’Found’s Showrunner Discusses the Season 2 Finale’s Twists, Gabi’s Shocking Decision, and Sir’s Fate

(Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Found.)

The Season 2 finale of the NBC series Found brought a case connected to Dhan’s (Karan Oberi) past to M&A, who already had a lot on their plate as they worked to track down Lena (Danielle Savre) before she caused any further damage. At the same time, Gabi (Shanola Hampton) continued to struggle with the fallout from her own actions, having imprisoned her former captor, Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), in her basement while keeping that fact from her friends and loved ones. So, it’s no surprise that all came to a head in the Season 2 finale, leaving questions around Gabi’s very public reveal and Sir’s fate.

Unfortunately, days before the finale aired, NBC announced the cancellation of Found, which means we won’t get to see how it all plays out. But before that, Collider got the opportunity to chat with creator Nkechi Okoro Carroll about Gabi’s desire to truly heal and atone, how much grief played a role in what she did, the fun of seeing an even more unhinged Sir interacting with the other characters, having this plan for Heather/Lena all along, exploring the dynamic between Margaret (Kelli Williams) and Jamie (Parker Queenan) as they rebuilt their relationship, why Gabi made the decision with her own public admission, and Sir’s fate.

Gabi Has Clarity When It Comes to Her ‘Found’ Healing Journey

“Gabi is not scared of hard work.”

Collider: This season has really had two major story threads, with Sir and what his new situation is, and then with Margaret and Jamie. Was it hard to keep Gabi strong and unwilling to give Sir any of her time, even though he kept asking for it and kept trying to manipulate ways to get it?

NKECHI OKORO CARROLL: No, it wasn’t hard because Gabi is so committed to trying to heal now, in a real way. She knows that clearly her healing journey did not take the first time. And so, if that means a hard and fast no contact with Sir, so that she can really work on herself and atoning and moving forward, she’s willing to do it. Gabi is not scared of hard work. Now that she has clarity and realizes how much grief played a role in what she did and how desperately she needs to atone for basically becoming essentially the kind of monster that they hunt every week because she became a kidnapper of sorts herself, she is going to do whatever it takes to truly heal and atone.

But is it ever tempting for you, since they’re just so good together?

CARROLL: Come on, it’s Mark-Paul and Shanola. We could sit here and watch them read the phone book and we’d be like, “Yes!” But letting the characters and the authenticity and the truth of the characters dictate the story, it’s absolutely the right move for them. Because Shanola and Mark-Paul get along so well, they’d be like, “So, where are our scenes together? When are those coming in?” And I’m like, “Gabi and Sir don’t need to be together for quite a little bit. You’re just going to have to hold on.” It was always a running joke.

Who else did you particularly enjoy seeing him share scenes with? Was there anything you were most excited about getting in a room with him?

CARROLL: Honestly, I love when Mark-Paul gets to play with the other actors because we don’t get to see Sir do that very often. And quite frankly, he’s even more unhinged with them because it’s not his precious Gabrielle. That’s such an intimate relationship. You get to see a little bit more of the monster inside when he’s playing around with the rest of them because they are just obstacles to his end goal, which is Gabrielle. Mark-Paul is truly just such an incredible talent that watching him and Kelli Williams in scenes together, I loved it. It made me so happy. Seeing him and Karan (Oberoi) in scenes together made me happy. Those scenes with him and Karan at the end of Season 1, when Karan went down to the basement and actually discovered Sir down there are some of my favorites of the series. SIr and Lacey, in the first half of Season 2 when she was held captive by him, that dynamic between the two of them was just phenomenal to watch. I’m so incredibly blessed with the cast that we have on this show.

When you cast Danielle Savre this season and you brought in Heather, did she know about Lena and who she really was? Was that always set up that way?

CARROLL: Oh, yes, I always knew. I paced Danielle in what I gave her and when. She knew her character served a bigger purpose. I didn’t tell her that she was Sir’s sister right off the bat because I didn’t want her to play it. I didn’t want it to be in the back of her head anywhere and I didn’t want it in the back of the cast’s head anywhere, so the cast didn’t know that she was Lena. The writers all knew. A couple of my producers on the ground figured it out. I loved that the crew were as invested in the mystery as our fans were. And then, as we got a little bit deeper into the character, I wanted to start to build a little bit of that, playing out in scenes. Especially when she was going in to talk to Sir as his lawyer for the first time, I filled Danielle in on the bigger, broader depth of who Heather/Lena is and why she’s the way she is.

Lena Doesn’t Understand Sir’s Obsession with Gabi

“The idea that he would choose someone else over family doesn’t make sense to her.”

How did you really view that dynamic between Lena and Hugh? Why do you think she underestimates his obsession with Gabi?

CARROLL: Because she was his original first victim. For so long, she was the focus of his love and his attention as his little sister. The idea that he would choose someone else over family, and not only that, someone who wasn’t reciprocating, doesn’t make sense to her. Lena loves her brother. It was the three of them against the world. And so, the idea that he would throw all of that away for a girl who had him locked up and, from Lena’s perspective, led him on at a young age and was his downfall, and the fact that he can’t see that, tremendously bothers her.

