NBC’s FOUND returns for its second season Thursday, October 3rd and we couldn’t be more excited — especially after visiting the set a few months ago, during production.

In the middle of interviewing actor Brett Dalton, who plays Detective Mark Trent, the star of the show Shanola Hampton arrives, her voice ringing out loud and clear as she greets everyone within her path on the sprawling soundstage.

“You can’t help but know where Shanola is at all times,” Dalton laughed.

Later in the day when Hampton sits down to interview, she tells GlobalGrind that one of her favorite parts of being one of the show’s producers is helping to keep spirits high on set.

“That was one of the things that I knew coming off of Shameless that I wanted to be more and throughout the rest of my career, more than just an actor for hire and not just for the sake to be of being hyphenated but because I do the job of a producer and handle and manage so many things on set and have a voice that I’m like, ‘Yeah I should be a producer.’

“I am the one that is boots on the ground every single day,” Hampton continued. “So my relationships with the crew are way more intimate, the struggles that they go through, the things that they need, managing different personalities, helping the actors navigate all of that, is something that I do on the daily. Then, I go in front of the camera and say some lines because that is my job, and I really love that part of the job. I like being here every single day and knowing them so intimately and being able to do a small part in making their experience and this work experience, which I like to call a family experience greater.”

“I think that people forget that when you go to work that you’re working with humans,” Hampton said. “I think sometimes we get so caught up in work-work-work-work-work and we forget to do the human connection, so we never start our day and just start and work. Every day starts ‘Hi, how are you ?’ And a hug. I’m a hugger. I know that some people don’t love that and then you could just punch me and push me away, but for me a hug is a heart-to-heart connection. It’s an energy exchange and if I don’t hug you that means that I don’t want your energy.”

In a lot of ways, Hampton’s leadership mirrors her FOUND character Gabi Mosely — who is both captain of her crew and champion of them and their clients. Season 2 will turn that dynamic topsy-turvy as the rest of the Mosely & Associates are now aware of the human-sized secret she’s been keeping in her basement — and not everyone on the team is ready to extend her grace.

“How do you allow yourself to get so taken by a low moment that you are so sad and so hurt and so angry that you do the unthinkable,” Shanola told GlobalGrind “And then once you have done the unthinkable how do you get out of the unthinkable? it just festers and it grows and then the lies start small and then they go bigger and bigger and you before you know it, it has escaped you. So there is nothing about her that feels justified in the choices that she made, but the one bad choice that she made shouldn’t define her whole existence and I think that’s one of the themes that we’ll try to see throughout this, but Gabi is not able to realize that for herself.”

Now that the cat is out of the bag, Mosely is trying her best to make up for it, but throughout most of Season 2, she is her own toughest critic.

“One mistake doesn’t define you but for her she’s like ‘Beat me, be mad at me, yell at me, I deserve it all.’” Hampton told GlobalGrind. ” I wanna do my penance. This is what I’ve done, the worst thing that I can do and I know that I save people. I think it is so hard to watch at some point because it goes on, the healing takes a long time.”

Throughout Season 1 Mosely and Detective Trent maintained a level of flirtation that seemed to be building toward romance, but Hampton quickly shuts down the notion that Mosely might find some comfort from a relationship with Trent.

“That’s done and if you think about it from the sense of — as much as you want to cheer relationships on, a lot of it has to do with because you’re watching television and that’s what you’re used to seeing — the hero has a love interest and you’re not thinking about where this person is in life,” Hampton said. “What could she possibly do in a relationship when she hasn’t done her own work but bring a bunch of baggage to someone who doesn’t deserve that? I think what’s beautiful is, you take the will-they, won’t-they, at this point, where would it go? Where the secret is out, what forget that. I think that if Gabi is to find that love and that partner it would have to be a fresh someone who hasn’t gone on that journey and after she has done her own healing and work. And why not that be the message that we need anyway for our young girls? To say you don’t need to be in a relationship to you do your own work.”

Still, when we relay the message to Dalton that the ship has sailed, he’s not completely convinced that hope doesn’t still float for Trent and Mosely.

