Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 2 premiere of Found.The season 2 premiere of Found Watch the team begin to crumble under the weight of Gabi’s lies. After Zeke is poisoned by Lord and rushed to the hospital, Dan discovers that the tech whiz is in the process of writing a letter of resignation from Mosely & Associates. Thankfully, Zeke survives the attempted murder but has a panic attack in the emergency room due to being agoraphobic. He is quickly brought back home and briefed on the details of Lacey’s abduction.
It comes as no surprise that Zack planned to leave Gabi’s team after what he learned. However, Arlen Escarpeta shares that his character romanticizes some aspects of life, which may have led Zeke to put Gabi on a pedestal in Found Season 1. The actor shares that accepting Gabi’s faults will come as a challenge to Zeke, because the way he sees his leader affects the way he sees himself.
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Screen Rant Interviews Escarpeta about Zeke’s perception of Gabi, the identity of his kidnapper, and how the character will be affected by Lacey’s absence.
Zeke will be forced to grow up during Finding Season 2
“We’re going to have a good time unpacking that, unraveling the layers and seeing what’s behind the next version of Zeke.”
Screen Rant: I’m still reeling from the season 1 finale, so what were your thoughts when you found out what the cliffhanger was going to be?
Arlen Escarpeta: When I read the script, I just shook my head, and I was like, “Wait, so now what? What does that mean?” And literally all the questions that I think your regular audience has, I had the exact same questions. What does this mean for the team? where is he There were so many questions, and then I just laughed to myself.
I said, “Well, we’re going to have a good time getting all these things answered in Season 2.” It’s a special show. They find a really good balance of us doing, obviously, some amazing things and bringing families together and bringing people home, but you get these really amazing storylines that are just so intriguing from a creative standpoint. We are just in love with the show.
Me too. It really stands out from other procedurals.
Arlen Escarpeta: I think NK and NBC and Berlanti Productions – everybody really put their best foot forward. It’s creatively satisfying. It is obviously education in the sense that these things actually happened. You really learn about what’s going on when you’re just in your bubble.
In a good way, I think it kind of slows you down enough to obviously enjoy the show, but maybe you think once or twice about doubling back. Did you see something? Should you say something? Should you make the call? And you just never know how you can be impactful and really help someone in any way, shape or form. We have something going well, I think.
How does the truth about Lord affect Zeke’s perception of Gabi throughout season 2?
Arlen Escarpeta: It changes across the board. Gabi is not perfect. Even before you get to the agoraphobia part of it, I think Zik romanticizes a lot of things, whether it’s the relationships that he has in his life or the people that are around him. He lives in a place where he creates a very safe place for himself, and it’s supposed to look a certain way, and people are a certain way – especially Mosely & Associates, the adopted family for him, were boundaries against the outsiders World. They were safe and amazing and beautiful, and now he’s resolved that Gabi isn’t perfect, Gabi is flawed, Gabi is human.
I think it will be very challenging for Zeke, not only for how he sees her, but how he sees himself. We’re going to have a good time unpacking that, unraveling the layers, and seeing what’s behind the next version of Zeke because he’s going to have to grow. These are the pains he is going through. And it’s interesting because even though Zack is agoraphobic and can’t go outside, everything still catches him. It will be interesting to see how he lives within the walls of his house, how he makes sense of it all without the outlet of going outside and so forth.
Found Season 2 delivers pieces of Zeke’s ominous backstory
“If anyone knows, I’d have to imagine Gabi knows.”
There is so much about Zeke that we still don’t know. Will we dive into his past and backstory more during season 2?
Arlen Escarpeta: I think you get pieces of it. But, here’s the thing. Zeke, as open as you see him, has a mask on. His mask is his clothes, it’s the sweaters, it’s his hair, it’s the computers, it’s all these things. It’s very much still a mask for him that allows him to be a part of the team without necessarily dealing with some of the trauma that’s inside. And I think our team, across the board, we all do that.
We set aside our own trauma to do the good work of helping others because it feels good, but there is a part of us that still neglects the work we need to do on ourselves. Here we are for season 2, and Zeke is going to have to really figure out how to find that balance and make it make sense for him, just for him.
He opened up a little in the finale. Zeke tells the team that he was kidnapped by his uncle. Will this be expanded upon?
Arlen Escarpeta: Diving into Zeke’s kidnapping and what he has told us so far with him guarded, there is so much that Zeke still holds close to the vest. If anyone knows, I would have to imagine that Gabi knows. They met each other through online therapy, which we learned in the pilot episode, so I figured there were some things that might have been shared there, but no one else, I don’t think.
