High Potential's Finale Dropped 3 Cliffhangers On Kaitlin Olson's Morgan, And I"m Not Sure Which Will Stress Me Out The Most Waiting For Season 2

Spoilers below for the excellent Season 1 finale of High Potential, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched on ABC or with a Hulu subscription.

How fabulous would it have been for ABC’s High Potential to wrap “Let’s Play” with the reveal that it wasn’t actually the season finale, but just the penultimate episode, with lots of big reveals coming next week? Alas, such wishful thinking will get us nowhere, and too much has happened with Kaitlin Olson’s Morgan for me to pay attention to pipe dreams. Thankfully, the network already ordered a second season of the procedural dramedy, so that’s one fewer worry to adhere to.

So with that silver lining in place, let’s lay out the three different cliffhanger-esque endings that High Potential showrunner Todd Harthan shocked viewers with ahead of a long, long hiatus between seasons.

Morgan Is The New Target For An Unidentified And Uncaptured Big Bad

In a finale that felt like a city-sized escape room for a PG-13 version of Saw, but with puzzles that would probably put Jigsaw and most escape rooms to shame. But it’s all in a longass day’s work for Morgan, who helps save everyone possible from some wildly complicated situations. But while that should have been a big advantage, her brainy ways inevitably put the mystery killer’s target right on her back.

For the first time in High Potential’s run, an episode ended without LAPD’s Major Crimes team getting the collar. So not only is the killer still at large, having fooled Morgan & Co. into thinking he was someone else, but he’ll continue to antagonize Olson’s brainiac in future episodes, with Grimm and A Million Little Things vet David Giuntoli bringing his winning smile to the villainous role.

Showrunner Todd Harthan confirmed the storyline will continue when Season 2 arrives later in the 2025 TV schedule, but told TVLine that it will be played differently than the usual Case of the Week format. In his words:

See, even though we know Morgan won’t be consistently attacked or taken hostage on a weekly basis, it doesn’t mean we’ll be able to stop worrying about her, since it sounds like Giuntoli’s character will be around for the long haul, at least relatively speaking. To the point where Todd Harthan doesn’t seem totally sold on referring to the guy as the Big Bad, but rather a lingering threat.

So I guess this cliffhanger would be the de facto one to fret over the most, considering Morgan’s life would actually be in danger because of it. And yet there’s still more to stress about.

Morgan's Missing Husband Roman Is Apparently Still Alive

Prior to the new killer thriller angle, High Potential’s main overarching plotline has been about Morgan trying to gather enough information to prove her long-missing husband Roman didn’t abandon his family. It’s the trickiest kind of storyline to develop and balance without ever giving away too many details at once, while still moving forward and keeping hope alive.

The Wire’s Domenick Lombardozzi has been a lynchpin for this narrative thrust, having been introduced earlier in the season as a cop-avoiding criminal whose underground connections inevitably make him the best source of new details about what Roman was dealing with around the time he disappeared from Morgan’s life. So when his name popped up in the credits, I figured a bombshell would be dropping down, and so it did.

Even though I still don’t quite understand why Karadec is so specifically attuned to stopping Morgan from ever talking to Lombardozzi’s Gio, and rather rudely demanded she allow him to meet up with the hoodlum (who happens to be a caring father), it appears as if Gio dropped the motherlode of all updates: Roman is still alive! And may have had to leave his normal life behind due to a criminal informant situation going belly-up.

I doubt we’ll immediately zip to finding the thought-dead character when Season 2 arrives, and will likely go through more developmental reveals from week to week. But considering audiences didn’t actually see Gio telling Karadec that Roman is still alive, part of my brain is going to quietly stress out over the notion that the LAPD detective could be lying to Morgan. I don’t believe that’ll be the case, it it MIGHT be.

Tom Came Back To See Morgan, And Then She Left Him To Focus On The Case

While I don't usually put that much headspace on network TV relationships, High Potential has given Kaitlin Olson's character quite the complicated set of options. From the missing husband that she still has affection for (especially now) to the work partner that fans want to see her with, to the former precinct custodian / nursing student who has actively shown her attention and mild affection. And I've made it no secret that I'm all in on Morgan and JD Pardo's Tom hooking up.

I was purely fretting whenever High Potential seemingly wrote Tom out by sending him to San Diego, and even though the metaphorical door was left open for his return, I didn't actually expect it. Especially not after Morgan and Karadec have grown closer in recent weeks. They even DANCED TOGETHER at the gala, with all the vibes flowing. But then Daniel Sunjata's character gracefully stepped back once Tom made his surprise appearance, and didn't appear to have any disppointment in doing so.

That should have been enough to get me pumped, but then almost immediately, Morgan & Co. frantically leave the gala in order to track down Deniz Akdeniz's Oz, who nearly became a drowning victim. But did he and Morgan part on good terms, or did he get justifiably frustrated to drive to L.A. from San Diego only to get left behind?

So yeah, in the end, I guess I'm stressed out the most by the idea that a devious, clever and charismatic murderer is on the loose and intrigued by having someone as smart as Morgan as a rival. But since I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the creative team isn't going to kill Morgan off, I'm going to take the cheesy route and worry about her and Tom's sexual escapades getting interrupted by a phone call from Roman. Because yikes and double yikes.

Stay tuned for more Season 2 updates as they become available, and don't forget to keep the Kaitlin Olson train going when It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 17 debuts later this year.