The Hunting Party’s Sara Garcia on Morales’ Loyalties, Friendship with Bex, and Command Center Camaraderie

Jennifer Morales appeared in the background throughout The Hunting Party Season 1, except for her research and computer skills, and one field mission.

However, since The Hunting Party Season 2 began, Morales has been more integrated with the rest of the team. We’ve learned some of her secrets, and the command center depends on her.

We love that Bex has started relying more on Morales, as the two women have begun piecing together information about Col. Lazarus and Shane.

TV Fanatic chatted with Sara Garcia about where Morales’s true loyalties lie, her strengthening friendship with Bex, and how she’ll react to the news about Shane and Lazarus.

She also teased some intriguing storylines coming up at the command center. Check out the interview below.

Things at the base have changed. Now that the attorney general is out of the picture, to whom does Morales report, and will her allegiances change depending on who her boss is?

Great question. One of the things that was exciting for me was the reveal that Morales was actually Attorney General Mallory’s right-hand person in the command center. So right now, she is still the eyes and ears, but Lazarus has come in and shaken things up a bit.

So, where do Morales’ loyalties lie? I think she’s confused. She doesn’t know exactly what to believe and is holding on to a lot of information that she wishes she could share with the team, but doesn’t quite feel comfortable doing so.

My personal thoughts are that her loyalties lie with Bex. She trusts Bex. Bex was her mentor at Quantico, and I think she is probably the person she trusts and leans on most for guidance.

We like to hear that. How does Morales’ relationship with Ben Jones develop, and have you enjoyed Morales stepping into a larger leadership role at the command center?

So, we have two new actors this season. We have Ben, who’s played by Quentin Nguyen-duy, and Peck, who Luke Forbes plays.

We’re going to see Morales’s relationship with both of them build over the course of the season.

What’s interesting is that now we have a trio in the command center that mirrors the trio outside it.

We get into some hot water in the command center in Episode 5, which airs after the Olympics.

The structure gets flipped on its head when something crazy happens at the command center, and we all have to lean on each other to get out of it.

Will her role be affected by Lazarus’s dangerousness?

I think that Morales’ role will be affected by Lazarus. She’s already being affected by Lazarus, just by the nature of Lazarus being her senior commanding officer. It plays back into where Morales’s loyalties lie?

Is she going to stay true to the structure of the way the military enforces you to remain in your ranks, or is she going to deviate from that path?

We’ll see. I don’t know yet because we haven’t finished filming.

Right. Is it one of the reasons that Morales did not tell Shane about the audio recording, or did something else motivate her?

I think with the audio recording specifically, Morales is just questioning everything. I guess after her talk with A.G. Mallory, she’s questioning everything. She doesn’t really know who to trust.

It’s sensitive information that she’s sitting on, and she doesn’t want to be careless with it, and that’s where she’s coming from with not wanting to share that with Shane right away.

She wants to gather more information. She is an intelligence officer, and she doesn’t give information that lightly.

She wants the whole picture, and we’ll see that unfold further. She does bring Bex into the fold with that, and we’ll see the two of them leaning on each other in trying to understand what the best course of action is to deal with that.

What can you tease about Morales’ reaction to Lazarus being Shane’s mother?

I think that she is shocked. That’s it. She’s just shocked and doesn’t really know what to make of it.

You mentioned that Morales will be bringing Bex into the fold. I know a lot of people would like Bex and Morales to have more girl time and stuff. What can you tease about them having more one-on-one time?

We’ll spend a lot of one-on-one time throughout our communication. There are many moments where Bex is mostly in the field, and Morales is mainly in the command center.

So much of the one-on-one time we’re seeing is through communication. But what’s interesting about that is that this trust develops between them, or specifically, on Morales’ end, even through the comms chatting.

Bex is Morales’s mentor, and I think that Bex is the one person that Morales really does trust wholeheartedly in the whole picture.

It’s been cool to have those moments with Bex and develop that relationship. Bex is so perceptive that she picks up on things that Morales doesn’t even know she’s giving away.

We’ll see some of that happen later on in the season. And, uh, you’ll have to stay tuned for that one.

I can’t wait. Will we see Morales have any fun scenes with Shane and Hassani as well?

There are always those moments in the command center where everyone’s together. Those are always my favorites because we’re interacting with each other.

Patrick Sabongui is so great. He always comes in, and he does these little things around Morales’s desk to poke fun a little bit. He’s always, like, moving stuff on her desk. Morales is very particular about her workstation.

And so you see these little interactions with them where she’s batting his hand away. Sometimes Shane will come with a coffee and try to put it on her desk, and she’s like, ” No, don’t do that. No liquids by the computer.”

We get to see some of these break-room scenes where they’re like eating pizza and hanging out. There are more scenes outside the command center at the cowboy bar, where we see them all together, putting all the puzzle pieces together.

So, Morales is definitely more integrated into the team dynamic, on this undercurrent of what the pit is, what is happening, and who is Lazarus?

We get to see them interacting in all of these fun new locations.

Will we see Morales out in the field again this season?

We might. I know it was so exciting from last season, going out in the field and being undercover was really fun for me.

 I am hopeful we will see something else happen. Maybe a little later down the season.

To wrap up, what are you most excited for your fans to see about Morales this season?

I think they’re really going to get a kick out of the relationship that she builds with Peck. I think people are going to have fun with that dynamic, and they’re going to be maybe surprised by that dynamic.

I’ll leave it at that. It’s coming up really soon.

The Hunting Party returns Thursday, February 26, after a brief hiatus for the Winter Olympics. You can stream the series on Peacock.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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