‘The Hunting Party’ Team Previews Season 2’s Killer Guest Stars, From Kelsey Grammer to Eric McCormack

The Hunting Party has already racked up the ratings, scoring over 30 million viewers during its first season. Another way to measure how well this NBC procedural has caught on? By the guest stars lining up to appear in the second season! Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), Jefferson White (Jimmy on Yellowstone), and Elizabeth Gillies (The CW‘s Dynasty) have all signed on for killer roles. Literally.

Melissa Roxburgh, who plays ex–FBI profiler Rebecca “Bex” Henderson, has assembled her own team to catch serial killers. The murderers have all escaped from the Pit, a secret prison located inside empty missile silos in Wyoming. And the prisoners weren’t just locked away. They have also been experimented on — even being subjects for an empathy drug. Now they’re on the run, and we don’t know if their killer instincts have been modified for better or for worse.

Season 2 of the dark thriller picks up just a couple of weeks after the events in the finale, and Bex’s first goal is to reinstate, in Roxburgh’s description, her “misfit crew” of investigators. That includes the CIA’s Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), prison guard Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie), and her old partner and Pit warden Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler).

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Oliver ended the prior season wounded from a gunshot from one of the escaped prisoners and seemed to be dying in Bex’s arms. We’ll find out his fate in the season premiere. “We want the audience to be rooting for his survival,” says Roxburgh.

The premiere will also show what Bex is willing to do to get the team back up and running after Attorney General Elizabeth Mallory (Zabryna Guevara), who placed them together, disbanded it amid the damage done by the Season 1 finale’s baddie, the “Killer Chemist,” played by Eliza Coupe. But there will be “a change of leadership that’s going to be a major thorn in Bex’s side for the season,” warns executive producer JJ Bailey.

Of course, as Bex knows, the team needs to be out there. These killers are the worst of the worst and are now putting down roots as more time passes since their escape. One of them is McCormack, in a role that leans into his charm before his dark side comes out. His character, Ron Simms, “The Boogeyman,” is someone for whom the Pit’s treatments seemed to have worked. Says executive producer Jake Coburn, “It’s a twisted, interesting look at romance and dating and how we can look past certain things and not others.” Like murder.

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Subsequent episodes feature Grammer, Gillies, and White. For the EPs, it was Grammer’s ability to “walk the line” of being “both alluring and dangerous” and having the “charisma and warmth” to lure in followers that made him perfect as cult leader Noah Cyrus. Gillies plays “The Masseuse,” Amanda Weiss, a spree killer who broke her clients’ necks. “Bex has a different approach to catching her,” Roxburgh teases. “She’s a hard nut to crack.” White’s Lou Kaplan targeted influencers, “preying on people’s desperate need for attention and validation,” according to the EPs. “In his own unhinged way, he gives voice to something very real.”

And the guest star welcome mat doesn’t just include murderous escapees. Niecy Nash-Betts (All’s Fair) appears in the second episode as Det. Erica Burke. “This is the first time we’ve been able to work alongside somebody else who has worked the case,” reveals Bailey. “She squares off with Bex.”

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In Season 1, there were hints of a Bex-Shane-Oliver love triangle. In Season 2, Bex and Shane grow closer. “They have to deal with how honest they’re being with each other,” says Coburn. Adds Roxburgh, “Whether that forms into just a really strong friendship or it allows her to open her heart back up after her relationship with Oliver is TBD.”

Hassani has his own baggage to deal with, too. He must learn to let others in, and he doesn’t know that the other characters learned in the finale that his wife died years ago. “He’s been avoiding grieving,” explains Bailey.

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This second season also dives deeper into another member of Bex’s team, intel officer Jennifer Morales (Sara Garcia). She’s usually in the command center relaying information, but she’s also been keeping a secret. “We explore how her allegiances shift,” Bailey teases. Also revealed: more about the Pit’s silos. “We hope to, every season, expand our understanding of the entire facility,” says Bailey. “There are several [silos], and what’s going on in each one is very different.”

Let the hunt continue.

The Hunting Party, Season Premiere, Thursday, January 8, 2026, 10/9c, NBC