Summary
High Potential Season 2 remains in a predictable groove, but “Behind the Music” threatens to liven things up with the introduction of a new character.
One murder is usually enough for High Potential, but Episode 4 of Season 2, “Behind the Music”, has two to worry about. And, to make matters worse, they took place years apart. That’s a decent enough hook and a good excuse for Morgan to flex her powers of deductive reasoning – her process is refreshingly coherent in this one – but it has the same problems as the previous episode. Divorced from an overarching plot – the search for Roman is obliquely addressed, but only in a very minor way – the show has settled back into its procedural holding pattern, with only the threat – if threat is the right word; that remains to be seen – of a new character with unclear motives livening things up.
The case starts promisingly enough, though. A woman named Raina calls 911 to report having witnessed a murder, but when Morgan and Karadec arrive, she claims not to have done nor seen any such thing. Later, she’s found dead. It’s a nice way to kick things off since it introduces two parallel mysteries: who killed Raina, and who did Raina see being killed?
As it turns out, Raina was suffering from dementia, and her damaged memory was jogged by a bloodstained, sequined dress once belonging to a lounge singer named Greta St. John. This connects Raina to a club called the Black Jewel, which is owned and operated by a dodgy businessman named Mac Epps, who had at one time managed the careers of both Raina and Greta. It obviously takes a bit more investigatory legwork to get to this point than I’m implying, and I particularly like how Morgan uses the dress to deduce the approximate date of Greta’s murder. There’s also a bit later where Morgan and Selena both figure out from pictures of Greta that she had Mac’s baby. This is less Holmesian deductive reasoning and more lived experience coming to the fore, with Karadec comically excluded from the train of thought.
This also gives Mac a motive for murder – Greta wouldn’t allow him to see his child, and he killed her for it in front of Raina. In the throes of dementia, Raina recalled the crime years later and reported it as though it had just happened. It’s a novel idea. And it also results in a stand-off between Mac and Karadec, which prompts the latter to discharge his weapon for only the third time in his career – and the first time with the intention of actually hitting a person.
Mac is fine – alive, anyway – but Karadec has to be psychologically assessed in the aftermath of the shooting. Morgan worries about him, too, but the concerns are unnecessary. Karadec’s a consummate professional. He has put in the hours on the range and visualised a moment just like that one for twenty years. He shot a murderer who was ready to kill again; he won’t be losing any sleep. But it’s still a nice consideration that helps to further the bond between Morgan and Karadec.
This, more than the case, is the point of High Potential Season 2, Episode 4. There’s none of Ava’s emotional crisis this week, so instead the focus turns to Morgan’s relationships with her colleagues, especially Selena, who is up for the Captain position but ends up being passed over for reasons that even Morgan’s brain can’t comprehend. There is a suggestion, though, that it might be a bit of a punishment for bringing in Morgan as a consultant, which doesn’t bode well for the new captain, Nick Wagner, even though his being all handsome and charming and mustachioed might help. A bit of flirty banter aside, there’s a not-too-subtle suggestion that Wagner won’t be quite as amenable to Morgan’s eccentricities as the rest of Major Crimes have been. Something to keep an eye on.
Oh, I haven’t mentioned who killed Raina! That turns out to have been Lucy, Greta’s grown-up daughter, who tracked Raina down looking for information about her mother. Upon hearing that Raina had helped to cover up her murder, Lucy pushed her down the stairs. This bit slipped my mind, as it’s really predictable after a while and doesn’t have an especially fun breadcrumb trail of evidence leading to it like the dress did.
If nothing else, Wagner’s introduction should introduce an additional element of serialisation that I do think High Potential benefits from when it’s done right. “Behind the Music” had an interesting enough case, but the cases aren’t enough when the show really thrives in the relationships between the characters and in those ongoing arcs that really affect them. Some good interplay with Selena and Karadec notwithstanding, this outing is pretty contained and doesn’t push the main plot forward a great deal.
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