Found Season 1 Episode 8 Review: Missing While Homeless

“You were his oxygen.”

Found Season 1 Episode 8, “Missing While Homeless,” reveals more about how Sir sees Gabi along with the fact that he’s remained obsessed with her for years. It also proves that regardless of being the one in chains, Sir has figured out how to get the upper hand. 

The episode opens with Gabi rushing to the basement to see if Sir is still locked up. She’s prepared for a fight and displays a level of genuine fear that we haven’t yet seen from her character.

But Sir is still in chains. Whatever “credible sighting” Trent has reports of, it has nothing to do with Sir. 

Gabi, of course, can’t tell anyone that she knows it’s not him. This leaves Trent perplexed and frustrated, and Lacey feeling even more conflicted. What Trent does know, however, is that Sir has been tracking Gabi… for years. Gabi asks why he’d been following her, and he simply replies, “We belong together.”

This begs the question: did he want her to catch him? Gabi realizes in talking to Sir that he wants to be locked up in that basement — at least because it means he gets to be with her. 

That smirk Sir gives when he suggests Gabi take off his chains to find out if he wants to be there or not tells us everything we need to know. Not to mention, it’s creepy as hell.

Meanwhile, the search for Sir means more people are showing up at Gabi’s home, which puts her secret at risk. It also gives Sir a way to gain back power. 

He figures out that “Heavy Boots” is a cop, and he continues to show jealousy and controlling tendencies over the fact that Gabi has a man in the house. 

Then he claims the upper hand by threatening to scream when he hears a woman upstairs. He won’t, he says, as long as Gabi says that she needs him, that they are partners, and that she loves him.

His desperation to hear her say that she loves them provides even more insight into this fascinating, lonely, deeply disturbed man. Gabi says it because she has to, and it’s another groundbreaking emotional moment for her character. It’s the kind of moment we’ve been needing to see for a while. 

This is all just before Sir collapses after realizing Gabi has drugged his food. For a brief moment, she gets the power back. But it doesn’t last. 

Because Sir is perceptive enough to figure out that the young woman he heard in the house was none other than Bella. And here’s where we learn more about Sir’s unhealthy obsession with Gabi.

He blames Bella for “ruining” the family dynamic he had created with Gabi. And in his search for Gabi, he says he had also been searching for Bella — but out of vengeance.

It’s here that he makes it clear what his intentions are. If Gabi ever lets him go, or if he’s ever able to break free, he’ll find a way to kill Bella. 

Mark-Paul Gosselaar continues to shine in this role. He makes for a terrifying villain, and yet also continues to have moments that evoke deep sympathy. He plays every layer with nuance — his brilliance, his obsession, his volatility, and “his moral code.”

In that last scene, however, when he threatens Bella, every word out of his mouth is chilling. 

The difference between how Sir sees Bella and how he sees Gabi makes for an interesting distinction. Gabi was the favorite — a fact that even Bella understands clearly now, telling Gabi, “You were his oxygen.”

After all, we can’t forget that Bella was kidnapped because Gabi said she was feeling lonely. Sir’s attachment to Gabi means she was a different kind of kidnapping victim for him.

Meanwhile, there’s still the case of the week, and this one puts the spotlight on Dahn again.

Dahn stumbles upon a missing persons case when he visits a homeless encampment where most everyone seems to know him well. It becomes apparent that Dahn visits this encampment often and that he has significant friendships with several of the people there. 

Right away, a woman named Mack comes to Dahn in tears, saying that her partner, Sampson, had gone missing. What’s worse, she felt certain he was planning to kill himself. 

The case not only explores the dynamics of the encampment but also reveals a tragic past for the missing man. He’d been responsible for the death of his wife and son — their house caught fire when he fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand.

While he’s clearly tried to move on, with friends, a relationship, and dreams of traveling the world in an RV, the anniversary of their death sends him to a dark place emotionally. 

The search for Sampson, then, has a ticking clock. The team works to find him before he’s able to take his own life. As usual, though, they couldn’t do it without Sir, even though the only person who knows this fact is Gabi. 

But they also couldn’t do it without Dahn’s vulnerability. Over the course of just eight episodes, he is perhaps the character that’s changed the most. He’s learning to let his guard down with the other team members at Mosely and Associates, and here, he shows more vulnerability when speaking to the press about his missing friend. 

Thankfully, the case has a happy ending. Dahn and Gabi find Sampson in time and convince him not to take his own life.

He’s then reunited with Mack, and declares to Dahn that he hopes to get himself together the way Dahn did. It hints at the fact that Dahn was likely living at that encampment at one point too. 

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Found airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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