Sir Is Out of Prison on Found - and Working with [SPOILER]?! "He Loves the Game..."
If NBC's hit procedural has taught us anything, it's that you can't keep Hugh Evans locked up for very long.
**SPOILER WARNING! The following contains major spoilers for Found Season 2, Episode 19!**
If NBC's Found has taught us anything, it's that you can't keep Hugh Evans (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) locked up for very long.
Despite the fact that Gabi Mosely's (Shanola Hampton) ex-kidnapper has been locked up in a maximum security prison cell since Episode 11 ("Missing While Misunderstood"), the master manipulator known as "Sir" continues to find ways to slip through the bars — both literally and figuratively. Using all of his cunning and charm, he's able to bend guards and, based on the conclusion of tonight's new episode, "Missing While a Casualty," even agents of the FBI to his will.
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"The thing that people have to remember is Sir is so brilliantly smart, that there’s no amount of lock and key that can ever really [hold him]," notes creator, showrunner, and executive producer Nkechi Okoro Carroll tells NBC Insider. "He may be contained in a room or in a cell, but there’s no containing Sir and we really get to see that in its full effect in [these] final episodes."
Wait, is Sir now working for the FBI on Season 2 of Found?!
While Gabi, Margaret (Kelli Williams), Lacey (Gabrielle Walsh), and Dhan (Karan Oberoi) pay their last respects to Hugh's late brother, Christian Evans (Michael Cassidy) — who was murdered by their half-sister Lena (Danielle Savre) — a black SUV pulls up the cemetery and disgorges Sir himself, dressed in a crisp suit and a pair of handcuffs. He's accompanied by a man wearing sunglasses and a government-looking earpiece.
"How is this possible?" asks Margaret.
"That's the FBI," replies Dhan.
Lacey continues: "He's made himself valuable to them. We need to find out how..."
Found stars talk Sir's new connection with the FBI
Speaking with NBC Insider over Zoom, Gosselaar explains that Sir's friendship with the FBI is just another case of him "manipulating the people surrounding him to further his obsession with Gabi and trying to stay relevant in her life. He's using people just to get closer to her."
"'I can never rid myself of this person,' is what's going through [Gabi's] mind," adds Hampton, who also serves as a producer on the show. "Every time she thinks that there's a break from this crazy, toxic cycle, he finds a way to maneuver and she then has to maneuver. It's a game of chicken. It's always cat and mouse. He loves the game and she is exhausted, and still has a whole team to take care of. [The other members of M&A] are going through their own stuff, so it's a lot. Sir's main focus is Gabi [while] her focus is so many other things, and trying to find the missing people. It's really a lot on her, and it's been heavy for her all of Season 2."
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Brett Dalton, who plays Detective Mark Trent, describes the unexpected partnership as "ridiculous" and a proverbial slap in the face to protagonists who spent so much time trying to make Sir pay for his crimes.
"This is a problem that just won't go away," Dalton says. "[You’d think that] when we arrest this person, we’re never gonna hear from him again. Instead, we hear from him all the time. He's calling both me and Gabi; he's making deals, he's outsmarting us, and sneaking in cell phones. This guy just won't go away. So on some level, it's not surprising that there is a deal with the FBI; that he's that many steps ahead of all of us. But on another level, it is the most frustrating thing that this person is just constantly there. He is a thorn permanently buried in all of our sides, and as soon as you think you've removed it, something else happens."
What to expect from the rest of Found Season 2
Only three episodes of Found Season 2 remain, with Hampton promising that audiences will go "on a real ride" alongside the main characters they've grown to love. "There is a line in the sand," she adds. "There are not as many scenes with Mark-Paul and I together, but the scenes where we are together are earned. [These final episodes] really answer a lot of the questions."
"A lot comes to a head in those final three episodes ... We get to see what it looks like when Gabi is pushed to the brink and we get to see [that] Sir isn’t [just] her personal monster anymore," echoes Carroll. "He’s all of their personal monsters in a way now because he’s touched all of their lives over the course of the season. And so, you get to see the flip side to how the season started, with them so shattered and broken apart and trying to figure out how to make it work. In these final three episodes, you get to see how the beautiful pieces of that fractured glass all come back together and how they’re strongest when they are bonded together. [Plus you've got] the incredible cases that they continue to take on across the final episodes, even while dealing with arguably the most high-octane, stressful hunt of a lifetime."
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While not as urgent, there's also the question of what will happen between Zeke (Arlen Escarpeta) and Lacey following the former's breakdown during the blizzard in last week's episode. Jamie (Parker Queenan) broaches the subject in this week's episode, asking why "things are weird with your girlfriend," though Zeke denies any official relationship status.
"One of my hands-down favorite scenes this season is when Jamie and Zeke have a conversation about dating," Carroll says. "Jamie has a lot of opinions on how it’s supposed to work and what Zeke’s supposed to be doing and why it’s not working out. It was just such a beautiful scene between the two of them. But then also, it’s Jamie, who’s the youngest of the bunch, calling Zeke out on, ‘What are you doing about Lacey, man?’ That’s been a beautiful breath of fresh air on the show, is the will-they-won’t-they of Lacey and Zeke."
New episodes of Found air Thursdays on NBC at 10 p.m. ET and stream next day on Peacock.