“I feel like Gabi occupies a particular blind spot for Trent,” Dalton told GlobalGrind. “He is somebody who is still deeply in love with this person and they still have the same mission as well. Trent is a by the book detective and there are 1,000,001 things that Gabi has gotten away with that he’s looked the other way on, so I think that there is, if not a romantic relationship, I think that they will hopefully find some way to at least work together. Once feelings are there I don’t know, Shanola said the door was shut but I think that if anybody’s got the key, it’s probably her. Who knows what the future holds? Gabi can also be very convincing, so as far as Trent goes, he’s mad but he’s not that mad.”

Of course, Season 2 will continue to explore the relationship that is the very foundation of the show — the one that exists, whether she likes it or not, between Mosely and her abductor, Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), who has escaped and is set on tormenting Gabi and those closest to her.

“I was excited because they open up more with his character and the people that he would come in contact with and I knew it would be a challenge and it was,” Gosselaar told GlobalGrind. “It’s been nonstop. There were a few episodes where it was just really hard. Some of the things that Sir does are pretty dark. It was difficult at times.”

“It’s difficult when you’re doing it week in and week out,” Gosselaar continued. “On a television show, you are learning more about the character every week, whereas with a film you have all that – beginning, middle, the end — you have it all right in front of you. On a television show, the character will progress along with you. Sometimes it’s really difficult. It’s hard to stay in something for that long as well, but one thing I’m thankful for is being able to work here in Atlanta and my family is in California so I travel back and forth. I basically long-distance commute. I don’t live here. I basically do my work and I go back home, but it’s on that plane ride where I can decompress and watch YouTube videos and watch a movie, which is just getting out of character and making sure that when I get come home I’m a husband and father and not Sir because that would be bad.”

Gosselaar also opened up about the work he’s done to mentally prepare to play such a dark character, noting that his “look,” is exactly why so many real-life predators are able to get away with their crimes.

“When you look at me on the surface you would probably think, ‘Well he doesn’t look like a serial kidnapper, like why would why would he need to kidnap somebody?’” Gosselaar noted. “We let people ride because of the way they look. Like, ‘They can’t possibly be…’ Because of how they look. We all do it. It’s just a human quality. It’s not a great one, it gets us into a lot of trouble. History has shown us what we do when we when we stereotype.”

MP — as Shanola calls him, says ultimately executive producer/showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll provided a specific reference that helped him find Sir.

“Who could NK give me that closely had similarities to Sir?” Gosselaar recalled. “And it was Ted Bundy, so I did a deep dive on Ted Bundy. Obviously studying a serial killer, there’s a lot of things I wish I didn’t have in my head and not just that but playing this character has been a challenge and that’s something that we’re always looking for as actors is doing something that fulfills you and challenges you, especially being on a television show that at the core is a procedural. To be able to play a character which is solely there to sort of expand the other characters — the entire time has been a really special thing for me and I feel very fortunate that NK trusted me with that.”

Big kudos to Okoro Carroll, who was mentioned lovingly by every actor we spoke with on set. It also turns out that Carroll gave Sir at least one good characteristic, according to Gosselaar, and that is his love of literature.

“It’s funny I quote a lot of books, and so I end up going to search and then next thing I know I’m going down the rabbit hole,” Gosselaar told GlobalGrind. “I get really wrapped up into it and involved. It’s fun to play a character who’s vastly more intelligent than I am and just superior and all literary. It’s fun to play a character like that. That’s probably the only thing that is kind of his only redeeming quality. It’s the only thing he’s given me back.”

“When I played Paul Johnson on Mixed-ish that particular character was such a good dad. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh if I just use some of Paul’s wisdom of how to navigate these waters..’ That was one of those, come home after a day’s worth of work and be a better father. But the only thing Sir’s giving me is knowledge and love of literature.”

At least he gave Gosselaar something, because from what we’ve seen of this season — Sir is back to doing what he’s most hated for this season and that is taking!

Season 2 of FOUND premieres Thursday, October 3 at 10pm EST! We will definitely be tuned in!