[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 2 “Clayton Jessup.”]
On The Searching Social gathering, Bex (Melissa Roxburgh) could be beginning out catching the serial killers who escaped the Pit — a jail filled with inmates who have been supposedly sentenced to demise — however she obtained began very early together with her first one at solely age 15. And that serial killer returns within the second episode of the NBC drama.
Eli Johnson (Mark Moses) was arrested for the murders of 12 ladies, and now that she is aware of in regards to the existence of the Pit, Bex worries that he was one in every of them. Her former mentor and the jail’s warden, Oliver (Nick Wechsler), assures her he wasn’t (the world is aware of he’s alive, he reminds her) and guarantees to look into his location. However how a lot can she belief Oliver in relation to that? Their relationship is, in spite of everything, strained as a result of again once they have been companions, he burned a person alive to get him to surrender the placement of a younger woman he’d taken (and whom Bex adopted).
As we study, when Bex opens as much as one in every of her new teammates, Pit guard Shane (Josh McKenzie), Eli was her finest pal’s father and she or he caught him when she slept over one night time. She ran when Eli caught her, and when the time the cops obtained to the home, he killed his daughter within the standoff.
Close to the tip of the episode, Oliver has Eli transferred to the group’s base, and Bex comes face-to-face with him. He wonders if she’d nonetheless be an agent in the event that they knew the reality: Bex had taken his daughter into his storage that night time and she or he ran and left her pal behind.
David Astorga / NBC
Roxburgh loved filming that Bex-Eli scene. “Mark Moses is actually good at what he does, so going into the scene, I didn’t attempt to plan an excessive amount of,” she tells TV Insider. “I simply needed to see what he did. He’s the explanation Bex does what she does on prime of the truth that her dad was a sheriff. He was the primary serial killer that she encountered and he killed her finest pal. Each time she goes right into a case, each time she’s looking a killer, it’s in the back of her thoughts that it’s virtually like a technique to redeem the previous. It’s a technique to repair what she couldn’t repair when she was 15. Mark Moses is so intense, and I believe for Bex, she’s an grownup now and she or he’s gone by life and she or he’s seen different serial killers, however he reverts her again to a 15-year-old. As a lot as she’s attempting to be powerful, there’s this baby within her that’s scared nonetheless.”
She reveals that there have been plans to presumably deliver him again, “however then as exhibits go, issues obtained busy.” She does hope to see him once more in a second season, ought to they get one.
That dialog with Eli additionally provides one other layer to the already sophisticated dynamic for Bex and Oliver. The serial killer reveals that Oliver knew the aforementioned reality. Sure, he’s been masking for her all this time after interviewing Eli for Bex’s safety clearance when she was at Quantico; mendacity to the police would have gotten her disqualified from the bureau, and as Oliver explains to her, he knew the form of agent she’d make some day.
Taking that under consideration together with their historical past and what Oliver had accomplished to that man, Bex is “extremely torn” about him, says Roxburgh. “She had actual emotions for him at one level, they usually have been companions for a very long time. She seemed as much as him. He taught her lots of what she is aware of now. I believe she wrote him off when he murdered somebody. However now that they’re again in one another’s lives working collectively, and she or he finds out that he hasn’t solely been unhealthy, he stood up for her and he’s at the moment standing up for her, I believe it creates this push-pull of, can she belief him? Can she let him again in? We see lots of that in Season 1.”
Govt producer JJ Bailey echoes that. “She labored with him very intently earlier than the occasions [shown] within the [series premiere]. He was somewhat bit like a mentor determine within the Behavioral Evaluation Unit within the FBI, and as they obtained nearer and nearer, I believe she actually gained lots of respect for him. After which seeing what occurred, clearly this horrible selection that he made, and it clearly had large ripple results for her profession, for his profession, I believe there’s a aspect that understands it,” he says.
“There’s that nice quote — you possibly can solely stare into the darkness so lengthy earlier than the darkness stares again or touches you again. I believe that’s kind of what occurred to Oliver. And I believe Bex can acknowledge that whereas not approving of it clearly, and him now again in her life, I believe she acknowledges who he’s on a deeper stage,” he continues. “I believe [there’s] that kind of push and pull of eager to belief him, however realizing what he’s able to and having seen it kind of firsthand and likewise realizing it’s been a number of years since they’ve seen one another and who is aware of what sort of journey he’s been on since then, recognizing that that may change an individual. She needs to belief him. She needs that previous relationship that she had with him to be an actual factor and to possibly discover their means again to that, however she will’t deny what she’s seeing, and I believe it makes that inside battle for her very obvious.”
Bex will not be positive about Oliver, however she positive appears to really feel like she will belief Shane since she talks to him about Eli. “I don’t know” why she does, Roxburgh admits. “I chalk it as much as she’s an excellent profiler. She’s good at studying individuals. She is aware of when somebody’s inherently good or inherently unhealthy. And I believe Shane, performed by Josh McKenzie, does a very good job of coming throughout very calm, cool, collected, very candy, very earnest. We discover out that Shane has lots of secrets and techniques down the highway, however upfront, I believe that he’s somebody that she will lean on and belief. It looks like he doesn’t have as a lot of a hat within the race as everybody else. And I believe due to that, she is aware of that he’s a secure place.”
What’s your tackle Oliver thus far? Do you belief Shane? Tell us within the feedback part beneath.
The Searching Social gathering, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC