‘Found’ Star Shanola Hampton Discusses Explosive Midseason Finale & Teases Sir And Gabi’s Tensions Will “Come To A Head” When Season 2 Returns
SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Thursday night’s midseason finale of Found.
Gabi Mosely (Shanola Hampton) has had her work cut out for her ever since her kidnapper Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) escaped from her basement.
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The M&A crew has spent the first eight episodes of Season 2 not only reeling from the revelation that Gabi had been holding Sir captive and forcing him to help with cases, but also Sirs repeated stalking, taunting, and even attempted murders now that he’s on the loose. By Thursday’s midseason finale, it’s no wonder that Gabi is at her wits end.
After helping reunite another family — this time, a schizophrenic mother who had disappeared after becoming paranoid that someone was stalking her and her daughter — Gabi decides to take matters into her owns hands. She hunts Sir down at her old high school and, brass knuckles on her hands, steps into the proverbial ring.
In the interview below, Hampton spoke with Deadline all about the first eight episodes and what to expect from the explosive remainder of Season 2.
DEADLINE: What’s been the most compelling part of these first eight episodes to you?
SHANOLA HAMPTON: Just having [Sir] not confined, and there’s no chains between them, and not really knowing when he is going to pop up. Even as an audience, it’s like, ‘Do we get Sir and Gabi this week? Where’s he going to go?’ Because he has free reign everywhere, and so that’s been the most exciting part of the first part of the season.
DEADLINE: How was it for you and Mark-Paul as actors to rapidly expand your environment like that?
HAMPTON: I think with the audience, it’s super great for for them to see him interact with the other characters, which is really nice. For me, personally, he’s my set bestie, and we’re each other’s safe places in that way. So having to share him and not be able to participate in [every scene] this season was really difficult for me. It was quite an adjustment after all the work we did together Season 1.
DEADLINE: This midseason finale ends on such a cliffhanger. What is in store as Gabi confronts Sir? The brass knuckles?!
HAMPTON: it’s about to go down! I mean this, what’s crazy about is we’re doing this wonderful thriller procedural, and the thriller aspect gets heightened so much in these next few episodes. After she comes back, we just go, and the thriller aspect is thrilling.
DEADLINE: We’ve also gotten so much more backstory on Gabi and Lacey and their trauma in these first few episodes. How did that expand your understanding of your character, and her relationships?
HAMPTON: The Lacey storyline, specifically for me, it’s been really good to see, to see that Sir was lurking around and terrorizing this young girl. It really helped flesh out so much of where Lacey and Gabi are today, as well as seeing that child [lose] her voice…all of those things make it layered, and the characters more layered, and the audience’s understanding of their positions better. I think the flashbacks have been a gift for everybody, because rarely do you watch something and get to see how they got there, right? That’s not something that everybody [gets]. You kind of assume, and everybody builds a story they had, or there may be a scene or two where they talk about where they came from, but to actually be able to live it through again, I think it’s just really neat.
DEADLINE: What did you make of this twist that Sir helped save a young girl involved in one of Gabi’s cases and is now trying to sway public perception of himself in his favor? For the longest, he seemed to want to go undetected.
HAMPTON: I think that Sir is so interesting because he’s able to manipulate people, including the audience, to a certain [degree]. He’s a handsome guy. He is very well read and knows how to carry himself, and he knows how to play on human beings emotions. If you’re a psychology major, it is quite the project. He knows how to play chess with human beings. That makes it really exciting. I think it also makes the audience question themselves to a certain degree, because if you hear it on paper, you’re like, ‘He’s a kidnapper.’ But then when you’re a part of it, you find yourself as an audience being drawn in by this character. That’s what makes Found so good.
DEADLINE: It seems like the relationship Gabi still really needs to sort out is with Margaret. How can she earn Margaret’s trust back?
HAMPTON: I think at this point, Gabi has apologized as much as she can. There’s no one that is beating her down more than she’s beating herself down and continues to beat herself down and feel the guilt and feel the pain of what she did. I think a lot of times it gets lost on everyone what Gabi’s trauma has been as well, and that’s because she presents to take care of everyone else, and rarely does she get to heal. So there is a grace that she’s not afforded, and that’s the position that she’s been put in. So I get it. At this point with Margaret, it’s that slow build of trust again, and thankfully, once this chapter closes, we get to really dive into the Margaret and Jamie storyline. That’s going to really help get their relationship back on track, because,we’ve been looking for Jamie for a really, really long time. So really, to start digging into that case, I think it’s going to be exactly what gets them back.
