Kaitlin Olson and Daniel Sunjata, High Potential
Disney/Bahareh Ritter
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for High Potential Season 2, Episode 7, “The One That Got Away.” Read at your own risk!]
In her work as a consultant for the LAPD, Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson) has always tended to lead more with her head than her heart, helping the authorities to put away criminals who are evading the wheels of justice. But in the fall finale of High Potential, as she helps to investigate the theft of a priceless Rembrandt painting in a museum heist, the boldly dressed savant ends up letting the emotions get the better of her, leading her to make an impulsive choice that cracks her latest investigation wide open.
The thief, as it turns out, was likely hiding in plain sight all along. After they were first assigned to the case, Morgan and her partner Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) were introduced to Rhys Eastman (All My Children alum Aiden Turner), a quick-witted, sharply-dressed art recovery specialist who was enlisted by the insurance company of the stolen artwork to assist with the investigation. Morgan understandably wasn’t too thrilled about the prospect of solving a case just to save an insurance company from cutting a big check, but when Rhys managed to get a lead about the whereabouts of the painting at the gallery where it was stolen, she couldn’t help but tag along.
The thought of Morgan and Rhys returning to the crime scene without any kind of police back-up, however, infuriated Wagner (Steve Howey), the new captain of the Major Crimes Division who unexpectedly blew up at Morgan in front of the rest of the station. Needless to say, after Wagner accused her of insubordination, Morgan was pissed off.
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As they commiserated at a local bar over being kicked off the case, Rhys flirted with Morgan, who reciprocated his interest. But during their steamy makeout session in Rhys’ hotel room, Morgan realized that Rhys might be the art thief that she has been hunting for — he had a scar on his left shoulder from being shot while fleeing a heist gone wrong in Madrid; he claimed to be the only person in the world who does what he does, giving him the perfect cover to commit 19 heists around the globe with the same MO; and he had a suspicious looking container in his room that may have been housing stolen paintings.
“What she’s thinking in that moment is, ‘Why does my brain keep putting me into these situations? Why am I so impulsive?’ She is also unpredictable, even with herself. She never knows what she’s going to do or say in the next moment,” executive producer and showrunner Todd Harthan tells TV Guide. “So I think it’s shock, frustration, just all the emotions rushing to the forefront of her beautiful brain at the same time, which is overwhelming.”
As she attempted to process the swirl of emotions in her head after almost sleeping with a criminal, a more violent storm was brewing in Morgan’s family life. While at home babysitting her younger half-siblings, Morgan’s daughter, Ava (Amirah J), decided to go through her mom’s colorful closet and found a business card for Arthur (Mekhi Phifer), the landscaper who claimed to be in contact with Ava’s father, Roman, after his disappearance. Ava decided to call Arthur without telling her mother, and Arthur agreed to find a time for him to sit down with Morgan and Ava to have a real conversation about Roman.
But in the final moments of the episode, viewers discovered that Arthur was being tailed by a mysterious man (played by John Pyper-Ferguson) — the same man who appeared in a photograph that was found in Roman’s backpack, which Arthur had given to Morgan earlier in the season.
Below, Harthan teases how all of those cliffhangers will set up an intriguing back half of the season, which the showrunner promises will deliver some “satisfying” answers about Roman’s whereabouts while fleshing out the rest of the characters in Morgan’s orbit.
Let’s start with the most obvious cliffhanger: Morgan realizes that Rhys Eastman, the handsome private art investigator that she is hooking up with, may be the art thief that has been eluding her in this stolen Rembrandt case. How does Morgan feel about the fact that she was briefly outsmarted by this man, and how does that revelation set up the midseason premiere?
Todd Harthan: Oh man, I’m going to try to channel my inner Kaitlin Olson. [Laughs.] What she’s thinking in that moment is, “Why does my brain keep putting me into these situations? Why am I so impulsive?” She is also unpredictable, even with herself. She never knows what she’s going to do or say in the next moment. So I think it’s shock, frustration, just all the emotions rushing to the forefront of her beautiful brain at the same time, which is overwhelming. And by the way, it’s a blast when we come back because that’s her head space as she comes charging in for our midseason premiere. I think the fun for any hero when they do get outsmarted on the A-side is, how are they going to win on the B-side? “I may have lost this round, but we’re still playing.” That’s what we have to look forward to.
