As NBC's Found Returns With A Major Loss, Does It Work As A Replacement For Law And Order: Organized Crime?

Christopher Meloni in Law & Order: Organized Crime 4x05 and Shanola Hampton in Found 2x02
(Image credit: Virginia Sherwood/NBC - Matt Miller/NBC)

NBC changed up its Thursday night lineup for the fall 2024 TV schedule with Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5's move to streaming for fans with a Peacock subscription. Found, starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Shanola Hampton, has aired its first episode in its new time slot following Law & Order: SVU, which is enough to speculate how well it will do as a replacement for Organized Crime. Especially after the major loss!

Gabi's Loss In Found's Season 2 Premiere

Spoilers ahead for the first episode of Found Season 2.

After Found's first season ended with Gabi coming clean to her team, Lacey wasn't taking the phone calls that would have spared her from being kidnapped by Sir. Since the show is often fairly procedural when it comes to cases, I honestly thought that Lacey would be located – for better or worse – before the final credits rolled on the Season 2 premiere. The loss of Lacey would be temporary, whether she was safe or not when Gabi and Co. found her.

Instead, Sir still has Lacey in his clutches, and Gabi is short on allies other than Dhan. Based on the official trailer for Season 2 and how the premiere picked up where the cliffhanger left off, it seems like a safe bet that Found will be partially serialized with Lacey's kidnapping and partly procedural, with new cases each week and Sir helping – or "helping" – from afar.

It's definitely not another installment in the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe to fit seamlessly in with Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU like Law & Order: Organized Crime did, but how will it work on NBC's Thursdays?

Is Found The New Organized Crime?

As a fan of the three Law & Order shows grouped together in NBC's lineup, I wasn't sure how well Found would fit in as Organized Crime's replacement. I'm optimistic now, though, and not just because I enjoyed the heck out of Found's first season. From the start, Organized Crime was a departure from the other Law & Order series by embracing more of a serialized format without losing all of the elements from Christopher Meloni's procedural roots on SVU.

And I think the similarities in a balance between procedural and serialization makes Found the best option of NBC's lineup to fit into the newly-vacant slot on Thursday nights. The Irrational might have been a good fit as well – not least because Jesse L. Martin is one of the Law & Order actors to appear in the most episodes with a total of 202 – but Found strikes me as a good option. (Fun fact: Mark-Paul Gosselaar starred in a memorable episode of Law & Order: SVU back in 2001.)

It remains to be seen if Found will remain paired with Law & Order: SVU on Thursday nights. You can find new episodes on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET, or stream them next day via Peacock. It also remains to be seen how long it will take Gabi and Co. to find Lacey – if they do at all – but it should be an eventful ride either way. As for Law & Order: Organized Crime, no premiere date for Season 5 has been announced at the time of writing.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).