[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Found Season 2 Episode 9 “Missing While Targeted.”]
The Found midseason premiere leaves potentially more than one character’s life hanging in the balance. In a way, Gabi (Shanola Hampton) has it a bit easier; she’s only hit from behind with a plank of wood and knocked out! And the person who does that? Well, Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is not happy with whoever it is.
Then, during the course of the team’s case, Dhan (Karan Oberoi) is shot, and his husband Ethan (Lee Osorio) tells Gabi to leave the hospital; he’s had to share Dhan with her every moment of their relationship, and if this is their last one, he wants to have it. And Trent (Brett Dalton) is shocked when Sir enters his house and tells him his father worked an obvious serial kidnapper (seven cold cases, all young children), yet there was no press or arrests. Gabi arrives at the door in time to hear a gunshot inside…
Below, showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll talks about that long-awaited face-to-face and cliffhanger, reveals Dhan’s fate, and teases what’s to come.
That ending! First of all, the wait for Sir and Trent to interact — and when it finally comes, it’s great. But talk about what you wanted out of their first interaction after they came so close earlier in the season.
Nkechi Okoro Carroll: We knew there was no way — the first time Sir and Trent are face-to-face, it felt like it had to be a moment — it couldn’t just be a run-in — it needed to be a calculated moment and that it had sort of cataclysmic consequences. [Laughs] And so that’s what we did. These are two men that are polar opposites in so many ways. The thing that they share is the importance that Gabi plays in their life. But there’s Sir’s version of that. There’s Trent’s version of that. And then also two very different sides of the law: Trent has a pretty strong moral compass. It is the thing that sort of makes him the most uncomfortable as he’s toeing that gray line with Gabi. But at his core, he is a man who believes in justice, who believes in law and order, who believes in the blue wall. And you’ve got Sir, who, even though he would never describe himself this way, is a master criminal, he is a serial kidnapper. He is an incredibly intelligent human being who operates outside of the law. You couldn’t have more polar opposite individuals standing at gunpoint across from each other.
And don’t worry, we will not leave you in suspense. It is a direct pickup in Episode 10. We will absolutely see the aftermath — and it is quite the aftermath — of that encounter right off the bat. We are not going to keep our audience waiting.
Yeah, I was going to say, a gunshot did go off. So can you say if anyone was hit with a bullet?
I can say that it’s definitely not a fake thing, gunshot goes off. I can say that whose gun got fired and where bullets end up and who ends up in the hospital is going to become quite a twisty turny ride over a couple of episodes. But that run-in at Trent’s house between Sir and Trent literally has repercussions for the remainder of the season in very huge ways for both those characters and for Gabi.
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I’ve got a theory that Heather (Danielle Savre) is Sir’s sister and getting close to Trent for him because Heather could have told Sir about the layout of Trent’s house after their night together. What can you say about that?
This is why I introduced Heather the way I introduced her, because I am going to have a blast watching the fans try to figure out all the connective tissue and who and why and where and everything. And so that was one of the theories I was banking on, which is why we’ve been so cryptic about the role that Danielle is playing. And that is all I will say about that. But the mystery on how she connects to everyone is absolutely intentional. And I’m going to sit back with my popcorn and my tea and watch the fans fight over it online because I think that’s very exciting.
We know that Sir is working with someone. Someone hit Gabi, he was not happy about that. What can you say about who this person is?
Sir has had an accomplice from the jump. You don’t stay on the run — which is the thing that M&A has figured out — for 20 years without someone helping you, even if it’s not every day or every step of the way. But you just cannot avoid capture for that long unless there’s help. And we’ve seen, if people go back and watch those early episodes, Sir on the phone, Lacey [Gabrielle Walsh] vaguely remembering him on the phone with someone, but who he was talking to, was it clear? Was it Gabi? Was it someone else? The text messages, and then yes, this very sort of big moment of Gabi being hit and him clearly being unhappy about it. So whoever his accomplice is, what I can tell you is they’re going a little rogue and there’s nothing that unravels Sir more than when people deviate from the plan.
Have we seen this person?
Yes.
Interesting. Trent and Heather’s relationship, can that be anything? Because we know no matter how complicated it may be, there are still feelings between Trent and Gabi.
I know, what does every great poet and songwriter and everyone say? What did Dua Lipa say? Isn’t it like, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else? [Laughs] Not to quote the great Dua Lipa in this moment. But of course, he still has feelings for Gabi and I don’t think even he is necessarily trying to deny that; they’re very wrapped up in his anger right now, but I don’t think even he is trying to deny that. But there’s having feelings for someone and then feeling like they’re not necessarily good for you or you don’t see a future there. So you pivot to maybe what initially feels like the next best thing. And so Trent deserves a woman who puts him first. He deserves a woman, a brilliantly smart, talented, gorgeous woman who after a tough day at work makes him want to text them and have them come over for dinner. But as with any good drama, it’s complicated.
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Dhan was shot, and it wasn’t looking good. What can you say about his fate?
