Summary
High Potential sticks the landing in Episode 13 by crafting an ending full of future possibilities rather than easy conclusions.
The fact that High Potential has already been renewed for Season 2 informs the ending of Episode 13, “Let’s Play”, which is quite comfortable leaving both the case of the week and the overarching Roman plots unresolved. And that’s fine. ABC’s procedural has proven to be a serious hit and has largely deserved the plaudits, despite some issues.
The finale doesn’t feature many of those issues since it simply has too much going on. There’s a core kidnapping plot that feels a bit Squid Game–inspired, and then, of course, there is more movement in the Roman story than we’ve had thus far in the season. We might as well start there.
Roman Was an FBI Informant
Domenick Lombardozzi cameos again in “Let’s Play” as the shady “concierge” Gio, who has a bit more information for Morgan regarding her ex-husband. He’s connected to a woman named Lila Flynn, who Karadec’s ex-partner Special Agent Oliver, who we met in the previous episode, reveals to Karadec was an undercover FBI agent murdered 15 years prior.
As ever this doesn’t get a great deal of screen time and is mostly handled in a couple of scenes, but it feels much more prominent than it usually does, and I like that it involves more characters – like Oliver – who we’ve met before under different circumstances. It gives the whole thing a bit more texture.
By the end of the episode Karadec has taken matters into his own hands – to protect Morgan, ostensibly, who was willing to dangerously work with Gio outside of the LAPD – and discovered that Roman is still alive, and himself has a connection to the FBI that very much widens the possibilities for what might have happened to him – and why.
Getting the Gang Together
Most of the finale feels like this. An upcoming police gala is used as a loose frame for a variety of personal subplots that allow Tom to come back into the fold, even if it’s only temporarily, and reveal more about Oz and his unwitting connections to a serial kidnapper.
High Potential Episode 13 excels here by building on existing subplots and dynamics and it makes me wonder why the series didn’t do this more throughout instead of saving it for the ending. But no matter.
The Oz connection is that he was attending grief counseling to help him deal with the death of his father, unbeknown to everyone except Daphne, and the prime suspect in the kidnapping case quickly becomes a man named David who seemed to targeting members of the same group. One of the big twists at the end of the finale is that David isn’t the kidnapper at all, but throughout most of the runtime it seems nailed on, so the idea of grief – his, Oz’s, that of the victims – is a recurring theme.
This all builds to a very hairy moment in which Oz himself is kidnapped and I genuinely believed for a moment that he might die, which would have been a bold choice. He doesn’t, but he gets close enough that the impact is felt. High Potential should imperil its core cast more often.
Deniz Akdeniz and Javicia Leslie in High Potential | Image via ABC
Morgan Has Found Her Moriarty
I’ve complained frequently about things being much too easy for Morgan in this show, but I must admit I didn’t give much thought to the idea of her being confronted by someone who is commensurately intelligent. “Let’s Play” essentially gives her a Moriarty figure in the form of a kidnapper who is obviously extremely smart – perhaps even smarter than she is.
The theming around playground games does feel very reminiscent of Squid Games and some of the trap-like race-against-time setups are along the lines of Saw or similar, but what we’re really seeing play out is a battle of wits, with a Riddler-style villain leaving increasingly cryptic clues for their own Batman to figure out. It gives the finale a lot of energy.
But the bold move is choosing to end High Potential Season 1 with Morgan on the losing end, having just bumped into – and flirted with – the real kidnapper without even realizing it. That’s a great stake-setter for Season 2, but also addresses my longstanding complaint of things always going Morgan’s way. The idea of her and potentially her family being in danger is one thing, but Morgan’s also going to have to grapple with the possibility that she has met her match intellectually speaking.
Room For Growth
If nothing else the finale of High Potential felt like a show really coming into its own. It’s handled in such a way that the second season seems like a genuinely tantalizing possibility, full of not just a genuinely threatening adversary for Morgan but also organic ways for all of the core cast to develop. How might Morgan’s family dynamic be affected by Roman’s potential return? How might that affect her relationship with Tom? Is there a romantic spark between her and Karadec that might complicate both of these things?
It’s a lot to think about but having so many rich possibilities is a good thing and helps to soften the blow of the finale leaving things very much unresolved. It’s easy to become frustrated when shows do that, but thanks to the surety of High Potential’s future, it mostly gets away with it. Hopefully, the second season can capitalize on the good work done here and satisfy the audience who will be no doubt impatiently waiting for its arrival.
