'The Hunting Party' Season 2: Everything You Need to Know
The truth is darker than they could have ever imagined and it all starts now
NBC’s crime procedural The Hunting Party is back and it doubles down on suspense, psychology, and danger—wasting no time reminding viewers exactly what kind of show it is. Season 2 picks up like a conversation in mid-sentence: no explanations, no easing back in, only heavy pursuit. The team is reinstated, the threat immediate, with questions about the real dealings in The Pit surrounding the team like a dark cloud.
Starring Melissa Roxburgh (Manifest) as Rebecca “Bex” Henderson, Patrick Sabongui (The Flash) as Jacob Hassani, Sara García (The Ride) as Jennifer Morales, and Josh McKenzie (La Brea) as Shane Florence, the network describes The Hunting Party as
“a high-concept crime procedural centered on a small team of investigators led by former FBI profiler Rebecca “Bex” Henderson. Their mission is deceptively simple: track down and capture the most dangerous killers in the world—all of whom escaped from The Pit, a top-secret government prison that was never supposed to exist.”
And Season 2 makes one thing crystal clear in its premiere: the killers are not the only problem.
Previously on The Hunting Party
By the end of Season 1, the series detonated its premise…literally:
The Pit exploded
Multiple inmates escaped
The investigative unit was disbanded
The lingering question: who detonated The Pit, and why?
The finale reframed the series from a hunt-the-killer model into something far scarier—taking the hunt deeper into conspiracies, secrecy, and what happens when the institutions erected to stop evil end up creating it instead.
Season 2 Episode 1 “Ron Simms”
The Season 2 premiere, titled “Ron Simms,” throws us right back into the field. Guest starring Eric McCormack (Will & Grace, Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue), the episode focuses on the teams’ pursuit of their first killer since the explosion. Like all of the inmates, his crimes are driven by a deep obsession—his being love, specifically with women he perceives as emotionally vulnerable.
Rather than sensationalizing the case, the episode uses it to underscore what The Hunting Party does best:
examine the psychology behind the violence (profiling)
study the environments that would sharpen those impulses
question which side of right they’re on
While the hunt is always tense and unsettling, the lingering questions settle deep into their bones like shrapnel—with no easy way to pull them out without serious irreversible damage.
As Season 2 unfolds, the show begins to pull back, taking a birds eye view upon itself to discover the truth about The Pit—what exactly was its purpose and what went horribly wrong.
An especially intriguing piece of that puzzle this season is Kari Matchett (Leverage, The Night Agent) as the enigmatic Colonel Eve Lazarus. Her involvement raises uncomfortable questions about who truly controls the narrative—and who benefits from keeping it all secret.
In an interview with StageRightSecrets, Roxburgh summed up the shift perfectly:
“[Bex] is now up against not only killers but, kind of, higher corrupt government officials as well.”
That tension—between field agents chasing tangible threats and shadowy government systems above them—is where The Hunting Party finds it sharpest edge.
Why you should be watching the show
What sets The Hunting Party apart from other crime procedurals isn’t just rooted in one or two differences. The writers of this series manage to operate on multiple levels at once—effectively weaving multiple webs to draw in a broad range of audience members across genres:
it is a manhunt style concept
it focuses on being a serialized mystery about a secret prison
it highlights morality and ethics within capital punishment institutions and government systems
The Season 2 premiere lets you know right away that this season will lean deeper into government suspicion. It will not excuse its killers, but it will refuse to flatten them—bringing more color to the black and white/good and evil scenarios, making each episode a must watch.
This show doesn’t just ask whether the prison system can warp people beyond recognition. It asks whether dismantling those systems is more dangerous than leaving them intact.
The Hunting Party airs Thursday, January 8, at 10/9c on NBC, with episodes streaming next day on Peacock.