What can you say about this thief’s motivations? Why did he target this specific Rembrandt painting?
Harthan: It’s a really great question, and it’s a question we answer, I think, in a really satisfying and surprising way in our premiere, because I think we want the audience going, “But why? Why play this game? Why go after this painting? Why do all of this in the orbit of somebody like Morgan?” I think that one of the things we always try to do on the show is lead the audience to believe we’re headed down one path and then completely flip the narrative on its head. So that’s what we plan on doing. It really is the surprise of the next episode, and I hope that it’s as satisfying for everybody as it was when the writers’ room came up with it. I thought it was such a cool reveal and twist.
In the midseason finale, Ava goes behind Morgan’s back and calls Arthur, and the two agree to find a time for them and Morgan to have a real conversation about Roman. But at the end of the episode, Arthur is tailed by the same man in the photograph that Soto found in Roman’s backpack after Morgan asked her to investigate its contents. How will this new character fit into the larger story going forward, and how did you want to push the Roman storyline forward in the first half of the season?
Harthan: One of the things we wanted to dig deeper on is, we wanted to talk to people that either knew Roman or were in his orbit when he went missing 15 years ago. The reason why the instinct was to do that is I don’t love stories that rely on files and photographs, and the challenge of a missing person and a cold case is that you’re often dealing with no crime scene and you’re not interfacing with people that can give you interesting, compelling bombshell-type information. So the character that you’re referencing — that really starts to bloom in the episodes coming in the back half of our season. He’s somebody that has the kind of information that starts to fill in blanks that I think will be satisfying for the audience and move us closer to what actually happened. Where might Roman actually be? Who is the head of the snake? Who did all this to him?
Have you actually cast an actor to play Roman yet?
Harthan: No. Roman is a really important piece of casting, and I think it’s OK to say that we’re casting somebody to play the role at some point because we know he’s alive. We confirmed that last season. But when we unpack and introduce this character is something that continues to fluctuate. I couldn’t tell you today, honestly, that “This is when I plan on this character coming into the fold,” because it’s such a rich, interesting story that I don’t want to leave story on the table, if that makes sense. Because the second you unpack, there he is, and he’s in our world. [The writers are considering] “Are there twists and turns in the mystery that are still left to be explored before we get to that?” So it’s one of these things that I’m constantly negotiating with myself about when this character will come back into Morgan and Ava’s lives, and it’s really exciting to start talking or having the conversation about who will play that role.
Morgan has had disagreements with her co-workers at the LAPD before, but no one has yelled at her in front of the precinct quite like Wagner does in this episode. Wagner specifically calls Morgan out for breaking protocol and going back to the art gallery with Rhys alone, and, as we know, Morgan is not someone who likes being told what to do. What specifically is it about Wagner that gets under Morgan’s skin so much, and vice versa?
Harthan: For Morgan, it’s pretty simple. “This is a new person coming into this place where I have this found family that I, shockingly enough, am starting to love and trust.” There’s already a little bit of resentment towards him because Soto didn’t get the [captain] job, and this guy did. So hers is pretty black and white: “I don’t trust this guy. I can’t really put my finger on the pulse of who he is. His behavior seems to change with the weather. He has a different relationship and approach to each respective character, so that feels inauthentic. It feels like he has an agenda.” All those things are swirling in her brain, right?
On his side — and this is by design — I didn’t want to do the trophy captain that comes in and is like, “I’m the new captain, I’m the boss, and I’m going to fire some people and set some new rules, and this and that.” I wanted him to be sort of this enigmatic mystery. What is this guy? What is his approach? Why is he suddenly angry at Morgan, who he did identify and acknowledge as a unicorn before? And when we really dig deeper and start peeling back the layers of the Wagner character in the back half of the season, you really start to learn why he’s vulnerable, what his demons are, what he’s struggling with, what his insecurities are, and also what secret he’s keeping. I love a good secret.
The reason why he lashes out at her is something we’re going to put under a microscope in our premiere, because the Karadecs of the world are asking him that very same question: “What are you doing? Why would you do that?” It felt very out of place and too extreme. So I’m glad you’re asking the question. I want the audience asking that question too, so that we answer it on the B-side.
Steve Howey, High Potential
Disney/Mitch Haaseth
Wagner came from this powerful policing family, so he presumably could have found a job and led a department anywhere else, but he ended up joining the Major Crimes division. What kind of insight can you give into his endgame?
