[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Hunting Party series premiere, “Richard Harris.”]
“Does this mean I’m back in?” That’s what Bex (Melissa Roxburgh), a former FBI profiler working at a casino in Virginia, wants to know when she’s approached by agents. Not yet, she’s told. Well, by the end of The Hunting Party‘s series premiere — and let’s face it, as soon as she’s told what was really going on at the top-secret prison named the Pit — she’s more than just off the bench.
As she learns from the Attorney General (Zabryna Guevara) and the CIA’s Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), it was where some of the most dangerous serial killers were kept — the ones that people thought were executed, including the one she’s tasked with helping to hunt down now; he escaped, with others, during an explosion at the site. Her former partner, Oliver (Nick Wechsler), was primary on Richard Harris’ case, which was her first. Joining Bex and Jacob in trying to find him is Shane (Josh McKenzie), a guard at the Pit from his cell block who says no one knows him better.
Not only do they have to keep secret from the public and any other law enforcement who Richard is, but they have to tell the one victim who previously survived him that it’s a copycat who may be after her. And all the while, Bex wonders just what was really going on at the Pit. Shane, who was recruited from the military, tells her that he wasn’t let off the block, didn’t know the names of the other guards, never even met the warden, and everything was kept very siloed, but he did see some of the experiments that were done to the inmates.
David Astorga / NBC
Bex then questions Jacob, especially after seeing Richard Harris being pumped with drugs in a video. He says that the reason why the number of prolific serial killers has dropped so significantly in the past few decades is because they catch them before they become like a Ted Bundy; everything they understand about psychopaths, all the theories FBI profilers use to catch serials comes from the work done at Pit. But while some inmates have gotten better, others have become even more dangerous.
This new team does catch Richard — he’s killed after he takes his surviving victim hostage — but there’s a twist. As they discover, that victim is no victim; she’s the one who made him a serial killer. Bex stops her when she attacks her, and the episode ends with her being put in a shipping container to join many others.
It’s not until the end of the premiere that Bex learns the Pit’s warden is none other than Oliver, who left the FBI after he burned a suspect alive to get the location of a young girl he’d kidnapped; Bex adopted her after finding her because of Oliver’s actions. He was recruited for the job after what happened. So what does it say about the job of a warden?
“It definitely says something very particular,” co-showrunner JJ Bailey agrees. “There’s many things that we want to uncover over the season with Oliver, but I think one thing that sort of stands out for that particular role is that you kind of have to be okay with some shady things happening under your watch and potentially being okay to turn a blind eye.” There will be some things that he doesn’t know were happening.
“It was sort of like you find a guy who’s made some big mistakes and maybe doesn’t have a lot of options,” Bailey continues. “You put him in this position and you can sort of operate with autonomy knowing that maybe morally he’s a little compromised, but also when he doesn’t have options, he’ll let you do your thing.”
David Astorga / NBC
Adds co-showrunner Jake Coburn, “It’s interesting because he’s a morally compromised character and yet there’s still some real goodness in him, if that makes any sense. And you understand what Bex sees and saw in him, and his decision to do what he did in the pilot, while it is gross and murderous and terrible, I think there’s a darkness in all of us that can understand how it happened. And he represents that darkness in all of us, but he acts on it, if that makes any sense.”
Oliver was also the one to tell the AG to bring Bex in if she wanted to find Harris. Bex admits that she doesn’t blame him for what he did to save her daughter, that if they’d waited for a search party, it would have been too late, but she argues he could have put out the fire. But Oliver’s not interested in rehashing old wounds. Rather, she’s still the best agent he’s ever worked with and he needs someone he can trust because the blast that collapsed the Pit was no accident. Someone wanted those killers back out in the world.
While some answers are coming, Bailey tells TV Insider, by the end of the season, it turns out there’s much more going on. “We talk a lot about what was going on at the Pit as being sort of like this octopus with many tentacles. In the end of Season 1, we sort of chop one off only to realize there’s more, and there definitely is someone behind the explosion at the Pit with an ulterior motive that we’ll uncover hopefully seasons — multiple seasons — sort of down the road. We’re always going to be moving towards that eventual reveal of who was behind it and why.”
Coburn calls who blew up the Pit “the long arc of the show” but points out, “there are a lot of different groups — pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, government shadowy projects — that were all involved in it and all doing bad things as well. It’s really a messy situation that is going to need to be untangled as opposed to a simple whodunnit where it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re looking for the answer, and that’s the only answer.’ There’s plenty of blame to go around because this thing existed for decades and it was used inappropriately for decades.”
We couldn’t help but notice that Shane did seem eager to join Bex and Jacob in hunting down Richard Harris, who, upon seeing him in the standoff, said he should have known. It feels like he may have a hidden agenda, and while the co-showrunners do confirm there’s more to him than meets the eye, they also assure that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy.
“He’s got some very big ulterior motives, but Shane, at his heart, is a good guy,” says Bailey. “We really get into it in Episode 7 or 8. He’s got a very personal stake in what’s going on in the Pit. If you notice in Episode 1, he really steps up and inserts himself into this investigation, and he’s got a very personal reason for doing that that goes beyond just having a job at this place.”
Coburn quickly adds, “It’s important to note the deception that he has about having a very personal reason never compromises his ability to do his job or to be there for the team, and he would never put his team or the people who become his friends at risk in order to accomplish that personal thing. They do sort of exist a little bit separately. And I think as you get towards the end of the season, he’s going to have a choice to make between his personal search and the team, and he will choose something that reaffirms his commitment to this team.”
What did you think of The Hunting Party premiere? Let us know in the comments section below.
The Hunting Party, Episode 2, Monday, February 10, 10/9c, NBC