DEADLINE: You’ve had a few really compelling scenes with Kelli Williams recently, including this moment in the midseason finale where Margaret breaks down in Gabi’s arms. How was that scene to film with her?
HAMPTON: It was really nice. What I love is that Kelli is so emotionally available in all of her scenes, and she has this quality to really just go there, and that maternal instincts of being a mother of three in real life, but then also being able to tap into that loss. So when she breaks down — and to shoot a breakdown like that is very difficult, because you have to do it multiple times, and each time has to be as if you’ve done it for the first time. So it’s exhausting. I don’t think people understand, anytime you see us teary eyed on the screen, how exhausted we are after shooting those days. But to be able to be a comfort at that point…I also think it’s something that we don’t really get to see on television, that female embrace, that sisterhood, that holding each other up, and in a time such as now, we need that more than ever. So it’s just really a beautiful moment, and also shows the layers of their relationship. Yeah, they’re in a bad time, but I’m always going to be there for you, girl.
DEADLINE: This season has gone a lot darker in many ways. Are you keeping the same levity on set between takes that you spoke about in Season 1?
HAMPTON: If you came to our set…you’ll see very serious Gabi on screen, but right before that, I’m like, ‘Hey! Here we go! Let’s do the next scene!’ So we keep it very light in our set. I have songs that I have made up. I have songs that have their own lyrics that I still make up lyrics for. It’s very light. We sing all of our guest stars out. You cannot live in the space that Found is in for 13 hours every single day. Everybody would go crazy. And also, I’m just not that girl. I like fun. I like easy, breezy. That’s really the lane I like to stay in.
DEADLINE: Outside of Margaret, how is Gabi overall handling the position she’s put the M&A crew in? They’re constantly being stalked and tormented by Sir.
HAMPTON: She’s not dealing with it well at all. Remember, all she wants to do is help those around her heal, grow, be better. That has been her mission ever since she was a young girl. It was a huge undertaking for her. So every time Sir really comes into their lives, it is another ding to her heart. It is another ding to her psyche, to her guilt, all of those things. She’s not in a good place at all, and there’s so much happening right now she has no time to actually deal in the place that she’s in, because she’s still wanting to make sure everyone else is okay. It’s more like, ‘I’ll get there. I’ll get to me, but first I gotta make sure my family is okay.’
DEADLINE: What do you make of her current relationship with Trent and the trust that’s been broken there?
HAMPTON: It’s been very tricky for Trent and Gabi to navigate. I mean, the fact that they had a personal relationship — she’s on one side of the moral compass, and he’s solving these cases — was always a factor. But now that this thing has happened, Gabi doesn’t want to have her baggage affect Trent this way, but she’s also like, ‘Dude, let’s just solve the cases and stop all of this stuff.’ For Trent, it is layered to ‘Why am I really upset?’ They just have a tough go of it, and they have to figure out ways to work together, because the one thing that they do have in common is they want to find the missing.
DEADLINE: Does Gabi really trust Sir’s brother?
HAMPTON: I think she’s conflicted. I think that part of her wants to trust him, but also it’s Sir’s brother. So how much can you trust? Also, does the audience trust him? You go back and forth. Is he for the good? Is he not for the good? This family, Sir’s background, is shaky at best…so anybody that has a genealogical pool with Sir is someone that you have to look at with side eye.
DEADLINE: What else is in store in the remainder of Season 2?
HAMPTON: We’re going to definitely get to see another Sir and Gabi encounter, and the brass knuckles will be in hand. That, I can tell you. You’re going to see Sir bring up some things about other characters that Gabi wasn’t aware of, maybe even the ones that you think are all on the good moral compass, ie Trent, and that will be a shocker. We’re going to then be able to see Sir getting what’s coming for him, that’s what I can say about that. It will come to a head. Then you’re gonna get to see us dig into Margaret a little bit more, and Jamie. That, I think, everybody has been waiting for. There’s a lot, a lot ahead.
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