You tend to let characters make their own bad choices on this show. With Gabi leaving it up to Lena to decide which door to go out of, even though she doesn’t know what’s waiting for her on the other side, it made things more interesting.

CARROLL: Thank you. It was a question of how Gabi could see that Lena was Sir’s first victim, even if Lena couldn’t see that, and she saves victims. It’s what she does. That was Gabi’s version of, “You can break the chains. I broke them. You can break them.” She gave her an opportunity to do that. We see how hard it is for Gabi to rid herself of Sir’s manipulations and the hold he has on her, even if it’s subconscious, and that was after she was only held by him for a year. Imagine Lena, who grew up with him from when she was a baby until she left for college. Think of how tight that hold is that he has on her, after having that many years’ worth of influence on her compared to just one year, and how influential he is in Gabi’s life. There really was no other decision for Lena to make. There was no version of her being able to break that psychological hold that someone has on someone they’ve groomed for that long in a split second, but Gabi wanted to give her the opportunity.

Lena and Jamie are both victims, but they’ve chosen very different paths for their lives. Did you want to show those two colliding to illustrate how different being victims has affected each of them?

CARROLL: One of them sees themselves as a survivor and one of them doesn’t see themselves as a victim who has anything to survive. That’s what ultimately dictates their actions. It really was the culmination of all their journeys and what that looks like when all the different train tracks finally collide.

Related

NBC’s Surprise Cancellation of ‘Found’ Sees Fans Rally to Rescue Show

Fans of the procedural thriller are looking to find it a new home soon.

What was it like to find that delicate balance this season, figuring out how much more to damage and traumatize this poor woman who’s finally gotten her son back, but then everybody is suspicious about whether it’s really him?

CARROLL: That’s the fun of Margaret and Jamie and of that storyline. Their interactions and reactions are steeped in real-life research of kidnapping. The family that’s left behind when long-term kidnap victims return to their old life and how hard integration can be, the decisions they made at various points in time and the journey we took them on was very, very researched to make sure we were being authentic to the multitude of emotions that either one of them could have been feeling in any given moment about the other one. We were very careful and very intentional about the way we had that build the tapestry of the story that we told with Margaret and Jamie in the back half of the season.

That also made it interesting to watch him become integrated into the team. That gave him a purpose that led him to understand why their work is so important.

CARROLL: 100%. The thing that unites their purpose at M&A is that they were all, at some point in time, a missing person in some way, shape or form, with the exception of Margaret, who was the survivor of a missing person. We met them on that journey of having to come together as a family, and while not fully healed, for the most part they’ve done leaps and bounds in their healing journey that allowed them to form this found family and operate from a sense of purpose. The beauty of Jamie’s character is that we actually get to see it start from the beginning. We get to see someone who does have this trauma, who was a missing person, and who slowly but surely starts to find the purpose in their pain, in M&A, and in this found family. Through Jamie’s character, it gave us a chance to see it start to unfold from the beginning and get a sense of what it must have been like for the other members of M&A, as they were coming together to form this crisis management firm that has given them all a purpose in their life.

Gabi Needed to Lay the Truth Bare in the Season 2 Finale of ‘Found’

“It had to happen.”

You give us a one-two punch at the end of this season, with Sir bloody on the floor and not knowing what’s happening with that, and then Gabi reclaiming the name Gabrielle, but admitting to having been a kidnapper of her own kidnapper. What can you say about where you leave it all and where that will take things next?

CARROLL: It had to happen. Gabi has spent all season looking for ways to atone because it’s a necessary part of the healing journey she has to go on if she’s really going to heal from everything and get the healing right this time. There was no other course of action, if she wasn’t going to be allowed to serve time for what she did. All throughout this season, both in the front half and the back half, she’s been looking for how to atone and ultimately realizes, especially as we traveled through those last few episodes, this is really between her and God and laying the truth bare and taking off the masks and not carrying the burden. You can’t really ask for forgiveness if you’re not fully putting it out there. While her team knew, the world didn’t know. The world looks at her like a hero. Their clients look at her like a hero. And the truth is, it was a heavy weight for her to carry that she couldn’t carry anymore if she was really going to finally forgive herself and really start this healing journey. It was the only outcome that could have possibly come out, at the end of this season. And with Sir, his actions always create an opposite and equal reaction. Sometimes it’s him being two steps ahead. Sometimes it’s his sins catching up with him. The mystery of what happened to him at the end of the season and how it came to pass is a mystery that we will solve.

Related

‘Found’s Star Warns That Fans Won’t Expect Where Season 2 Ends

Shanola Hampton teases where things are headed next week.

Found

Release Date

October 3, 2023

Network

NBC

Showrunner

Nkechi Okoro Carroll

Directors

DeMane Davis

Writers

Nkechi Okoro Carroll, Jennifer King

Found airs on NBC and is available to stream on Peacock. Check out these Season 2 bloopers: