Found Episode 3 Missing While Widowed Review And Recap- Shanola Hampton, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Kelli Williams Are Electric In An Emotional Episode

Found is a sneaky show. It presents as a clever procedural with strategically placed bits of drama, but really, it is an emotional cat-and-mouse game that has been going on for decades. The complexity of the characters and the traumas they collectively deal with, coupled with the electric performances from the talented cast, elevate this series above the rest. Found Episode 3 was a clear example of why we can’t stop watching this addictive show. Three storylines rounded out the episode packed with emotionally charged high notes and seething low ones.

The kidnap victim of the week is Reggie, a seventy-something-year-old Black gay man who was recently widowed. The doorman of the building where he lives came to the Mosely Agency for help. Reggie’s niece didn’t realize he had gone missing and failed to recognize the tone and style of his texts had changed. At first, Gabi and the group thought Hollis, his niece, was involved because she had conned people out of money before, but she was just a neglectful family member. Courtesy of a heart condition, Reggie’s life is on a clock. If he isn’t found very soon, he will have a heart attack and could die. At Reggie’s bank, they discover several unusual withdrawals that Reggie’s banker claims were made by Hollis. Later, they determine that Julian, the banker, is really to blame, thanks to Sir’s help.

Detective Trent continues to be both an ally and a complication for Gabi. He has to follow police protocol, resulting in an alert that Gabi thinks might cost Reggie his life, and he and Gabi are attracted to each other. They are drawn to one another, and that attraction will only intensify. Keeping a man chained in your basement is going to be hard to hide once they start their inevitable affair. She is keeping him at arm’s length for now, but that can’t last forever.

After they caught Julian and he refused to tell them Reggie’s whereabouts, Dahn beat the information out of him. Luckily, Gabi had plenty of dirt on him and was able to leverage that information to keep him from pressing charges against Dahn. In an achingly tender moment, the doorman Cliff and Reggie connect, and we witness the beginning of a lovely relationship. Found Episode 3 continues the lost, found, and touching resonance structure.

Margaret is so much more than a gifted observationalist. So often on shows like this, the behaviorists are treated like one-dimensional characters who aren’t much more than their talents—a parlor trick to be trotted out and oohed over but very little else. In Found Episode 3, Margaret hasn’t just revealed her backstory, but it is wrung out of her in agonizing detail. She, like most of the Mosely Agency, is a broken woman. Knowing how she developed what is lovingly called a superpower makes her accomplishments more meaningful and impressive.

The night her son went missing, her life changed irreparably. She went from a wife and mother of three to someone on a mission who couldn’t care for anyone. Her missing son became her religion, obsession, and the only thing keeping her going. Was turning her back on her remaining family, right? Of course not, but humanizing her pain and behavior makes her real. When her daughter asks for her to sign emancipation papers, it is devastating but understandable. She hasn’t been a parent to her for a long time. Margaret just wasn’t capable of it. She still isn’t, so she does the only thing she can and signs it using the pen her missing son loved. It’s a poetically bleak end to their relationship, but maybe they can eventually find common ground.

There are bad boys, and then there are really bad boys. Neither is good for us. Most people have had a romantic entanglement with someone terrible for them. The person who is exciting but dangerous, sexy but emotionally unavailable, and sometimes just awful for our self-esteem. Those of us lucky enough to break those patterns find the right person before having our confidence destroyed. Simmering just below the surface of Gabi and Sir’s dynamic is a weird chemistry. They dance around each other, posturing and asserting authority, but neither is entirely in control. Sir has never changed and likely never will, although that would be a development I admit to having a sick fascination with.

Gabi thinks she has control because she has Sir confined. She calls the shots. Gabi dictates when he eats, bathes, reads, sleeps, and moves. He can’t make any decisions, yet he can still get inside her mind. Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Sir isn’t just a gaslighter. He is a manipulation expert. He implants memories that never existed and can make Gabi feel guilty about things she isn’t responsible for. Sir deflected the blame for kidnapping Lacey onto Gabi by making her believe she asked for someone to keep her company. As we see later, it wasn’t true, but he is still to blame even if it were. Gabi was just a child herself when Sir took her. Sir was an adult and in a position of power over her. Nothing that happened could have been her fault.

In addition to this interesting wrinkle in their relationship are two threads I can’t stop pulling on. What did Sir do for a living during Gabi’s captivity and in the years before she found him again? How did he hide for so long and a man like him would be highly successful? He would be meticulous and driven to excel in any position. Is no one looking for him? The other is he told Gabi she was his first kidnappee. Assuming this is true, which is iffy, did he take no one after Gabi and Lacey in all the years between? Twenty years is a long time, and with his compulsive nature and massive ego, it hardly seems plausible he wouldn’t take someone else.

Shame and guilt are regrets from the past, informing our futures. There are some things we should feel guilty about and use to change our behaviors. Others are things we had no control over and thus have nothing to feel bad about. Likely, shame has prevented Margaret from moving on. It makes Gabi ice Lacey out on occasion, which drives Gabi to find others and keep Sir chained up. She does it to take back control when she feels he has none. She only tells herself she took him and uses his expertise to save others. That is only a tiny part of the equation. She feels guilty that she let herself get taken and guilty she couldn’t save Lacey sooner. Gabi now devotes herself to finding others to assuage that guilt. Found Episode 3 makes that clear.

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