‘The Hunting Party’ Co-Showrunners Break Down Bex and Oliver’s Relationship

Bex (Melissa Roxburgh) and Oliver (Nick Wechsler) have a history in The Hunting Party, not just as work partners but also as lovers. Even so, viewers shouldn’t expect romance or rekindled affection between the two, who will supposedly remain professional. Still, considering their history, showrunners JJ Bailey and Jake Coburn shed more light on the dynamic of their relationship; maintaining romance is not essential given the show’s setup. During a set visit at which Collider’s Samantha Coley was in attendance, Bailey said:

“There’s a little more of like a mentor-mentee relationship from the past that we explore sort of crossed some lines that maybe got uncomfortable just before sort of their big blow up, but we sort of found that you know it wasn’t a needed romantic relationship where we landed with that.”

Before Bex split with the FBI, she worked on a case with Oliver, who, as seen in a flashback in The Hunting Party’s pilot, crossed a line by brutally interrogating a suspect in a missing girl’s case and then setting him on fire. In the wake of the incident, Oliver was recruited to be the warden at The Pit. Touching more on the ex-lovers’ history and what’s ahead for them, Coburn added:

“Their relationship is one where it’s like she cared deeply about him, and he cared deeply about her, but it was professional as well as personal and the lines got a little blurred, but like it’s probably the person that she has felt the strongest for in her life and vice versa, if not maybe not ‘the love of their life,’ but like there’s a strong, strong connection there and that’s, you know, something we’re gonna explore.”

‘The Hunting Party’ Is Not a Romantic Show

The Hunting Party Season 1 Episode 1, Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca ‘Bex’ Henderson, Wearing FBI coat. — Image via NBC.

With all that has happened between Bex and Oliver, both the good and bad, it took several deliberations behind the scenes of The Hunting Party for the team to figure out what part and how much of their relationship would fit into the show. At the end of the day, as Coburn pointed out, “This is not a show about romance,” so they were eventually able to find the right balance.

The electrifying procedural, which stars Melissa Roxburgh, Nick Wechsler, Patrick Sabongui, Sara Garcia, and Josh McKenzie, airs its penultimate episode tonight on NBC.