Found just had a huge midseason finale and Shanola Hampton is opening up on what it all means for Gabi and her team!
Caution: This article contains SPOILERS for Found Season 2, Episode 8
Season 2 of Found has had the M&A team shaken by Gabi (Shanola Hampton) revealing that she held Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) hostage for so long and used him to gain information on criminals. Police ally Mark (Brett Dalton) wanted to arrest Gabi and only held off by the lack of serious evidence against her while Lacey (Gabrielle Walsh) was more upset than anyone.
It’s taken its toll on the team with Sir still out there and causing stress. That included Zeke (Arlen Escarpeta) upset when Mark took away all his computers, his only link to the outside world. A major moment was when Sir confronted Zeke at his home and in his anger, Zeke actually stepped outside without realizing it. Sir used that as proof he could “fix” the team.
Meanwhile, Margaret (Kelli Williams) had been banned from her nightly visits to the bus station her son vanished from 13 years earlier after attacking someone there. When Margaret vanished, her daughter enlisted Dhan (Karan Oberoi) to find her. He did at a lake where Margaret confessed that the reason for her visits was that she blamed herself for Jamie’s vanishing. The boy had been bugging her at the station, with Marget shooing him away for a few minutes only to find him gone. The guilt nearly drove Margaret to drown herself before Dhan stopped her.
Speaking to TVLine, Shanola Hampton shared how the cast knew about this twist and what it means.
"NK (showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll) does kind of tell us what’s going on, so yes — but to see it is a little bit shocking. As a fan of the show, which I am also, I was like, “Oh, Margaret, ouch.” You feel badly when you see it happen. You feel bad for Jamie and then also for Margaret to have to carry it. It’s heartbreaking, and shocking."
Hampton hinted that this may mean the team makes finding Jamie a priority to heal Margaret. While picking up the trail may be tough, it can be a good arc as fixing Margaret is a good step to healing the rest of the team.
What does Sir want with the team in Found?
After Zeke broke into police databases to find a letter from Sir, the episode ended with Gabi heading to her own school with some brass knuckles as Sir called out to her. Hampton hints this will be a big showdown that leads to an unexpected revelation.
"He now has Gabi back in his reach, and the first agenda is just to be in her presence again. It is an obsession to have her with him. But he’s set up and ready for her, and he’s going to reveal something that will be questionable at first, but also will cause another trip down the rabbit hole for another character."
The team still suspects Sir is working with someone, perhaps his supposedly estranged half-brother Christian (Michael Cassidy). That can play into the episode or perhaps another of Sir’s twisted mind games. The show rests on how Sir truly and honestly believes he’s “helping” Gabi and her team and that delusion is what makes him more dangerous.
Hampton hinted that there’s more tension amid the team and the only thing that can truly heal them is time.
"What we try to do on our show — and I think that we do a pretty decent job of doing it — is human reflection and what actual humans go through in the healing process. When something is damaged, a friendship or relationship, when you get back — if you ever get back — it’s really the time that did it. Or a circumstance or a case will bring them together, or something that has happened. Will it ever be the same? No. But the luxury of time is what the healing."
Found will be taking a few weeks off before returning in 2025 with the big Gabi/Sir showdown and more on the fallout of the team’s actions. Hampton’s words are a good indication that time will hopefully heal some wounds but it’ll be a tough journey getting there.
Found Season 2 returns Thursday, Jan. 16 at 10/9c on NBC.