A brilliant single mother goes from night janitor to LAPD consultant in the premiere of High Potential, a new detective series on ABC. Based on the popular French series HPI (Haut Potentiel Intellectuel), this Americanized adaptation follows an established premise while charting its own course. Meet Morgan Gillory in our recap of the series premiere.
Episode 1: “Pilot” – Written by Drew Goddard
(Disney/David Bukach)
With her headphones on, Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson) arrives for her night cleaning shift at the LAPD, dancing around and swiping a lollipop from a coffee mug on one of the desks. While cleaning, she accidentally knocks over a case box. As she puts the contents back, she instantly notices something the detectives missed. Before leaving, she goes to the case board for this crime and changes the lead suspect, a wife, to a victim.
The next morning is business as usual for the LAPD. Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) gets some updates on his case from Lieutenant Selena Soto (Judy Reyes). The deceased, Adam Acosta, reportedly died between 3:00 and 5:00 pm based on the coroner’s report. Acosta’s wife, Lynette, is missing and presumed to be the murderer. Their daughter, Letty, is at college in Santa Cruz, but Karadec has contacted her to come down. He has also reached out to Lynette’s sister, Sofia.
(Disney/David Bukach)
Karadec is angry when he gets to his case board and sees that somebody wrote “victim” next to Lynette’s name. He asks who did it, but nobody in the office fesses up. He asks Daphne (Javicia Leslie) to review security footage to find who did it. She quickly finds footage of a cleaner dancing around the office, knocking over a case file, reviewing the information, and then changing the board.
Disney/David Bukach)
Morgan takes her kids grocery shopping, denying her daughter Ava’s (Amirah J) request for some lip gloss. At check out, Morgan already knows what the exact total should be after her coupons and taxes, telling the checker (Britney Mocca) that something is wrong. After doing some complex math in her head, she realizes that Ava put the lip gloss in the card, taking it out and getting the total back to the expected amount.
Ava is mortified on the city bus as other riders stare at their full grocery cart. Her brother, Elliot (Matthew Lamb), has her mom’s incredible mental abilities, but she does not. They walk from the bus stop to their home, which has two empty shopping carts parked in front. Their neighbor, Henry (Tom Butler), helps Morgan unload the groceries, asking Morgan how her ex, Ludo, is doing. It’s a good thing Henry was around, because Detective Karadec arrives with Detective Lev ‘Oz’ Osman (Dennis Akdeniz) to bring Morgan to the station for questioning.
(Disney/David Bukach)
Lieutenant Soto tells Morgan that tampering with a case is a crime. Morgan tells them she’s obsessive compulsive and couldn’t resist solving problems as soon as she sees them. Soto asks what problems she saw, and Morgan picks up the case files, showing how Lynette Acosta is so OCD about her furniture arrangements that she wouldn’t have left a drape untied. She also points out that one of the dining chairs has tape residue on the legs, indicating someone was tied and taped to the chair. Since the body, Adam Acosta, didn’t have any markings on his wrists, Lynette must’ve been the one bound there. But as they talk, surveillance footage comes back from the house showing a woman at the front door around the time of the murder. Oz is asked to take Morgan to a holding cell. “I was just cleaning up your mess,” she yells as she’s taken away.
(Disney/David Bukach)
Karadec is frustrated that Soto would open up a case to a civilian like that. She reminds him that they have a botched homicide with no leads and a potential second visit. In the video that came in, they see a woman – Lishka Jang (Mya Lowe) – arrive at the Acosta residence. She had filed a civil suit against one of Lynette’s clients. When she lost, she sent Lynette a threatening email.
Lishka is brought in for questioning. She describes being sexually assaulted by her boss, something the police failed to help her with. Lynette defended her boss when she filed a lawsuit, and Lishka was angry about it. However, Lishka says she wasn’t at the Acosta residence yesterday when the murder took place. However, she doesn’t have anybody that can corroborate her story, either.
