The Hunting Party: 5 Questions We Have After Watching the Premiere of NBC's New Thriller (2025)

Including: When is the next episode?

The Hunting Party: 5 Questions We Have After Watching the Premiere of NBC's New Thriller (1)
Tim Surette

The Hunting Party: 5 Questions We Have After Watching the Premiere of NBC's New Thriller (2)

Murderers are on the loose! NBC's new drama The Hunting Party stars Manifest's Melissa Roxburgh as Bex Henderson, an FBI profiler tasked with capturing some of the country's most demented and dangerous serial killers after they escape from the top-secret underground prison housing them.

What's more, the prison, unaffectionately known as The Pit, is so top secret that not even the president knows of its existence, let alone local authorities who are also on these cases. That means Bex and her small team of investigators, which includes Pit prison guard Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie) and CIA agent Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), are not only racing to find these killers before they add bodies to the local morgue, but also before anyone can learn about the government's super-secret prison.

After watching the premiere episode, we have a bunch of questions, like, "Why did they have such a bad plan to capture killer-of-the-week Richard Harris?," "How did Richard Harris know that woman he abducted worked at a veterinary clinic?," and "Why did Nicole attack Richard with a shovel, especially if the big twist was that she was in love with him?" Those types of questions will remain unanswered, because we're watching a broadcast procedural drama that doesn't want you to ask these questions, but our five other most pressing questions are below.

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What was happening in The Pit?

The Pit was built inside an old nuclear silo in Wyoming, and it serves as a top-secret, high-tech containment unit for an unknown number of the most dangerous killers ever captured. The nature of its objective is a government secret, with Hassani telling Bex that "this prison doesn't exist," officially.

Given what we saw, we can guess that the number of inmates counts well into the hundreds, possibly thousands, all housed in cells in a cylindrical structure that is likely more than 20 stories deep (even Shane didn't know how many prisoners were in The Pit, and he worked there!). The point is, there are enough serial killers in there to keep The Hunting Partygoing for about 20 seasons if each episode focuses on a different escaped lunatic, even if only a quarter of them escaped. (There were allegedly more than 200 people on the titular list in NBC's similarly structuredThe Blacklist!)

Naturally, the purpose of the prison is one of The Hunting Party's big secrets, and it probably won't be revealed until the Season 5 finale, or something, but what we do know is that researchers were experimenting on these killers for some reason. After Bex gave Hassani an ultimatum to tell her what was going on in The Pit, Hassani spilled the beans. Well, like two percent of them. We know that the prisoners were being treated with drugs and were in therapy sessions, and Hassani said that the decline in serial killer activity over the last few decades — no more Zodiac Killer or Ted Bundy! — was directly tied to whatever was happening in The Pit. He also noted that research from The Pit found that some of these killers were getting better as a result of their treatment. (Bex replied with, "And the rest?" Burned!) But even though he said he was about to tell her so much that if she spoke a word about it the government wouldn't even give her a trial before making her disappear, he barely said anything, leaving us still mostly clueless about the true intentions behind The Pit. Can't give everything away in the premiere episode!

Who caused the explosion in The Pit?

The Hunting Party: 5 Questions We Have After Watching the Premiere of NBC's New Thriller (3)

Ahhh, the grand question! Toward the end of the pilot episode, Bex's old boss, the prison's warden, andThe Hunting Party's mysterious psycho in charge, Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), told Bex that the explosion that caused the destruction of The Pit and allowed the killers to escape was intentionally set. "The blast that collapsed The Pit was no accident; it was a jailbreak. Someone wanted those killers back out in the world," he said in that ominous tune-in-next-week-to-find-out-why way.

IfThe Hunting Partyhad guts, the guilty party would be someone we've already met. Could it have been Odell, using his "the ends justify the means" approach as an excuse to take such extreme measures? Too obvious! Could it have been Shane or Jacob, who had the access to The Pit even if they don't have a clear motive? Unlikely. Could it have been Bex? No, dummy.

In all likelihood, we haven't met the culprit yet, andThe Hunting Partyis saving its reveal of the Big Bad for the season finale or something. Is James Spader available?

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Why was Bex working at a casino?

About a billion times in the premiere episode, someone told Bex that she was the best agent they've worked with, or that she's always wanted back with the FBI, or that she's way too skilled to be "on the sidelines." So why the heck was she working the day shift at a casino in Virginia identifying cheaters at Blackjack instead of putting America's most lethal slashers behind bars when we first met her? Did she get discounts on chicken fried steak?

While we got some good intel on why Oliver is in his current position, Bex's previous employment predicament was never explained. Given the scars she still shows from what happened on her first case with Oliver — even though she went on to have a great career after that — something must have triggered her departure from the bureau, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Seems ripe for some backstory to explore throughout the first season.

How will Bex handle working with Oliver?

Well, this is awkward. The end-of-episode reveal that The Pit's warden was none other than her frenemy Oliver was a shock to us (OK, not really) and Bex (yes, really!), and really lays out one of the more intriguing aspects of The Hunting Party's future. Namely, how do you work on such an important project with a guy that you believe is the jerkiest of all jerks?

A little backstory on their backstory: Oliver was Bex's supervisor on her first case, which involved a nutjob holding a young girl hostage in an unknown location. (That girl would later be revealed to be Sam, Bex's adopted daughter.) But to get the details on her location, Oliver covered the bad guy in gasoline and lit the trail of fuel on fire. Not wanting to be barbecued, the baddie gave up the information, but instead of putting out the fire, Oliver just smiled and let him burn. That didn't sit right with Bex, but Oliver justified his actions by reminding Bex that she now has a daughter instead of an urn.

Yet even after all that, the contention is mostly one way. Oliver admires Bex's talent, saying she's the best agent he ever worked with and that he can trust her, and he's the one who got her on board the Richard Harris case and landed her the job of finding everyone else who escaped from The Pit. I'd expect some sort of push-and-pull between the two for the rest of the season as he needs her while she has no choice but to work with him again, despite the lingering sensation of his creepiness. Does she have something on him she can use? Does he have something on her he can use? This is really feeling kind of Blacklist-y, no?

When will the next episode of The Hunting Party air?

The Hunting Party: 5 Questions We Have After Watching the Premiere of NBC's New Thriller (4)

Because NBC moved up the premiere of The Hunting Party a few weeks to air after an NFL playoff game in order to promote the heck out of it and get more eyeballs on its first episode, the show's schedule is a little wacky. First things first: There won't be a new episode next week.

The Hunting Party is one of NBC's highest-profile new shows of the winter (along with the murdery drama Grosse Pointe Garden Society) and was originally set to premiere Monday, Feb. 3 at 10/9c. It will retain that timeslot and re-air the first episode, and the second episode will air the following week, Feb. 10 at 10/9c. All season long, new episodes will stream on Peacock the following day after they air on NBC.

The Hunting Party returns Monday, Feb. 3 at 10/9c with an encore of the first episode. The premiere episode will be available on Peacock beginning Monday, Jan. 20.

The Hunting Party: 5 Questions We Have After Watching the Premiere of NBC's New Thriller (2025)

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