‘The Hunting Party’ – ‘Denise Glenn’ Postmortem Interview with Writer & Executive Producer, Keto Shimizu

THE HUNTING PARTY -- "Denise Glenn" Episode 108 -- Pictured: (l-r) Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca 'Bex' Henderson, Josh McKenzie as Shane Florence -- (Photo by: David Astorga/NBC)

Keto Shimizu is an accomplished producer that has worked on some big franchises in her career, such as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow. Currently she serves as a writer and executive producer on NBC’s epic new series, The Hunting Party, and we recently sat down with Keto to discuss her work on the show, and this week’s amazing episode!
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John Betancourt: I would love to start by getting to know how you came to involved with this series.
 
Keto Shimizu: Oh, sure. Well, what really brought me to it was my good friend, Jake Coburn. We worked on Arrow together, you know, years ago, and have remained friends and have developed projects together, and in the wake of all of that. And, yeah, he brought me on. And he, you know, I think he just wanted someone who was, you know, good at breaking story, at running a room if necessary, and who, who had some experience with dark material. You know, so much I love horror and dabbling in the you know, the shadows of people's psychoses. So it was, it was a really good match, and it's been a lot of fun.
 
John Betancourt: Speaking of those horror elements, this is a great opportunity, to talk to a writer that's in the writer's room. So, I'm very curious how you, and the room built out all of these amazingly dark and amazingly complex characters.
 
Keto Shimizu: Oh, goodness. Well, I would say a lot of it comes from our own fears. You know, those anxieties that tickle the backs of our minds whenever we're putting ourselves in any sort of vulnerable situation. I think both Jake and JJ (Bailey), our co-showrunners are really interested in how we can sort of play on everyday fears and everyday situations that could very quickly turn violent and deadly, should somebody mismanage that sort of trust that we put into sort of social norms and social contracts of like, you know, “I'm gonna get in this Uber and it's gonna be okay,” you know, stuff like that, where it's like, actually putting yourself in a vulnerable situation, should the wrong person be, you know, behind the wheel there. So situations like that are often where the sort of original kill concept kind of comes in, like, who was this person, way back when, you know, back in the 90s, back in the 80s, you know, or back in the turn of the century, where it was like, you know, maybe even more so these kinds of vulnerabilities would pop up in the general population, and people could ease more easily take advantage of that. We have slightly more wary people now.
 
But then the idea, of course, of like, how did the Pit change them? How has the ante been upped? You know, what was done to them in the Pit warped them even more so, so that they're even more dangerous and more unhinged and more unpredictable, because Bex and Oliver and the team are really working off of the information that is on record from their past. But of course, now they're behaving differently because of what was done to them, you know, in this in this clandestine facility. So, yeah, I think a lot of it comes just from, like, what are what are we afraid of? What are we afraid of as writers, and then you again, you ratchet it up, you know, tenfold, to dramatize it for this show.
 
John Betancourt: I appreciate those amazing insights. Because you and the team put together such wonderfully complex characters and stories. Speaking of that, what a great episode this week as well. It's so complex. There's so many cool twists and turns, and since you helped to write it, what kind of challenges did you run into in putting together such a wonderfully complex tale.
 
Keto Shimizu: Oh, thank you. It was, it was kind of a challenge to kind of get the concept in place initially, because we were in the development room, you know, like a year and a half before the show actually got picked up, there was just a few of us who were batting around ideas for killers and blue skying ideas. And the idea of an artist killer is something that we were all very excited about right away in those early, early stages of development, but we couldn't quite crack it. We just didn't have like that, that methodology or something that that really took the idea of an artist killer and made it feel like something we could really run with in terms of story. And it was later on, when we were in the proper room, after we'd been green lit. And we, you know, everything was growing, and as a huge Greek mythology nerd, I was just sort of like, what about the muses? Again, we're talking about an artist, you know, like, what if we deal with Greek muses? There's nine of them, nine kills like that. Feels like a good number, at least for what this artist had intended to do. But you know, this artist didn't get to complete their work. So, you know now their protege is out there doing it for them. And what a cool concept that was.
 
But also, the idea of Muses really gives the story momentum, that it had sort of been lacking when we were just sort of like an artist killer, you know, they do cooler things. Suddenly it was like, “Oh,” now we're like, we're sort of paying homage to Greek statues, and we're honoring these different forms of art. This artist is getting inspired by other artists and then murdering them to sort of immortalize them in this way that's, like, really twisted, but also, like loving. It's all a mess of sort of beauty and death, and again, something that you want to look away from because it's so grizzly and horrific, and yet you just can't look away, because it's kind of gorgeous, too. So, yeah, you know, the whole concept really kind of solidified at that point. And then, of course, adding all these wonderful twists and turns, like JJ and Jake are so good at that stuff, you know, like really taking a break and saying, “Well, what if we had this element to it? Oh, we need more twists. We need something to be harder here,” you know, and really pushing us as writers to get the best flow of story that we possibly can.
 
John Betancourt: Something else that I noticed that I thought was kind of neat, is that in the last couple of weeks is there's been a little bit of DNA from Silence of the Lambs kind of snuck into these episodes, and has that been a large influence over the show in general?
 
Keto Shimizu: 100% I mean, again, I think we like to raise a toast to all the greats in terms of this genre of, sort of serial killers, and, again, sort of these heightened scenarios and these heightened types of murderers and again, like, who else to emulate, but the best? Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, you know, like, these are all things that we just we're all huge fans of, and particularly in this episode as, kind of a love letter to Se7en is like, you know, who else? Who else would you emulate?
 
John Betancourt: Now for a writer and producer, this is a chance to work on such a unique show. And I'm just curious what it means to you be taking part in something that's kind of refreshing and revitalizing the genre.
 
Keto Shimizu: Oh, for me, it's been just an honor and a delight, really, to get to work in this in this space. You know, I've worked a lot in comic books and some horror, and I develop a lot of horror in my own work, and this allows me to play in a sandbox that's familiar and also a delightful challenge. You know, it's sort of, this is probably the most grounded show I've ever worked on, and yet it is also really a heightened thriller. And there's the conspiracy element. And there's, you know, these killers are also fascinating, but they stem, you know, largely from a real space. You know, we try to be emotionally true to who these people could be in in the real world, and yet we also want to be a departure from the real world, because we don't want to just tell true crime. That's not what the show is. This is like… what is kind of the strangest, weirdest, creepiest kind of killer we could create, that isn't real, that hasn't happened, or maybe it's inspired by something that happened, but like, again, just elevating it and heightening it to make it as cool and compelling as possible.
 
John Betancourt: Last question I have for you today, without spoilers, what are you most excited for audiences to enjoy in these closing episodes of season one?
 
Keto Shimizu: Oh my gosh, there's so much great stuff coming up. I mean, the killers are getting wackier and more sinister. I feel like, as these episodes go on, the last few killers in our season are so chilling and terrifying. And again, just, just really, really cool puzzle boxes themselves. And again, what's going on with our characters and their interpersonal dynamics is going to get so much richer in these last few and the conspiracy element, there's a huge twist coming up at the end of the season that I'm hoping is going to really like leave people's jaws on the floors. I just think it's, it's a season I'm really proud of, and I can't wait for everyone to see it.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.