The Hunting Party returned with a shocking twist after the show killed off a main cast member in the season 2 premiere.
During the Thursday, January 8, episode of the NBC series, it was confirmed that Oliver (Nick Wechsler) didn’t survive being poisoned in the season 1 finale. Bex (Melissa Roxburgh) was seen out in the field with Ryan (Patrick Sabongui) and Shane (Josh McKenzie) and it wasn’t until later in the episode that Bex was seen mourning the loss of her ex.
The fictional death, which took place off screen, comes as a surprise after Wechsler, 47, was still mentioned as a cast member in an NBC press release. He was visibly missing from the trailer, however, which inspired some concern about his future on the show.
The Hunting Party is a crime procedural about investigators who are assembled to track down and capture the most dangerous killers in the country. The twist? The criminals escaped from a top-secret prison that’s not supposed to exist.
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Roxburgh’s character is an ex-FBI agent recruited to the task force due to her reputation as a profiler who caught the world’s most dangerous serial killers. She must work with the warden of the prison, who turned out to be her former partner and ex-boyfriend Oliver.
Roxburgh, 32, previously acknowledged that it was an “unpopular opinion” to support Bex and Oliver’s relationship, telling Us Weekly exclusively in February, “He killed someone. He did a bad thing. [But] there’s so many killers on the show. So it’s OK. It’s fine. It was one little murder.”
At the time, Roxburgh said she was thrilled to work with Wechsler.
“I had actually known Nick in passing before [The Hunting Party] and then he nailed the audition,” she recalled. “So going into filming with him, it was nice to have a little bit of history already — even though I didn’t know him too well.”
She continued, “As far as the characters go, I am always cheering for the history and the relationships where it’s like they’ve been through so much together.”
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The actress hinted at a possible love triangle, which will now be reconstructed.
“On the other hand though there is Shane,” she added. “If they do build this love story and love triangle, Shane is safe and he’s very calm and cool waters. We have the bad boy who murdered someone and he had a reason. We have the person who didn’t murder someone. We’ll see.”
While Wechsler is gone from the show, Eric McCormack, Finnigan McCormack, Kelsey Grammer, Niecy Nash-Betts, Liz Gillies, Jefferson White and more are expected to make guest appearances later in the season.
The Hunting Party airs on NBC Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET and new episodes are available to stream on Peacock the next day.
