High Potential is heating up through its anticipated second season as Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson) continues her hot streak working as a consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department. Through the first season, Morgan’s gift was presented as having such a high IQ and unorthodox thinking that helps her see cases, people, and situations in ways no one else can. She mentioned many times that her supposed gift has also been a curse in her life, impacting her personal and professional relationships. She has been unable to maintain a healthy romantic partnership and holding down a job has always been a challenge. But it isn’t until Season 2 that this darker side has really come into focus, adding another dimension to the popular crime drama.
Morgan’s Intensity Becomes Scary at Times
At the end of Season 1 of the show worth watching for police procedural fans, Morgan had two bombs dropped on her. Her first husband, Roman, who left one day for diapers and never came back, is revealed to be still alive, 15 years later. Meanwhile, a kidnapper they had been trying to track down, who almost killed several people had Morgan not been able to solve his sick puzzles, comes face to face with her. She’s reeling and when Season 2 picks back up, it’s clear that she’s coming undone.
With her family at risk, Morgan becomes obsessed with taking him down. When she shows up at the office, angry that no one is taking her calls about a clue she thinks the kidnapper known as Game Maker (David Giuntoli) left for her, everyone looks at her weirdly. It’s odd since they have always embraced her crazy theories. But it becomes clear that she has had many such theories in the days since she discovered that the Game Maker approached her and her kids in a grocery store parking lot, and none of them have panned out.
As Morgan becomes frantic, it’s clear everyone is worried about her. They’re finally able to see how the way her brain works, unable to stop calculating and thinking and analyzing, is detrimental to her health. While it’s unfortunate to see, it’s also a reality that this situation finally brings into focus. This is why Morgan has had so much trouble in her life. What everyone knows to be a gift can be all-consuming for her.
The first episode, “Pawns,” dives into a side of Morgan we haven’t seen yet, and it’s almost unsettling to watch. Seeing her frantically try to explain her theories, which sound downright ridiculous, is like watching someone who had too much caffeine ramble on and on. The reality is that everything she’s saying is right, but getting everyone on the same page with the way her brain works is easier said than done. Especially when all her thoughts are controlling her ability to deliver them.
Morgan Doesn’t Have an “Off” Switch
It sounds odd to say, but it’s refreshing to see this more real side to her gift, the cost of being smarter than everyone else and having thoughts and theories and ideas swirling around in her head all hours of the day and night that she can’t shut off. Her brain doesn’t have an off switch, and we finally get to see how debilitating this can be for Morgan. She becomes combative, irate even, as she tries to explain to the others who can’t fathom what she’s seeing the way she’s seeing it. Her usual calmer self that was present through Season 1 can better articulate her thoughts while keeping her emotions in check. But the threat to her family, compounded with the knowledge about Roman, is almost too much for her to take.
Later in the season, when Morgan presents a board of the way she has connected dots in a case, they jokingly ask if this is what the inside of her brain looks like. She shrugs it off, noting this doesn’t even scratch the surface. She might be playful about the topic, but it’s when cases like the Game Maker come into play that fans really see how much of the exhaustion she hides behind a boldly dressed, clever and humorous façade.
The icing on the cake is when Morgan tries to explain that she saw the Game Maker at Jason’s (Nick Wechsler) party and the team questions if she really saw what she saw. She emotionally explains that because of the way her brain works and her photographic memory, someone like the Game Maker who threatened her family will have his face forever etched in her brain. The case could be over, him long caught. But she will never forget his face, and it’s insulting to her that they’d even question that. It’s a Hell she lives with that they’ll never understand. But perhaps now, they’re finally starting to.
Morgan Shows Her Fears as a Protective Mom
While Morgan is a talented police consultant on the show, one of the best network procedurals right now, she’s a mom first and foremost to three kids. And her interactions with Ava (Amirah J) and Elliot (Matthew Lamb) especially show how her gifts manifest in her fears about her children, and ensuring that they aren’t impacted by the same challenges she has had to go through. This is particularly when it comes to Elliot, who has inherited his mother’s gift and has trouble in school because he’s “different.”
Morgan is constantly attuned to Elliot’s struggles because she went through the same thing when she was growing up. When she’s talking to Elliot in Episode 2 “Checkmate,” for example, worried about his secret performance in a school talent show and that it will make him the butt of jokes, she’s honest with her son about her worries. Doing so makes him feel more connected to her. And while he’s confident, telling her that “sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war,” she knows deep down that he’s in for a bumpy ride.
Further, in Episode 3, “Eleven Minutes,” Morgan makes a grave mistake by relenting to her daughter’s badgering about her father and tells Ava the truth about Roman. But she does so right before dropping the teenager off at school, which will almost certainly come back to bite her. It does when Morgan receives a phone call that Ava has been arrested for painting graffiti on private property, her way of dealing with her complex emotions.
While Morgan later has a heart-to-heart with Ava and admits her mistake in having the wrong timing, what’s most important to note is that even Morgan can blunder. And when she does, the stakes are high. Even though she presents herself as being fully together for her children, there are still things she can learn. After this event, she seeks advice from the daughter of a recent victim, wondering how the woman was able to forgive her father after he abandoned her for so long. Morgan might be a great parent who is always there for her kids, but based on how obsessive she can become about cases, and how much she’s tormented by the knowledge that her first husband left, is still alive, and she doesn’t know why, it can’t be easy.
Will Morgan Break Again?
While Season 2 so far has dipped its toes deeper into the darker side of Morgan’s psyche, the first episode is the one that really leans into it. She has, for the most part, been back to her true self since then. But there are glimpses of the walls closing in. They are getting closer to finding out what’s going on with Roman, maybe even reuniting with him. Both being so close yet so far away and potentially coming face to face with her husband present complications for Morgan she might not be able to handle.
Further complicating things, in Episode 4, “Behind the Music,” it becomes clear that Morgan might be a problem for Selena (Judy Reyes). Even though Selena’s superiors haven’t outright linked Morgan’s presence at the station with the reason for her being passed over for a promotion, the subtle insinuations suggest that Morgan is the reason Selena is watched more closely, and they might have questioned giving her a higher position. With a new boss in play, Nick Wagner (Steve Howey), Morgan might be forced down a darker path. She could face pushback while trying to do the job she does so well, albeit while often not following the rules to get it done. And if she learns that her methods may have impacted the trust the higher ups have in Selena, she’ll be wracked with guilt.
It has been good to see a darker side of Morgan, and a darker tone for the show overall. As long as this remains balanced with the more humorous moments, High Potential will remain a success. We love seeing Morgan’s incredible talent as she does everything from deducing when a dress was manufactured based on its materials and tags and narrowing down a list of people on a heart transplant list to the prime suspect by rapid process of elimination. But it’s also important to show that she isn’t just a human intellect machine who puts her head down on the pillow at night just to wake up and do it all over again. She has the gift of high potential, but it comes at a high cost, too. Stream High Potential on Hulu.
- Release Date
-
September 17, 2024
- Network
-
ABC