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Shanola Hampton Teases Where Gabi's "Crazy, Odd" Relationship with Sir Will Go in Season 2
Shanola Hampton gives her thought on the "undefined chemistry" Gabi Mosely has with Sir.
With Sir on the run and Gabi Mosely finally coming clean to her colleagues about holding her former kidnapper hostage, Found fans are eagerly waiting to see what happens next for this unlikely pair in Season 2.
Luckily for them, Shanola Hampton may have just dropped a few hints.
Hampton, who takes on the role of missing persons advocate Gabi Moseley on the new hit NBC drama, recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the “undefined chemistry” Gabi has with Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and how that dynamic could play out in the season ahead.
“It’s nothing that people have seen before and it’s the most fun for me as an actor,” she said of the dynamic, stressing the unconventional bond is “not sexual.”
Where could Sir and Gabi Mosely’s relationship go in Season 2?
The relationship between Gabi and Sir is complicated, to say the least. Sir was once Gabi’s English teacher and kidnapped the teen in his own deluded attempt to create the perfect family.
After more than a year in captivity, Gabi escaped the harrowing ordeal, but two decades later, she tracked Sir down and — rather than turn him over to police — decided to keep him chained in her basement, where he has assisted her with her missing persons firm's most difficult cases.
Until, that is, he escaped just before Season 1 came to its heart-stopping conclusion.
“I know people talk about their shows and why it’s so different and why theirs is so unique but for real, you have not seen a male and female dynamic in this way before,” Hampton told The Hollywood Reporter. “As a people, we’re so used to sexual chemistry and the obsession that Sir has with Gabi goes in so many different directions that you can’t put your finger on it.”
Sir clearly has resentment for Gabi’s father, yet he doesn’t quite want to be her father either.
RELATED: What Will Happen on Found Season 2? These Are the 6 Things We're Dying to See
“How would I describe it?” Hampton said of the dynamic. “I don’t know! Weird, crazy, odd, what the hell is going on? The thing I do know is this, he doesn’t want to jump in the bed with her, but he would love a life with her. If he could have her every day and they could just solve cases that would be enough for him.”
One thing Hampton has been clear about: Sir will definitely be in the picture next season in some capacity.
“I don’t do the show without Mark-Paul,” she told Deadline.
Hampton described the scenes in the basement with her costar to The Hollywood Reporter as her “favorite days” on set.
“I’m finding it very easy because I get to work with Mark-Paul,” she said of her frequent scene partner. “He is the most giving person and one of the best partners I’ve ever had besides Steve Howey [her costar in Shameless], my best friend. He and I were able to find that thing that is just organic.”
As for Gosselaar, he described the plans for Season 2 as “unhinged.”
“We have gotten very broad strokes from our showrunner [Nkechi Okoro Carroll] and it all sounds unhinged and just amazing and can’t wait to get in there,” he told NBC Insider.
He dropped another telling hint about Sir’s future during an interview with Collider.
“I’ve been told one thing that I thought was interesting, and I don’t think I should tell you because it would be a reveal, but I know where he’s gonna go in the middle of the season and it makes sense,” Gosselaar said. “We’ve all wondered, ‘How long can this relationship sustain in an environment that has no boundaries?’ [Carroll] is gonna put Sir into something where he’s contained and he can stay in the picture for a long time.”.
How will Gabi’s team react to her secret?
The dynamic between Gabi and Sir isn’t the only relationship fans are left wondering about.
In the final moments of Season 1, fans saw Gabi finally coming clean to her team about her decision to hold Sir captive for months — and it doesn’t look like they took the news well. One by one, each team member left the conference room after the bombshell until Gabi was left in a fetal position on the floor.
“When we were shooting that last scene, there was something written that I was saying, but it was always going to just be their reactions onscreen. And to see each individual process what she said and then leave Gabi that gutted is just so emptying,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “The room got emptied out; everything got emptied out.”
According to Hampton, it will likely take some time before the team is ready to forgive their fearless leader.
“So what I know NK does and does well is, and what I think makes her different from a lot of creators, is she never rushes to the healing. There’s never a rush to the fix. That’s why there’s so many cliffhangers in every single episode,” Hampton said. “And because NBC, in all their genius, has given us 22 episodes for Season 2 to flesh out what that process looks like, my hope is that we, the audience, the characters, get to actually go through that process, because you don’t forgive your friend who lied to you on Monday on Thursday. We’re still going to be hashing it out.”
While Hampton admitted it's likely the relationships “can never be the same,” she said Season 2 will see the team trying to find their way to a “new normal.”
“You do wrong, you admit you’re wrong, you deal with the consequences of your actions. But at the end of the day, all of these people love each other and there’s still this underlying non-judgment, even though you can’t help but judge, right? So what I’m most excited about is the process, not the end result,” she told the outlet.
Will there be romance between Gabi and Detective Mark Trent?
One thing Hampton doesn’t see in the future? A romance between Gabi and Detective Mark Trent (Brett Dalton).
“I don’t think Gabi would allow that and here’s why. You know that song [by Erykah Badu] where she sings, ‘I guess I’ll see you next lifetime/No hard feelings.’ That’s where Gabi is in life, and also something that we don’t get to see on television,” she said. “Gabi can’t be in a relationship with anybody. She is so aware of people and their healing process, to bring someone into her chaos — as much as flesh would like to make that happen — it wouldn’t be fair to Trent.”
Hampton added that Trent will “probably need to go find somebody who didn’t lock a man up in her basement.”
NBC has already confirmed Season 2 for Found, which Hampton said will begin shooting in March.
Until then, viewers can catch up on Season 1 of Found streaming now on Peacock.
