“Found,” now in its second season airing Thursdays on NBC, is a serious show about those who disappear.
As the network readily notes, the statistics are scarily depressing: More than 600,000 people annually are reported missing. More than half are people of color who most often receive no attention.
That reality allows for the series’ PR specialist Gabi Mosely (Shanola Hampton, also executive producer) and her crisis management firm Mosley & Associates to look weekly into new cases.
Gabi takes each one personally. For at 16 she was kidnapped and kept for over a year by Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). Two decades later, Sir has escaped from prison.
For Hampton, 47, a recent Critics Choice Best Actress in a TV Drama nominee, Gabi is a glamorous force of nature who stands out for a reason.
“One of the things that people see,” Hampton said in a Zoom interview, “when they see Gabi Mosley is her wardrobe and how put together she is. But it’s more than vanity for her.
“It is her. It has its own backstory. It’s the one thing in her life she has been able to control: How she presents.
“It’s also something that she has been taught (by therapy): To present well. It’s all a part of her journey and who she is — and a lot of who she is is how she looks because it’s the one thing she can control.
“She said, ‘I might be torn up on the inside. But when you see me in the streets, you see me put together.’ ”
Sir, even though caught and imprisoned, has remained traumatically in her head. He continues to haunt her.
“The thing about Sir, it’s almost like it’s a gnat that annoys you and will never go away. He is a dark cloud.
“I think Gabi Moseley really thought that she was going to have freedom once she was able to see Sir go to jail. He quickly takes that freedom away from her.”
Their complicated history insures that. As Hampton explained, “She knows that he is always looming over her. His presence is always felt. The game of cat and mouse continues.”
Gosselaar has directed an episode that airs April 3. Will Hampton as well?
“This is a hard show. A hard show which requires — demands! — a lot of me. Not only as the Number 1 (on the daily call sheet), but also as a producer.
“My first job is to be those two roles for the crew. To show up for them in a real way. If all the pieces come together and serve everyone, then I would direct in Season 3.”