High Potential Boss Unpacks the Show’s Central Mystery, Teases ‘Slow Burn’ Romance and More — Grade It!
In the grand TV tradition of quirky, unqualified free spirits teaming up with police to solve crimes, ABC on Tuesday introduced viewers to High Potential, starring Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) as Morgan Gillory, an eagle-eyed cleaning lady who inadvertently gets hired as a consultant for the LAPD.
Despite her brazen demeanor and flashy wardrobe, Morgan’s obsessive attention to detail and higher-than-average IQ makes her a valuable asset to the team, much to the chagrin of Detective Karadec (Graceland‘s Daniel Sunjata), who prefers a more by-the-books approach to investigating crimes. Still, after Morgan helps the LAPD crack a murder case they’d been working on to no avail, it’s hard to refute her potential — or should we say her high potential? Yes, we think we will.
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Naturally, we had one question to ask showrunner Todd Harthan after spending our first hour with a character as nuanced and complex as Morgan: How many furry jackets can one woman own?
“If you’re Morgan, I think the answer is unlimited,” he tells TVLine. “She does love a good furry jacket, and I think she rocks them. She’s unapologetically who she is, and it doesn’t matter if she’s walking into a fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills or a law firm — she doesn’t think about whether she’s going to be judged. She doesn’t care. I think that’s what people are going to love and appreciate about her.”
High Potential is an American adaptation of the French series HIP (High Intellectual Potential), and while most of the original crime dramedy’s elements remain untouched, Harthan says that ABC’s version of Morgan is “a little more grounded” than her French counterpart. Morgane “has a sort of flippant quality to her, bordering on being slightly too much for my taste,” Harthan says, while Morgan is more respectful.
“We still have the quirk and personality of the character, because she is big and bold and brash, but we don’t ever want to skew so broad that we’re not being mindful of the cases we’re tackling and the people that have lost a loved one,” he explains.
Another burning question involves Morgan’s missing ex Roman, the father of her teen daughter Ava, who left to pick up diapers 15 years ago and never came home. Allegedly. As part of Morgan agreeing to work with the LAPD, she asks the lieutenant (Claws‘ Judy Reyes) to help her track him down, and she agrees.
“Morgan is about to find out some things she didn’t know about the person she was sharing her life with, the person she had a child with,” Harthan says. “Morgan is somebody who notices everything, all the details, but we all have blind spots, right? As the season goes on, we’ll start to unpack some things about who this man was and what he might have been doing that she wasn’t aware of.”
Looking into Roman’s disappearance is “less about Morgan still being in love with a guy that may be gone forever, and more about her daughter,” Harthan explains. “She can see that Ava has this dark cloud over her head about not knowing. This 15-year-old girl has created a pretty sour picture of her birth father, and that’s what’s driving Morgan. It’s getting the answers that will hopefully provide closure, not just for herself, but more importantly for her daughter.”
There’s also the matter of Morgan and Karadec, specifically whether we should expect their odd-couple chemistry to foster a potential romantic future. (The pilot doesn’t allude to any such feelings, but a well-placed line in the Season 1 trailer heavily implies a will they/won’t they situation.)
“I am notorious for playing these things slowly,” Harthan — who recently executive-produced Fox’s The Resident — acknowledges, adding that we’ll start to see a “growing respect and friendship between them, and that’s what you’ll fall in love with [as a viewer] before the characters ever fall in love with each other. Of course we’re going to have those moments, those looks, and fan those flames. But to me, it’s got to be a slow burn. We’ve got to do it right and earn it.”
Do you see potential in ABC’s newest crime dramedy? Cast your vote in our polls below, then drop a comment with your full review of the series premiere.
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