(Disney/David Bukach)
Morgan is being released, and on her way out, she walks past a computer as Karadec and Soto review the serveilance footage. She instantly states that the time stamp is wrong. Soto asks how she could know that. She points to the direction of the wind, saying it indicates that this was months ago, not yesterday. Karadec questions how she would know which direction the house is facing, but Morgan points to a church in the background and informs them that all Catholic Churches face East.
As Morgan waits for the elevator, Lieutenant Soto asks Morgan about her talents. Morgan tells her she has an IQ of 160 and doesn’t get a lot of sleep, so she watches a lot of documentaries. Soto calls it a gift, but Morgan says it has caused her nothing but problems, including an inability to hold a job, relationship, or conversation. “Not a gift,” she declares as she gets in an elevator.
(Disney/David Bukach)
Outside the LAPD, Morgan finds her ex, Ludo Radovic (Taran Killam), waiting for her. Elliot called to say she got arrested. They’re not loud enough to be causing a problem, but a cop (Dustin Lloyd) scolds Morgan, who blows up at him when he tells Ludo to calm her down. Morgan is detained.
Karadec meets Letty Acosta (Maia Jae Bastidas) at the train station. He questions her about her parents, and Letty tells him that her mom had a colleague named Sarah who killed herself. Prior to that, Sarah sent a letter to Lynette that really upset her. Karadec asks Letty where the letter could be. She tells him if it’s not at the house, then it’s in her mother’s office. Karadec relays the information to Soto, who tells him to go to the office to try and get the letter because they will never get a warrant since these are defense attorneys. She asks him to take Morgan with him. He objects, but she demands it.
Morgan meets Letty and shares her condolences, sharing that she too lost someone in a similar way. Letty shows Morgan pictures of her mother on her phone, The last one, a selfie taken with a vase of pink flowers, was reportedly from 2 days ago. Morgan remembers seeing a vase of wilted flowers in the crime scene photos. Soto comes out and tells Morgan she’s looking at possibly six months in jail. “Did you really think this was going to work?” Morgan asks, very aware that the conflict with the officer out front was staged. She says if they want her help, they should just ask. Soto asks Morgan for her help. “You got it,” she says, looking at Letty as if she’s doing it for her.
The first stop is a visit to Lynette’s sister, Sofia Bellier (Sarah Smyth), to deliver Letty to her care. Karadec asks Morgan not to do anything, but she doesn’t listen. While Karadec asks Sofia if her sister mentioned a letter from a woman named Sarah, Morgan picks up a tchotchke on a crowded shelf of trinkets, inspecting it before Sofia asks her not to touch anything. Sofia says the last time she spoke to her sister was two days ago when Lynette called to wish her luck on a botany presentation.
Karadec scolds Morgan for not following his orders. He asks her to wait in their car during their next stop to Lynette’s law office. Karadec speaks to her boss, Henry Walker (Rob LaBelle), and as expected, the LAPD is denied their request to search Lynette’s office without a warrant, which they’ll never be able to acquire. Karadec goes to the bathroom to wash his hands and Morgan comes out of hiding from one of the stalls. She picked up on his germophobia earlier and knew he would come there. While he was talking, she slipped into a janitor uniform and went into Lynette’s office, cracking the code on her safe (Lynette’s wedding anniversary) and finding the letter inside.
The letter was written by a woman named Sarah Atkinson, who was a paralegal on a case defending Brian Dimon from a sexual harassment suit by Lishka Jang. Lynette had seemingly decided to turn on Dimon, but Karadec says the letter is inadmissible due to the way it was obtained. He orders Morgan to return it to the officer safe and not get caught or he will arrest her.
Brian Dimon (Sebastien Roberts) is brought to the LAPD for questioning, with Karadec interrogating while Morgan and Oz watch from behind the two-way mirror. Dimon describes Lishka as nothing more than an employee with a grudge. Karadec asks about a case brought on by Sarah Atkinson, and Dimon claims to not know anything about it. Oz radios Daphne to get some information on Dimon and finds out that his alibi is that he was in Fontana the day of Atkins murder. “That guy isn’t going to be caught dead in Fontana,” Morgan says, referring to it as “The Kentucky of California” and pointing out his expensive shoes and watch. She bangs on the glass to ask about Fontana, but Karadec can’t hear her. Worse, Soto was informed about the letter. She enters the interrogation room and dismisses Dimon.
Karadec tells Morgan this “experiment” is over, asking her to leave and be grateful not to be in jail. “Leave this to the professionals,” he warns her. Morgan goes home to make dinner for her kids. Ava seems distant, buried in her phone, so Morgan goes to talk to her after dinner. Ava is upset that she doesn’t have her mom and brother’s mental abilities and she feels it’s because she has a different father. Morgan tells her that Ludo thinks of her as his daughter. Ava doesn’t feel like her birth father loved her since he left them. Morgan tells her it’s more complicated than that. Ava asks to be left alone. As Morgan closes her daugther’s door, she begins to cry.
(Disney/David Bukach)
The next morning, Morgan’s baby Chloe is very fussy as she tries to feed her breakfast. Elliot announces that a man is standing in the front yard. Karadec came over, unable to figure out why Morgan thought Fontana was important. Morgan invites him in, asking him to try to get Chloe to eat. She tells him that in addition to Dimon not seeming like a “Fontana guy,” Sofia’s crowded shelves were full of dusty tchotchkes. The only one without dust is the one she picked up, the base of which said it came from Fontana. Morgan calls Henry over and asks him how long flowers last in a vase of water, specifically Renunculas. He says they should last 4 days, and Morgan remembers Letty’s photo of her mom from 2 days before the murder, when the flowers were pink, compared to the crime scene photos when they were wilted.
Karadec helps drive Ava and Elliot to school as Morgan tells him her theory: Brian Dimon was having an affair with Lynette’s sister Sofia to remain close, knowing that another case may be looming from her paralegal Sarah. They drop Chloe with Ludo and head to the Acosta home, with Morgan thinking the coroner’s day and time of death may be wrong.
At the Acosta home, Morgan quickly realizes that the room where the murder took place is a green house with state-of-the-art climate controls. With Brian Dimon working in high tech security and Sofia being a botanist, she believes Dimon turned the place into a refrigerator to slow down the decomposition process, then cooked it to mess up the coroner’s report. She believes Lynette was kidnapped to buy time, likely being held somewhere in Fontana. Looking around the room, she sees a picture of a family cabin in, where else, Fontana.
Cut to police swarming the cabin. Karadec rushes in to find Lynette Acosta (Kate Craven) bound and gagged on the couch.
(Disney/David Bukach)
Outside, Soto offers Morgan a job as a full time consultant. “We need you,” she says. But Morgan, having bumped heads with Karadec for the past two days, feels out of her element. “I’m not cut out for this, but thank you,” she says, handing the offer back. Soto asks Morgan to contact her if she changes her mind. Morgan watches as Letty is reunited with her mother.
The next day, Morgan takes Ava for a walk in the park with ice cream, opening up about her dad. “He didn’t leave,” Morgan clarifies for her daughter. “He vanished. Something happened to him.” Morgan tells her daughter that 15 years ago, the police didn’t believe her when she said he wouldn’t have just abandoned his family. Ava doesn’t seem to believe her mother either, thinking she’s lying to herself.
“I want a raise,” Morgan tells Lieutenant Soto at the LAPD, negotiating her salary up 20% and including childcare, plus one other caveat: reopening an investigation into Roman Cinquera. “Please, help me find him,” Morgan begs. “You got a deal,” Soto agrees.
Next Episode: “Dancers in the Dark” – Airing Tuesday, 9/24, at 10/9c on ABC
As Morgan and the detectives adjust to her new role as a consultant, they investigate the attempted murder of a tap dancer and discover things are not quite as they seem. Meanwhile, Ava learns more about her father, and Morgan surprises her kids.
Songs Featured in This Episode: