Can Agent Oliver Odell Be Trusted on The Hunting Party? Actor Nick Wechsler Says...
Bex's past continues to haunt her in the form of her former partner Oliver Odell on The Hunting Party.
This story contains spoilers for The Hunting Party through Season 1, Episode 3, "Lowe."
From the moment she returned to the fray in The Hunting Party, Rebecca "Bex" Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) has been fighting off painful memories from her past. That she's working under her past partner — who was maybe more than a work partner? — Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler) doesn't help.
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The Hunting Party Episode 3 saw the team hunting down a rare female serial killer, but it also uncovered new information about Oliver's (potential) involvement in the blast that broke these killers out of the Pit in the first place. How much does he know? How much can Bex — and the audience — trust him? Did he help these killers get loose? Is he on their side?
It's "lonely" to be a serial killer (and Oliver Odell) on The Hunting Party
In fact, actor Nick Wechsler, who portrays Oliver Odell, thinks it must be pretty "lonely" to be a serial killer, which he acknowledged to NBC Insider is a "f---ing crazy" thing to say.
"Because you have a secret you can’t tell anyone else," he explained. "You have this whole secret life."
And then, he reasoned, there are the agents like Odell who were overseeing the Pit. They're also hiding a huge part of themselves from the world.
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"I think being someone who has this classified job, a job where we have like a front ... they have like a whole secret entrance to the Pit and all this stuff ... You can’t be inviting questions about what you do, and you have to lie to everyone about what you do," he said. "And I think there’s a loneliness about that. And then, this person that was like, I guess, an ex, [Bex], they have like a brief thing. [Brief] but meaningful to both of them, I think. Then he brings her in because he needs at least one person he knows he can trust. And she doesn’t trust him... they’re battling their past and then [Agent Jacob] Hassani’s in her ear, so there’s a loneliness there, too.
"So I think the guy’s just on an island having a hard time ... just feeling abandoned, you know?" Wechsler mused. "You do what he did and lose the girl and lose your life, and then he’s primed to be either a villain or a good guy who’s taken advantage of by anybody who’s, like, offering to pull him out of the hole he’s in."
Is Oliver Odell a bad guy on The Hunting Party?
The pieces are in place for Odell to potentially be a mole: shady messages, a weird timeline, and a team that grows more suspicious of him every week. But is his team right to suspect him? Can Oliver Odell be trusted?
"We get into that over the course of the show. We unravel some of the mystery of it," Wechsler assured. "Is my character good or bad? That's a sad thing to consider."
Wechsler said that he had a "hard-to-explain" thought he was chewing on throughout filming, something that he shared with his fellow castmates. The series got him thinking about people who "dedicate [their] life to helping people who’ve been predated upon," especially in Bex's case, who fell victim to killers in the past and was later betrayed by Odell.
RELATED: The Hunting Party Star on Tackling Bex's Dark Origin Story: "It's the Thing That Haunts Her"
"You’re like, 'I want to feel a sense of control over this stuff that’s happened. I want to help others not be victimized in this way,'" Wechsler said of Bex."[But] even when you have your eye on it, even with all your effort and schooling and whatever, you’re still human... some of our damage is still in the driver’s seat, y'know? And we can still choose people who are unhealthy for us."
How, exactly, Odell and Bex's dynamic will continue to play out throughout the season has yet to be seen. But you can find out more with every new episode of The Hunting Party.
New episodes of The Hunting Party air on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC and stream next day on Peacock.
