I’m an enormous fan of murder mysteries. I grew up reading as many examples of the genre as possible, absorbing everything from Agatha Christie to Encyclopedia Brown. If there was a puzzle I could try and solve before the end of a story, I’d devour it. That’s why recently, I’ve been so jazzed by the narratives cooked up by Rian Johnson in his Daniel Craig-led Benoit Blanc mysteries. The feature films Knives Out and Glass Onion both have revitalized the industry’s emphasis on whodunit stories, leading to a revival for shows such as Matlock, A Man on the Inside, Elsbeth, Only Murders In The Building, Deadloch, and more. Eager to dig into another offbeat mystery show, my wife and I started up High Potential on ABC. We like Kaitlin Olson, and were hooked on the premise of a brilliant cleaning lady hired by the cops to assist their investigations.
The only thing is, the show reminds me too much of Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face… a detective series with far superior writing.
This, no doubt, has to do with the fact that Poker Face is a side project for the aforementioned Rian Johnson, as if the man just had too many twisty mysteries in his head, and needed a clever outlet on which to unleash them. You might argue against my premise that these shows are similar. One’s a gritty (though often hilarious) character drama available to stream with a Peacock subscription, and the other’s a blatantly made-for-TV dramedy that’s palatable for all consumers.
But to me, they both feature incredibly intelligent female lead characters who have a unique gift that allows them to see through crime scenes. And the structure of the episodes leads to a crime-of-the-week that must be solved, while also building a bigger mystery behind the scenes.
Katlin Olson and Natasha Lyonne are both outstanding at what they do. Neither of their characters care very much for authority, and they’re both very comfortable bending the rules if it means they can help someone who’s distressed (and fighting the system – that’s a big hook on both programs). They also both excel at delivering jargon, the necessary information dumps that move the mysteries through the situational-comedy pipeline. But it’s in the writing where, in my opinion, Poker Face triumphs over High Potential, at least following the first season of the Peacock streamer.
We ranked the episodes included in the first season of Poker Face. And even in the lamest of the 10-episode season, Lyonne’s Charlie Cale still finds herself in an unpredictable and murderous situation that highlights the flyover country of this great nation. Throughout the course of the season, Charlie – who has a God-given ability to sniff out when someone is lying – has been bouncing from state to state, solving crimes and helping the innocent. But she also has been staying ahead of an enforcer played by Benjamin Bratt. You have to wait for the season finale, titled “The Hook,” to learn why Charlie’s on the run. And the way that “The Hook” connects several dots from the entire season earns a round of applause from me.
Perhaps High Potential will reach a higher potential. I’m definitely intrigued by the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Morgan’s (Olson) first husband, Roman. And the cases in Season 1 of High Potential have grown more interesting, though again, with the level of writing, the show too often leans on contrivances and coincidences where a show like Poker Face found ways to be more clever and concise.
My takeaway here seems to be that if you are one of the people who’ve tuned in to High Potential on ABC, and you haven’t yet seen Poker Face on Peacock, dive head first into the latter and binge away before Poker Face Season 2 arrives on the streaming service. You will not regret it.
