The new show “Found”, can be streamed on Peacock or NBC, and features Shanola Hampton and Mark-Paul Gosselaar. I will say this has been one of my favorite new suspense shows this season. If you remember the show “Stalker”, and mix it with the show “Scandal”, that is a taste of the energy of this show. The premise revolves around a woman who was kidnapped for a year as a teenager. She managed to escape and now she owns a firm specifically dedicated to helping find other missing people that the police either can’t or won’t solve. Her other employees are all victims of kidnapping or other hostile and traumatic situations and the team works to save others in an attempt to help them heal their own wounds.
The main character, Gabi Mosely, played by Hampton, runs her team in much the same way that Kerry Washington ran her team on the show “Scandal”, when she played the character of Olivia Pope. Each member of Gabi Mosely’s team has a unique skill set, similar to the Scandal team as well. Furthermore each episode takes on a new case of a missing person where the action and expense seem to parallel much of what happened on the show Stalker, where Maggie Q. played the lead detective in trying to solve Stalker cases. However, although “Found” seems to be a good mix of both of these previous shows, there is one striking difference. In “Found”, the one huge difference is that Gabi has actually kidnapped her original kidnapper and is holding him prisoner in her basement!!! It is 20yr since she was kidnapped and we don’t know how she found her abductor but she has him imprisoned in her basement and sometimes uses him to get into the minds of the criminals she is searching for.
As the series unfolds we get to see piece by piece the story of her original abduction. We see that “Sir”, played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar was actually her high school English teacher. He is absolutely obsessed with Gabi, even 20yrs later. I will say Gosselaar is an excellent villain. He does a fabulous job as the obsessed, wicked intelligent abductor. I would say it is almost a break-out role for him as being the bad guy in a series. He does a truly excellent job. Of course the first season ends with him escaping from Gabrielle’s house and tracking down another woman that Gabi works with who he blames for Gabi being able to escape. I have no idea if it will get a second season or not, but it definitely ended on a cliff-hanger. I really appreciated the story-telling and the complexity of each character. Each character on the team has their own intense back-story and they have only covered a few of them. Although the show hints at elements of other characte’rs backstories, we haven’t gotten the full glimpse into all of them, which simply means there are more stories to tell! If you like suspense and complicated characters, but also appreciate some good morals and underlying themes, I would say that “Found” is a great series to try!
