The Hunting Party's Melissa Roxburgh Has a Lot of Ideas for Season 2 & That Love Triangle
Melissa Roxburgh looks back at how far Bex Henderson has come and talks about what she hopes to see in Season 2.
This story contains spoilers for The Hunting Party Season 1.
Agent Rebecca “Bex” Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) certainly jumped into the proverbial frying pan as a profiler and investigator in NBC's serial killer thriller The Hunting Party.
At the start of the series, Bex was adrift after losing her dream gig at the FBI. But then she was wooed back for a special, top-secret assignment to recover and re-incarcerate a whole gaggle of apex serial killers who escaped from the remote "Pit" facility in Wyoming. She joined CIA agent Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), former Pit warden (and former lover) Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), and prison guard Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie) to fan out across the country every week to nab another terrifying killer.
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In the season finale, "Jenna Wells," Bex weathered a particularly gnarly case, quite a few stunning revelations, and almost lost two very important men in her life. NBC Insider circled up for our final episode postmortem of the season with Roxburgh about her personal highlights from the finale, wanting Bex to get more open in Season 2, and how she feels about that burgeoning love triangle.
Melissa Roxburgh's favorite moments in the Hunting Party season finale
"They left us with cliffhangers that make me excited about Season 2," Roxburgh assessed of how the writers crafted the final episode of the season. "Also, in touching on personal details about everyone. Like, we have the whole Shane aspect with his mom — who she is — then going into Hassani's personal life. At the beginning of the season, [Hassani] has a stuffed animal, so we realize he's got kids. We think he's married, and then we realize she's been dead. And so that gives us a whole layer of personal details about this character. I know Bex has a softer spot for him now because of that.
"And then we get to see the Odell/Bex dynamic come to a head, and we're wondering what's going on there," she continued.
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Roxburgh said she was "satisfied" that the finale wasn't just action and layered in details that also revealed so much about so many characters.
"Coming into Season 2, I want to see more of those aspects come to life," she said. "Now that the show has been set up and we have our system in place, I want to be able to tell more of the stories of their personal lives."
Melissa Roxburgh on momming and getting even messier in Season 2
Bex came a long way in just 10 episodes, evolving from an uncertain agent worried that her calling was in the past to finding her footing in a new team and getting the mission done week after week. But Roxburgh said there's still a lot more to learn about Bex.
"She obviously is very confident, and taking from how I feel as a woman in this industry, basically I think that she's walled up a lot more than we realize," Roxburgh said. "Going in, she's confident, sure. But I think that there's a lot of fear and vulnerability underneath all of that. In a way, her confidence kind of needed to be cracked to make her stronger. She can act tough all she wants, but by the end of the season, when she does show care for seeing Hassani in the hospital bed, I think people being able to get into her [heart] is actually really important as well. Going into Season 2, I want to see the real Bex, even if it comes with more cracks and flaws."
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What about seeing more of Bex's adopted daughter, Sam (Kyra Leroux)?
"Sam is really busy at college, apparently," Roxburgh said, laughing over Sam not turning up much in the season. "I'd love to see more of her, as any mom would. Because the way that Sam is being played, she's kind of almost momming Bex, which I really like. I want to see more of that because she's the only one who's like, 'Come on, Mom, what are you doing?' I think that's a really fun dynamic. Bex is a nurturing person, but I want to see that really being shown in Season 2, with more dynamics with Sam."
Bex, Shane, and Odell: Melissa Roxburgh talks The Hunting Party love triangle
By season's end, there was a credible romantic tie for Bex to both past flame Odell — who had helped smooth out (most of) their trust issues — and earnest newcomer Shane. While Bex isn't defined by the men around her, we were curious about Roxburgh's thoughts about what Shane and Odell bring out in Bex.
RELATED: The Hunting Party's Nick Wechsler Teases Exciting Odell Reveal: "Can of Worms"
"I think that they both have something to show her," she assessed. "I'm a woman, and I have had my fair share of different dynamics in my life that show me stuff about myself. I think Shane brings out the goofier side. She likes to rib him, and there's a playfulness in that dynamic. So, I really love the scenes with Josh because her job is pretty serious, and I love those scenes and those moments where she gets to kind of lighten up and joke around with him."
Of course, Odell is the antithesis of that.
"Odell is serious. He's not necessarily the jokey type," she said. "But there's an innate knowing that the two of them have together. I don't think that she can be as honest with anyone else.
"And so going into Season 2, if the triangle is set up the way it's kind of looking, I think for me, playing Bex, I'm actually just curious to see what the writers come up with because I think that both sides of her are necessary," she continued. "There's one that's raw, and 'This is who I am,' with a lot of past being pulled in because we can never really escape who we used to be. It's always going to be a part of us. But then also having [another choice] with, 'Yeah, but I get to play and have fun.'"
Watch all of The Hunting Party Season 1 episodes on Peacock now.