Maybe Lacey, maybe Dan, but I think Zeke still wants people to look at him the way they looked at him. Once the truths are revealed and opened up, perhaps Zeke doesn’t want the rest of the team looking at him that way. I’m still not sure what he’s protecting us from, but I think that when we peel back the layers, it will be something that will definitely touch our hearts, because I think that’s what Zeke does. He absolutely opens your heart and makes you feel something.
Zeke and Lacey are close. How does her kidnapping affect him?
Arlen Escarpeta: I think Lacey’s kidnapping affects Zeke in good ways and bad ways. Zeke has to be brave in a good way. He must be brave. He needs to find a way to be part of the solution between the truth and the lie Gabi has been keeping all this time. We’ll have to find out because Lacey is missing right now. Lord she said. The bad part is that Mitt Lacey is not there, Zeke now has to see if he is strong enough to stand alone.
He can’t necessarily talk to Dan or Marc or Gabi for that matter because we’re all broken up right now. We are all in different spaces and times, and how we would normally communicate with one another is not where we are now. We are a very broken family, and no one answers their phone, and we are in different rooms, and the doors are closed. We’re not sitting down with the same powwows that we would have before. It will be interesting to see how we figure things out as a team and as a family.
Escarpeta believes that not knowing Zeke’s full story benefits his performance
“The unknown is just as creatively interesting as the actual knowledge.”
Is there a storyline you’d like to see explored for Zeke that the show hasn’t had the chance to do yet?
Arlen Escarpeta: Oh, that’s so interesting. I didn’t imagine anything, but I asked questions, just things that I don’t know, and they would answer with “Do you want to know?” And my answer back is, “You know what? Not yet. I don’t want to know yet,” because the unknown is just as creatively interesting as the actual knowledge. And so for me, as the actor, not knowing too much is definitely a benefit. Knowing enough is what I need, so I’m not playing the end too soon.
And at least for the moment, I really get to enjoy the unknown. I get to play with the fact that Zeke keeps so much close to his vest. When I’m shooting my scenes, there are times when I look over through the monitors and I see the hugging, I see the families being reunited. I see the team working together to try to get things done. They run out the door, and all of these things are happening.
And I have the quiet moments of Zeke where I’m alone, and I’m really just thinking and creating scenarios of what Zeke is thinking about why he can’t leave the house, of what he would like to do if he could leave the house. How much he wants to be on the other side. Right now, I have a great balance of both ofthese worlds, but I’m definitely looking forward to what truths and realities they bring to me that I get to play, hopefully, in season 2, and well into seasons 3 , 4, 5, and 6, and for many years to come.
Like you said, the team is fractured this season, but is there a dynamic from Season 1 that you really enjoyed for Zeke?
Arlen Escarpeta: I love the Zeke and Dhan storyline. I love that they started out as opposites, but they bonded over such an honest friendship, where they get to now, where they initially butted heads. I also love Zeke and Lacey’s growing relationship of them trying to figure out what’s out there. “Are we friends? Are we more than friends? I just like having you around. You listen to me.” It’s different when you’re talking to one person versus another. And so I think Zeke is able to have a different type of relationship with all the M&A.
What he gets from Gabi is a tremendous amount of strength and bravery because that’s what she represents. What he gets from that, I think, is, “Oh wow, somebody’s been where I’ve been, and he’s come out of it, look where he is now. That’s hope.” And then when Zeke talks to Lacey, Lacey is very much like, “You’re still very much a child in your head and your emotions are like mine, so I can relate to you on that level.” And then when Zeke talks to Margaret, there’s the trauma that’s really actively still happening – a woman who’s been going to the bus station every night for years, looking for faces and looking for eyes, looking for her son, but she’s turned into something So strong that now she helps other people.
All the different relationships that Zeke has serve him in different ways. I think, in the best way to say it, it’s his senses. Of course, there’s the computer and there’s the drones and everything like that, but the relationship and how he connects with them, it’s eyes, ears, sound and touch. Zeke gets to experience the outside world through all the M & A. And I think that’s the most special thing about Mosely & Associates for Zeke. This is what they represent for him. They left him.
About NBC’s drama series Found
Created by Nkechi Okoro Carroll
In any given year, more than 600,000 people are reported missing in the US. Public relations specialist, Gabi Mosely (series star and producer Shanola Hampton), who was once herself one of the forgotten ones, and her crisis management team make sure that there is always someone looking out for the missing.
Gabi, however, has a chilling secret: in the midst of grief, she imprisons her childhood kidnapper, Lord (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). Now Lord has escaped and is on the loose, and her biggest secret is now her biggest threat.
Check out our other interviews with these Found cast:
Found Season 2 airs Thursdays on NBC at 10pm ET/PT.