SPOILERS: This post contains details about the High Potential, Season 2 premiere episode ‘Pawns’
Kaitlin Olson is back as LAPD Major Crimes consultant Morgan Gillory to solve more mysteries and dispense more fun facts in Season 2 of High Potential.
Ahead of Tuesday’s premiere episode ‘Pawns’, Deadline caught up with showrunner Todd Harthan about Morgan’s “heightened protective state” and the “tricky” two-part mystery that opens the hit ABC show’s sophomore season, which is “still being mapped out” after becoming the network’s most-watched new series in six years.
“We tried to create something that walked this very fine line between it being very dangerous, very high stakes, but still gave us that delicious cat-and-mouse,” said Harthan. “We’re still in the throes of this season, and talking about, how do we see this potentially playing out down the road.”
Season 2 picks up after the cliffhanger of February’s first season finale ‘Let’s Play’, which saw the series’ best ratings with 13.2 million viewers. In the episode, Morgan rescues her colleague Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) from a watery grave during a cat-and-mouse investigation in which the ‘Game Maker’ (David Giuntoli) proves to be the ultimate match for her high-potential intellectual mind.
In ‘Pawns’, Morgan returns to work as the Game Maker orchestrates more dangerous kidnappings, while making the LAPD consultant fear for her own children’s safety.
Kaitlin Olson, Daniel Sunjata and David Giuntoli in the ‘High Potential’ Season 2 premiere episode ‘Pawns’
Disney/Jessica Perez
“It was a tricky one because we needed somebody to be smart enough to hang with her, so that she almost becomes this weird sadistic muse for him,” explained Harthan. “But the trick was, I also really didn’t want our villain to be just a traditional serial killer.”
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) has been keeping up her end of the bargain with Morgan, having Adam (Daniel Sunjata) track down her missing ex Roman to Las Vegas. As Oz and Daphne (Javicia Leslie) go investigate, they instead find a mysterious associate of Roman, played by Mekhi Phifer.
“That’s the main artery of Season 2, so what we definitely have an appetite for over here is giving the audience some more answers to the big questions that we’re all asking, filling in some of those blanks,” Harthan adds. “We have a good batch of episodes this year to sort of tell that story, so it’s coming.”
As fans wait for that mystery to unfold, they can see Morgan continue to piece together more exciting puzzles when the two-part premiere continues with ‘Checkmate’ on Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 10pm on ABC, streaming the next day on Hulu.
Read on about how Season 2 of High Potential gets closer to finding Roman, the “disruption” Steve Howey brings to the show and potential crossovers with other ABC procedurals.
DEADLINE: I’m so excited to get back into another season. Tell me about creating the Game Maker as Morgan’s ultimate adversary and how he plays into the season.
TODD HARTHAN: It was a tricky one because we needed somebody to be smart enough to hang with her, so that she almost becomes this weird sadistic muse for him. But the trick was, I also really didn’t want our villain to be just a traditional serial killer that went out and—it just felt too dark to [have him] killing somebody, or hunting down people. So, we tried to create something that walked this very fine line between it being very dangerous, very high stakes, but still gave us that delicious cat-and-mouse. So, that’s how we built it, and then, I think I have a pretty decent plan for how it plays into the early part of the season. We’re still in the throes of this season, and talking about, how do we see this potentially playing out down the road. So, that’s actually, in full disclosure still being still being mapped out.
DEADLINE: We also see Selena kind of second-guessing whether Morgan is fit to consult, and other people starting to doubt her. Is that going to be a big struggle for her this season?
HARTHAN: Not consistently. I think this one is unique in that it involves her kids and a dangerous person getting close to her children, so she’s in a very heightened protective state at the beginning of the season. There will be flare-ups throughout the year, but we’re starting in a pretty extreme place. There’s definitely some hiccups throughout the season though.
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