What I can firmly say that Karan is not leaving the show. I would never let him. I love him. I’m like the mafia. He’s not allowed to leave me. And so Dhan will survive the shooting. However, surviving the shooting and consequences from something that big happening to you… As the show has shown with our survivors many times, you survive the ordeal, but that doesn’t mean you’re not still dealing with it moving forward and the things it brings with it. But it’s a reminder that as passionate as they are about what they do, and as beautiful as those moments are when they get to hang the picture on the wall and say welcome home, what they do is dangerous, and for the most part, 90 percent of the time, they’re not carrying weapons themselves. They’re not cops. They are citizens who have decided to turn their trauma into healing and into purpose and are just out there trying to do good in the world, but they’re not superheroes. And what happens to Dhan is a stark reminder of that.
There’s also the Ethan of it because he told Gabi to leave at the hospital. That was heartbreaking for Gabi. That has to be complicated going forward. Dhan’s going to go back to M&A, but then there’s still the Ethan of it. Their relationship is on rocky ground. So what are we going to see there?
They’re very interesting. We wanted to have this non-traditional triangle between Ethan and Dhan and Gabi because nothing between Gabi and Dhan is sexual, but if there’s a person he will take a bullet for, it is Gabi Mosley. And he would do the same for Ethan. He loves them both so much. They are both so important to their life. And right now they couldn’t be further apart in terms of Ethan feeling like Gabi is the gateway to all things bad for Dhan. And part of what Ethan and Dhan are going to have to reconcile is, how do they stay true to who they are, what they need, what makes them wake up in the morning, the love they have, and stay true to what they require of each other in this beautiful partnership? I don’t envy Dhan in his position because he needs both of them, but I fully understand Ethan’s position of, if she says jump, he says, how high, and how many times does Dhan get to put his life in danger and regress for Gabi? And for Gabi, she couldn’t make Dhan not do it if she tried, he is loyal to her for life. Even if she told him to go away, it would never happen.
And so it puts all three of them in a very difficult position of trying to figure out, how do we make this triangle work while honoring and respecting what every individual party in that triangle needs? To us, it was just a really beautiful way — I believe there are friend soulmates. I believe there are romantic relationship soulmates. And so we have this really beautiful opportunity, which I feel we don’t necessarily see frequently, to really explore this soulmate triangle of one component is romantic, the other one is absolutely purely platonic, but it’s still a soulmate triangle. And how do you resolve that and who you rooting for?
Sir says he knows what happened to Margaret’s (Kelli Williams) son. He does tell the truth, but how much does he know?
That’s such a good question. Sir has made it his mission to be informed about as much in Gabi’s life as humanly possible, and that includes the people that he sees as the obstacles to him being with Gabi, and that is M&A. And so there’s a lot he knows about each one of their lives individually that comes out slowly but surely and who sort of comes front and center and becomes the main target of his game playing and obsession just depends. And so, yeah, he knows some things. He doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough that as Gabi and Margaret are figuring out their dynamic, and Margaret, her search for Jamie and her search for the truth of what happened is really going to take center stage in this back half of the season. And so with that comes the question of, what is Margaret willing to do for answers? How far is Margaret willing to go for answers? What does resolution finally, truly look like for Margaret? That’s all stuff we’ll get into in the back half of the season.
I have absolutely loved Lacey’s journey so far this season. And now she’s ready to go back to law school, but does she know yet what that would look like for her? Is she thinking, this is something she’d do once Sir is caught? That she should move forward with her life while he’s still out there?
She’s definitely feeling like she should move on with her life while he’s still out there because she refuses to be a victim to him again. The worst happened. Her biggest fear was that one day Sir would come back and he would get to her again, and he did and she survived. And so in that is a power of, “I cannot live in fear of, if I live my life, what happens with Sir.” She has now escaped him twice. She has now, in her own way, defeated him twice. And in a way, it’s empowered her more than the first time ever could because the first time, Gabi sort of saved her.
This time, Gabi saved her from the perspective of, she stopped her from doing something that she knew Lacey would not be able to live with, but Lacey went down swinging. She was not some quiet, docile, little girl tied to her chair. She left scars on Sir, which made me so happy and excited for her to take her power back in that way. And so that’s the Lacey we’re seeing. For so long, she’s lived in fear of Sir and in hero worship of Gabi, and now the blinders are off. She’s experienced the worst thing with Sir and survived it and Gabi’s off her pedestal and she’s seen her for the human she is.
And so now there’s a whole future ahead for Lacey of like, who are you? Not trying to be mini Gabi, not trying to live in the shadows from Sir with your new name, who are you and who do you want to be? And that’s the journey we have of, Lacey has found her way, and we’re going to see it play out over several episodes in the back half of the season where we hear Lacey’s voice in a way we haven’t heard her before. There’s a strength to her that is unwilling to back down. Whereas before she was very much about the tenants of the law and she’s here to save Gabi’s ass and she’s in service to her for life, now we’re hearing Lacey roar in a way that’s about finding Lacey. And that is very exciting to watch. And Gabrielle Walsh has just been murdering that role.
Found, Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC