Season 2 of The Hunting Party has already ticked so many of our boxes when it comes to making this a show to tune into week after week. And there’s a lot of reasons why.
The killers’ expeditions have intensified with memorable guest appearances such as Elizabeth Gillies and Niecy-Nash Betts. While the main villain of Colonel Lazarus (Kari Matchett), who happens to be Shane’s mother, continues to lurk in the shadows, teasing a bigger confrontation in the future. The team of Bex (Melissa Roxburgh), Hassani (Patrick Sabongui), Shane (Josh McKenzie), and Morales (Sara Garcia) are also just beginning to look like the family we want them to be.
Fangirlish had the chance to sit down with Patrick Sabongui who plays CIA agent and dad Jacob Hassani to talk about Season 2. In our interview we discussed plenty of things ranging from how he’d like to see Hassani’s daughters on screen and how family grounds his character. But he also explained how team dynamics have evolved from Season 1 to Season 2. And sorry to tell you this, things might get a little rocky.
Due to his previous work as a recurring character on CW’s The Flash, Sabongui isn’t new to being a part of a show with found family. Truthfully, both superhero shows and crime procedurals follow similar patterns of catching the bad guy. While there’s similarities, Sabongui feels like playing Hassani on The Hunting Party is a more well-rounded role for him. He enjoys how Hassani knows “there’s a lot of darkness around us, but it doesn’t stop him from being human.” A part of that humanity is his role as a father.
MORE: Need a refresher of the latest episode of The Hunting Party? Read our review for Season 2 Episode 4 “Amanda Weiss.”
While Bex shares the title of being a parent with him, the bond feels different for Hassani. First, Bex’s daughter is grown and in college. So we don’t see them interact often. Whereas for Hassani, we hear him talk about his young daughters at home any chance he has off the case. Just recently, we saw Hassani take one of Simm’s rabbits to take home and gift it to his children in Season 2, Episode 1 ‘Ron Simms’. The show pointedly shows Hassani talking about or interacting through quick on-screen phone calls to his children.
“I get to balance whatever Hassani’s family or daily life might be outside the operation with the team dynamic and chasing the bad guy” Sabongui shared. So, Hassani’s daughters are always on his mind even while chasing down the world’s most dangerous killers. And it’s important to show that as Sabongui admits that being a father “informs Hassani’s world view and grounds him in a way and gives him that sense of protector, caretaker, and the mission leader.”
As of right now, all we know is that Hassani loves them. That plans to change as Sabongui promises us that we’ll “get to learn and hear more about them” soon. He’s also one of us in “hoping we get the chance to meet and see them” as “there’s still a few more episodes left in the season that I haven’t seen.”
Shifting from being a private guy who thrives independently to being a part of a team isn’t easy for someone like Hassani either.
When you throw a team at a guy like Hassani, who would rather leave his heart at home, relationships take longer to form. It’s why it took him a while to warm up to Bex, Shane, and Morales. “Hassani’s survival mechanism is to stay guarded and to mistrust people and to keep up these protected walls around himself.” Sabongui thoughtfully added. But he will admit, “There’s a familiarity, ease, and trust between them and I don’t know if that’s voluntary.”
Knowing about Hassani’s daughters also gives us perspective on how his hesitations when joining this team. He had to grow to trust and lean on three strangers to have his back when it mattered. Which is all of the time with a job like theirs. It took a while, but something shifted into place when Hassani was shot in Season 1, Episode 10 ‘Jenna Wells’. After Bex and Shane saved his life, Hassani realized he now had people who worry about his well-being.
This was a level of friendship and loyalty he hadn’t experienced before which made them hard to ignore. Therefore, once he became comfortable in their space, he let them in. Sabongui compared fiction to reality when saying, “I think as a cast, we’ve also gotten a lot closer to each other.” And it shows in moments where Hassani makes sure Bex is safe in her apartment in Season 2, Episode 3 ‘Zack Lang’. Or when he sits down and laughs when Shane tells jokes. “As a family man, I think Hassani has a soft spot for all of those things. And despite his best efforts, they’re like family. They’re an extension of his own family.”
There’s an ease to interactions and conversations that wasn’t there before in Season 1. Which shows how much Hassani cares about these people now as he begins to soften at the edges. Team dynamics, both on and off screen, have changed. Proving how much care and trust these characters have in each other to exhale in the safe places they offer. And if you asked Sabongui, he believed Hassani was bound to get attached to Shane, Morales, and especially Bex. As “over time — Bex has this really infectious personality and her insights — he can’t guard against all of that.”
MORE: We also got to talk to Eric McCormack and his son Finn who starred in The Hunting Party Season 2, Episode 1 ‘Ron Simms’ together! Read our interview HERE!
Then there’s Hassani and Bex.
Both are very similar in demanding presence and respect as mission leaders for the team. They’re the most qualified and have the most experience on the job. Additionally, they know how to expertly catch the bad guy with their combined knowledge of law and criminal profiles. Yet it’s usually Hassani who falls back and follows Bex’s directions in takedowns. The reason why? Sabongui believes it’s because Hassani trusts her ability to lead and get the job done. He’ll be there to back her up which set them up early to thrive as an older/younger sibling dynamic.
He told us, “I can disagree with it and voice my displeasure with it but Bex is going to do what Bex is going to do. There’s this implicit trust Hassani has in her and in her ability to determine what the most effective next steps are even if she loves to break protocol.” Then he added with a small smile, “She loves to like split up and go off and get herself in trouble and I can’t stop her.”
Truthfully, Bex’s impulsiveness has gotten herself and the team in difficult situations multiple times before. As she’s been taken hostage and gotten injured fighting off a killer on her own. But Sabongui feels that Hassani only has saving Bex on his mind when things go south. Not the anger because “what are you gonna do? This is your family now, so we just have to navigate that as it comes up.”
As for how Hassani feels about Shane, who he’s partnered with often, Sabongui is quick to say he’s “developed a protective instinct” for him. Ultimately, he found that both men value family and connection, which matters to Hassani.
So what’s next?
The Hunting Party Season 2, Episode 4 ‘Amanda Weiss’ left us on a difficult to watch scene between Shane and Bex. When confessing that his mother was an inmate in The Pit, Shane was relieved to lift that burden from his chest. His secret was free, but Bex’s wasn’t. Besides finding inmates from The Pit, Shane’s search for his biological mother has been the biggest storyline of the show. Bex withholding the fact that she knows who Shane’s mother is will potentially be explosive for these newly formed friendships.
And when asked about this and what’s coming next for Season 2, Sabongui said, “Look, it’s very complicated. Shane is completely justified in wanting to know his background. The level of secrets that we’re keeping from each other is definitely going to fray some of the trust we have between each other.” And he did tease about the consequences of secrets and said, “Just like in life we sometimes withhold things from each other to protect each other. When those things come to the surface there’s always a rift. I think we might be heading towards some instability between those relationships.”
Although unclear if Bex is going to tell Hassani before she tells Shane, things are already feeling unstable. Because Morales also knows that Lazarus is Shane’s mother, which means half the team knows the piece of information Shane doesn’t. And he’s purposefully being kept out of the loop. Which hurts as he’s just felt safe enough to tell the team something he was afraid of going public with. Overall, Sabongui hinted that we’ll “get to watch characters navigate between a rock and a hard place.”
NBC‘s The Hunting Party returns on February 26th at 10 pm EST.