Harthan: Look, nothing with him is black and white. It’s grey, it’s complicated, it’s messy — and we’re going to really get into just how messy and complicated it is. For some people, a job like the captain of major crimes is a dream job. For some people, it is a punishment. Your dream can also become your nightmare. There’s a lot of different ways to skin that cat. And we’re going to reveal where he lies as it relates to the job in a surprising way when we get to really the first batch of episodes in the back half.
The last time we spoke, you mentioned that you were looking to flesh out your ensemble with episodes centered around Soto (Judy Reyes) and Daphne (Javicia Leslie), which won’t air until 2026. What else can viewers expect from the second half of the season?
Harthan: For Soto in particular, her relationship with Wagner is a ticking time bomb. She continues to take it and take it and absorb it. All of his stepping on her toes, just throwing his power and rank around — that’s going to really come to a head in a meaningful way in one of our early episodes in the back half. It’s a big through line that’s just almost like a two-character play between Wagner and Soto, where we really get to see her flash her teeth and show how steel her spine is, and she’s not to be trifled with. There’s an upcoming story we’re breaking right now that’s a wonderful Soto-centric story wherein you see just how much this woman is willing to risk for others, how selfless she really is as a leader. So we’re digging into some of those layers with her.
We have a wonderful Oz [played by Denis Akdeniz] story that we just shot actually that really delves into something personal on his family side that involves his mother and the father that he lost. It’s a beautiful story that is in the middle of the back half. And [the episode centered around] Daphne is the script we’re working on right now. It takes you into her backstory, why she became a cop, who her mentor was along the way, and what her biggest fear and insecurity is, and this barrier she’s trying to get over personally. So we’re digging into those things.
It’s tricky — I never want to slot them in and under-service those stories. We’ve waited a while to do them because I didn’t really have a handle on why they would resonate, why they would be real standout stories as opposed to just tack-ons like a scene here and a scene there. So if we’re going to do it, I want to do it and dig into it and get it right. So luckily, my cast has been patient with me because it’s taken me probably too long to get there, to be honest.
What about Karadec? Does he have anything big coming up?
Harthan: Oh buddy. [Laughs.] There’s a few big ones for him. We have a really exciting person reentering his life that is going to really stir up some things both personally and professionally. It’s a wonderful piece of casting that I’m sure we’ll announce in the next week or so — a really beautiful piece of casting. So that’s a four or five-episode arc that comes into his orbit, which is exciting. And, yeah, there’s some major things that happened to him personally and professionally, and frankly, there’s some things that start to happen between him and Morgan that really challenge their partnership. [There are] the trials and tribulations of a complicated partnership that really make you wonder if this is a fast-burning flame or if they’re going to make it in the long haul.
Earlier this month, Variety reported that High Potential is the first 10 p.m. broadcast drama to hit No. 1 since the 1999-2000 season, when ER last accomplished that feat. It’s the first time in this century that a show in the latest primetime slot has performed this well. To what do you credit the overwhelming success of the show? What do you think has been the show’s secret sauce, per se?
Harthan: [I think the key is] empathetic characters; people that work together that are rooting for each other, that are never doing anything to undercut or stab each other in the back. I think it starts with the Morgan character as just an amazing mom trying to take care of her kids in a complicated world and keeping that grounded and real.
I think our characters are flawed. I think the mistake that some shows make is that you present your characters as these perfect specimens that don’t make mistakes. You’re going to see throughout the season that our characters — not only do they make mistakes, they’re also the ones to raise their hand and own those mistakes. I think that some of those things, for an audience — no matter where you live, what your background is, what your political affiliation is — it’s infectious. I think we want to keep telling interesting, complicated cases that have fun twists and turns — that’s our bread and butter — but the secret sauce is the people taking you through those cases. Their points of view on life, how they treat other people with kindness — that’s universal when it comes to the appetite of the audience, when they sit down to watch the show.
The last thing I would say — which I love, which I think is the best thing about the show — is I hear that three generations of family are sitting down to watch it together. You got the grandparents, their kids, and then you got the 10-year-old, 11-year-old, 12-year-olds watching this show. To me, that’s kind of rare air.
(Editor’s note: A previous version of this story stated that Rhys Eastman was the art thief, but the identity of the art thief has not yet been confirmed.)Â
High Potential returns on January 6. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu.