Twists & Turns

‘Found’ Premiere Is a Gripping Drama Giving Voice to the Missing

Shanola Hampton gives a voice to the marginalized and missing in this enthralling drama.

Shameless vet Shanola Hampton takes the lead in NBC’s gripping new fall drama, Found. Hampton plays Gabi Mosley, the skilled public relations and recovery crisis specialist who’s made it her life’s mission to look for the missing, specifically the marginalized you don’t see plastered on every news channel. Passionate about justice, Gabi stays one step ahead of law enforcement on each case, creating a complicated working relationship with the police (who need her more than they’re willing to admit). There’s motivation behind her drive to look for the forgotten: Two decades ago, she was a kidnapping survivor herself.

Gabi’s traumatic past is an important piece of the puzzle. Flashbacks to 2003 open Found’s first episode, introducing crucial information that begins to fill out Gabi’s harrowing backstory. It’s the year she was held hostage by her kidnapper–the intimidating yet compelling Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). The flashbacks to her time with Sir raise many questions: How was she taken in the first place? How long was she in captivity? Did anyone look for her?

Though she eventually escaped her captor, Gabi’s psychological scars don’t deter her from making the most of her life and turning her own trauma into something positive 20 years later. She started her own firm and put together an indispensable team. One character observes that Gabi found each member of her team–four distinct individuals with pasts of their own–“at their worst and gave them purpose.”

Her team includes the sharp-eyed Margaret (Kelli Williams), a mother searching for her missing son; new addition Lacey (Gabrielle Walsh), a lawyer who shares trauma with Gabi; Zeke (Arlen Escarpeta), a tech genius whose agoraphobia is rooted in past pain; and Dhan (Karan Oberoi), a veteran who was once missing himself. The series has only just begun, but there is already a wealth of stories to explore with Gabi’s inner circle.

The first case of the series involves Camilla, a missing black teenage girl in foster care. Time is not in Gabi’s favor under these circumstances; the first 48 hours are the most vital in any missing person case and a substantial portion of it has already passed. Camilla’s disappearance has largely gone unnoticed as resources are solely devoted to finding a senator’s missing daughter.

Thankfully, Gabi savvily uses the media to her advantage during a press conference. She utilizes her public platform to force the police into action. There’s chemistry brewing between Gabi and Detective Mark Trent (Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’s Brett Dalton). They work together to propel the case into the national conversation by getting it trending on social media. To Gabi’s shock, the puzzle pieces of the two seemingly unconnected missing persons–Camilla and the senator’s daughter–start to fit together in the most unexpected way, leading to a startling revelation that even Gabi couldn’t predict. With the help of her team, Gabi is able to rescue Camilla and bring her back safe and sound.

All the ingredients are in place for an engrossing roadmap forward on Found. But the most compelling twist arrives in the final moments of the first episode: Gabi is holding Sir captive. Shackled in her basement, Sir is her secret weapon–forced to help Gabi track down missing people by using his own criminal expertise to help her fill in the blanks. In the closing minutes of the episode, the tension is thick between Gabi and Sir as she throws down his dinner, along with the next case file she needs his help on. She may operate in a morally gray area, but it’s with the intention of saving the innocent.

The potential ripple effects of Gabi and Sir’s complicated partnership are ripe for future fireworks. How will things unravel for the put-together PR specialist as a result of her unexpected “pact”? Will she finally get the closure she needs with her own trauma by confronting Sir head-on? Wherever this goes, it’s bound to be an explosive ride.

Found airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC and is available the next day on Peacock.