[This story contains spoilers from the season two premiere of Found.]
Not long ago, NBC's hit show Found would ask Gabi Mosely (Shanola Hampton) to keep her former English teacher and kidnapper Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) in the basement for another season or two. But that way of making TV, he says Found creator/showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll, has died. “Not in this day and age, with streaming and binge-watching and how aggressively our audience moves through content… if we had created this show maybe 10 years ago, we probably could have,” he explained to The Hollywood journalist from the set of the show in Atlanta.
“It was a much more traditional television viewing model back then,” Carroll added of television's past, when there were 22-episode seasons that aired once live and then again in reruns in the summer. “Not only our industry, but also our audience has changed the way they consume content. I don't know if we would have been able to slow it down that much nowadays. And because there's so much story to tell, I wasn't afraid we'd run out of it too quickly.”
In its second season, Found talks more about public relations specialist Gabi Mosely who uses her professional expertise and personal experience as a teenage kidnapping survivor to bring home missing people who don't attract media attention due to race, sexual orientation and other factors. Assisting her at Mosley & Associates, or M&A, is a team united by trauma: Lacey (Gabrielle Walsh) who Sir kidnapped to keep Gabi company, Margaret (Kelli Williams) whose son has been missing for over a decade, the genius tech Zeke (Arlen Escarpeta) who was kidnapped as a child and suffers from debilitating agoraphobia as a result and military vet and security expert Dhan (Karan Oberoi) who has been held captive for three years and suffers silently despite having a therapist husband.
DC police detective Mark Trent (Brett Dalton), or Trent, is both Gabi's love interest and reluctant ally. With Sir on the loose and Gabi's secret revealed, as well as the disappearance of an important member, the team is no longer as close as it once was. Gabi has lost their respect and trust and it is doubtful that she will be able to get it back.
It's a direction star Shanola Hampton admitted she didn't see coming when she spoke ahead of the second season, which launched Oct. 3: “In my mind, I was like, 'Okay, now they can't let it get him out of the basement. .” This dynamic worked so well. The fans are really excited about it. How do you complete it?” he said. 'How do you keep the dynamic between Gabi and Sir without him being in the basement?'”
Addition to THR“But NK [as they call Carroll] and writers have crazy, sick minds, so they're able to take it out of there and still have that dynamic play. And he's more disturbing in so many ways because he's on the loose. So he's always around without him being in the basement. It's really adorable, this cat and mouse chase.
Curiously, season two answers some questions while also posing new ones, which Carroll takes as a compliment. “That's my job,” he said, “to answer some, but give you more questions to ask so you have to keep watching. Why [Gabi’s] the purpose was so driven by what happened to her, there's so much story to unravel. There are so many questions to answer about both of their lives during this time and how that is a blessing and a curse when it comes to fighting for other people. My hope is that, with season two, we'll answer some questions, but then when that door closes, the window opens and everyone's like, 'ah, shit, now I want to know more,' because that's what keeps people tuned in.
Procedures, Hampton said, noting Law and order, UVS, AND Blacklistthey're what NBC does well. “I think they've taken the market by storm when it comes to telling these types of stories,” he added. “I think about what people have gravitated towards Found is that there is a turning point. So not only do you get the procedurals that you love, but you also get these characters that are broken and are in a healing process. And every human being has some form of healing that they have had to do throughout their life, or that they have not experienced. So I think [the audience] he captured the emotions of these individual characters.”
Shanola Hampton as Gabi with photos of Gabrielle Walsh as Lacey and Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Sir.
Matt Miller/NBC
Since then, expanding beyond Sir and Gabi has been a goal for Carroll Foundthe beginning. “We always intended to slowly peel back the layers on the other characters. Of course, the Season 1 flashback storylines would focus on the teenage Gabi and her origin story,” Carroll said. “In season two, we were very intentional about what we added to the other characters to give you just enough to make you hungry for their backstories. And when we tell those flashback stories for that character, they really tie into the present with what they're dealing with, and they always have a connection to Sir, even if he hasn't been part of their past.
More pronounced this season is Escarpeta's character, Zeke. “Zeke's boundaries are really tested,” Escarpeta said THR. “With Sir out, things are deteriorating. The team is not the team we thought we would be. The people take sides and find themselves almost alone, a place Zeke hasn't been in for a long time. He really leaned into the M&A family, for that strength, for those open eyes and feeling of being part of something special. And so now he will find himself having to deal with himself and his true feelings and trying to be as strong as possible without the support of the team. And obviously Zeke loves Gabi, but Gabi did something that, in Zeke's mind, is almost unforgivable.
Despite Dhan and Zeke's strong bond, even brotherhood, Dhan is Team Gabi almost no matter what. For Karan Oberoi, Dhan's “barometer of justice” is larger than the rest of the team, especially since, in the military, he did whatever it took to get the job done. “The boundaries for him are a little bit more extensive than everyone else,” Oberoi said. “In season one, Dhan says to Gabi, 'I understand what you did. Did we save a life?' [For him]ultimately, we need to save lives. Whatever we have to do, we have to bring people home.”
But Dhan also needs mergers and acquisitions for personal reasons. “If he doesn't have this family, his trauma will surface. It needs everyone in the M&A industry to continue solving cases, finding people, [because] it is his healing,” Oberoi explained. In season two, “He's trying to hold M&A together. [After] the secret that was revealed last season is all up in the air. Now we have a target on our backs with the gentleman looking for everyone, and [Dhan] he's trying to keep the family together and protect them at the same time.”
Hampton can't wait for fans to delve deeper into the new season. “I can't wait for them to see the consequences of Gabi's actions through everyone else's lens. I'm excited for them to feel the cat and mouse that happens when Sir isn't in the basement,” he said. “These first few episodes come out of the gate swinging. And I'm super proud.
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Found season two releases new episodes Thursdays at 10pm ET on NBC, streaming the next day on Peacock.