and the dark? Will we find out some surprises in how some of the characters react in those circumstances this season?

ROXBURGH: For sure. Each character has their own demons. Shane is the son of a serial killer. Hassani’s wife died, which we found out at the end of Season 1, but we don’t know how. We don’t know what happened there. He’s been carrying that secret with him for the entire time that we’ve known him. And then, obviously, Bex caught a serial killer as a child, and then she lost Odell. She’s been through her own wringer. Bex realizes, if I let this darkness overtake me, what becomes of us? She also, not at this point, but later in the season, starts to worry about Shane for the same reason because information starts coming out.

I feel like I should keep my eye on all the characters this season.

ROXBURGH: Morales seems pretty safe so far. She seems like she’s in a good place. Other than that, no one’s safe.

The Hunting Party airs on NBC and is available to stream on Peacock. Check out the Season 2 trailer: