The ‘High Potential’ Mid-Season Premiere Had an Ending We All Saw Coming

After a two-month hiatus, High Potential returned to ABC last night.

I appreciate that they learned a lesson from last year’s season finale/season two opener, when they rushed through the Game Maker storyline to the detriment of the story itself. All the red herrings and reversals in this international art-theft storyline needed the legroom of a two-parter. I don’t know if the payoff was worth waiting two months for. If you have any pattern-recognition skills or watch as much TV as I do, you saw the resolution coming a mile away. But we did get to see some character and relationship development between Morgan, Karadec, and Captain Wagner. We caught Karadec throwing a lot of wistful glances at Morgan and standing up for her against his boss. Karadec is catching a case of The Feelings, and he did not like that Morgan got all sexy with the hot, British art consultant (Aiden Turner). And he definitely didn’t like Wagner dressing her down in the middle of the squad room. He’s clearly, but silently, communicating his growing romantic attraction for her. She just doesn’t see it yet.

Captain Wagner has his own feelings about Morgan. He shaved off his mustache for her, after all. I feel strongly that their potential love triangle needs to resolve itself within this season, or it’s going to get boring. I don’t think Morgan should be romantically tied to either of these guys. That trope is so played out and generally degrades storylines (ahem, Bones, ahem). It will be much more fun watching Morgan do her thing without being encumbered by romantic expectations. Besides, any relationship she enters into will get messy once they resolve the storyline about her missing ex-husband, Roman. Is he dead? Is he alive? If he’s alive, why has he been hiding so long? And will Morgan just accept him back into her life and the lives of her kids? We haven’t seen Ludo (Taran Killam) in a minute, but what would happen to him? Poor, sweet Ludo.

A new player was introduced in the mystery of Roman’s disappearance. Soto (Judy Reyes) quietly worked on Roman’s case in the background in these two episodes, connecting with Arthur Ellis (Mekhi Phifer) about the mysterious contents of Roman’s backpack after he was ambushed in his company van. Soto has a photo of Ellis’ attacker. No one knows who he is, but he’s spotted at the bar watching Morgan chat with Wagner at the end of the episode. The threads of Roman’s case are beginning to knit together, and that’s another story that needs to resolve itself this season. I don’t think Morgan’s daughter, Ava (Amirah J), will survive another season of not knowing what happened to her father.

While I appreciated the cliffhanger, High Potential works best on the case-of-the-week format. I’m looking forward to them getting back to that for the rest of the season. We’ve got ten episodes left before the show breaks for the summer. It was the most-watched show of 2025, just ahead of Tracker (which is crazy to me because that show is ridiculous.) I hope they can avoid the Sophomore Slump for the rest of the season and hold onto that title.

New episodes of High Potential air Tuesdays on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu.