TV Recap: Morgan Tackles Her First Amber Alert in 4th Episode of “High Potential”

There’s never a dull moment for the LAPD’s brilliant consultant in High Potential. This week, Morgan Gillory is faced with a case different from the previous homicides she’s helped solve. This week, there’s been a double abduction – a case that hits a little too close to home for Morgan’s comfort.

(Disney/Nicole Weingart)

Episode 4: “Survival Mode” – Written by Andrea M. Scott & Marc Halsey

On a dark and winding road through the woods, we see a car pull up and park. A shadowy figure gets out and opens the trunk. Inside we see two terrified girls, Paige (Pippa Blaylock) and Ellie Ashford (Charlotte Ann Tucker).

It was a long and sleepless night for Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson), who arrives at the LAPD for her consulting job, excited because today is the day she receives her new ID. Robert (Thomas Bell) brings it to her, but Morgan fails to sign it. She goes to the restroom to take a photo of her wearing it in the mirror but is distracted when another woman, Mia Ashford (Madeline Zima), enters crying. Morgan learns that Mia is separating from her husband, and the two have been sharing custody of their daughters, Paige and Ellie. Their father never dropped them off, and she can’t get a hold of them. She’s trying to calm down before her father arrives to meet with a detective.

Morgan joins Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) and Lieutenant Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) for a meeting with Mia and her father, John Ashford (Christopher Cousins), who doesn’t think highly of Mia’s ex, Wendell. He describes his son-in-law as being consumed with preventing climate change, having bought a house off the grid, and doing everything in his power to lower his family’s carbon footprint. Mia moved back in with her parents. John disagreed with her decision to share custody with Wendell. Soto says it’s too early to put out an Amber Alert, but she puts out a BOLO for Wendell’s car and authorizes a search of his home.

While the meeting occurred, Oz (Dennis Akdeniz) and Daphne (Javicia Leslie) began doing research. They learned that Wendell applied for passports for his daughters last month. Daphne found a report from Child Protective Services about Wendell that described him as being unsafe and a danger to his daughters.

Morgan bumps into Mia again outside of the station. As a mother herself, Morgan feels compelled to try to ease Mia’s concerns. She shares that she’s in good hands with Karadec on the case.

Karadec and Morgan go to Wendell’s house and find a pink plush bunny in the grass out front. Morgan recognizes it from a photo of the girls, meaning it was likely a favorite toy. She brings it inside and examines a play space for the girls with books and educational toys. She finds a book called Surviving 101, full of information about what to do if you get stranded in the wilderness. The book was inscribed by Wendell to his daughters. In the kitchen, the table looks like dinner was in progress when it was abruptly interrupted.

In Wendell’s backyard greenhouse, Morgan notices that cucumbers and tomatoes seem carelessly planted together, an odd choice due to their different needs. Upon closer inspection, she finds that the plants aren’t rooted, meaning they were freshly placed. She and Karadec begin digging and uncover the dead body of Mia’s ex, Wendell Dunn (Scott Kuza). Soon, the place is swarming with police activity. Oz went to a nearby cafe where Wendell would sell vegetables and learned that the owner witnessed him get into an argument with a redheaded woman who wore glasses. Daphne found a printed photo of a man by a pool, the top of the page marked by pink printer lines. Tire tracks in the driveway are being investigated. Soto is surprised to hear that Karadec broke protocol, putting out an Amber Alert early and without her approval. “Every second counts,” he tells her. “She’s rubbing off on you,” his boss acknowledges about Morgan.

Morgan and Karadec visit the Ashford mansion, passing a chauffeur, Curtis (Mark Dancewicz), who is parked under a tree. He’s checking sports scores in a newspaper, using a pen to make notes. Inside the house, they meet with Mia, John, and Lara (Pamela Shafer). Mia isn’t aware of a redheaded woman with glasses in her ex-husband’s life. As Karadec continues to question them, Morgan excuses herself to go to the bathroom. In reality, she wanted to snoop around, investigating decorative shelves that house priceless Chinese artifacts. The Maid (Tiffany Bank) watches her from the bar, and Morgan compliments her cleaning skills. Morgan asks the maid if she knows Wendell. She describes him as a sweet man and an adoring father. She recalls the last time she saw him, last week, when he stopped by to pick up some homework one of his girls left behind. When the maid came downstairs with the assignment, she saw Wendell coming out of John’s office. She didn’t know what he was doing in there.

Back at the LAPD, Morgan reads the CPS report on Wendell, which seems to be fabricated. It says he provided a home for his daughters that was dietary deficient, despite growing all of his own vegetables, and that it lacked education resources. She wants to talk to the social worker, and when Karadec pulls up her information, they see that she has red hair and wears glasses.

Karadec and Morgan arrive at the home of social worker Sarah Keller (Amy Davidson). Morgan notices a stack of past due bills and the same brand of inexpensive dish soap she uses. But there’s also a lei with flowers exclusive to the island of Kuaii, and Sarah is wearing fancy resort slippers with the letter A on the front. She insinuates that Sarah accepted an all-expense paid vacation to an Ashford resort as a bribe for fudging Wendell’s report. “Mr. Ashford knows a lot of people,” Sarah comes clean. “If I hadn’t done what he said, I could’ve lost my job.” She met with Wendell at the cafe and offered to write a corrected report, but he said John had enough connections to stop it. Instead, he said he had uncovered information that proves Ashford was going around environmental restrictions at his resorts and that he was ready to expose him. Sarah adds that after Wendell told her this, she called John to warn him.

John Ashford is arrested, much to the shock of his wife and daughter. Lara claims her husband wasn’t home last night to have killed Wendell, asking Curtis to back him up. Curtis says he drove John to San Diego to check on one of his hotels and that traffic was bad. Karadec asks him for the details of the car they used so he can check it against toll data. Curtis comes clean, saying he didn’t actually take John anywhere but was told to say this. Before leaving, Morgan takes another look at the shelf of Chinese relics. There’s now a scratch on the pristinely polished wood that wasn’t there earlier. She goes to John’s office and uses his copy machine to print an image of her hand, finding that it has red streaks on the page, just like the photo found in Wendell’s survival book.

Karadec interrogates John Ashford alongside his lawyer, Matthew Wilson (Moneer Yaqubi). He shows them the photo from Wendell’s survival book, which was printed on John’s home office printer. Daphne discovered that the man featured prominently in it was a judge on the San Mateo County Superior Court, pictured on vacation at an Ashford resort. They uncovered that the judge had taken many lavish vacations at Ashford properties around the world, all coinciding with the judge allowing Ashford to build a property on a piece of land that was a protected environmental area. This is the information Wendell was going to take public, and while the lawyer says John isn’t available for comment at this time, Karadec says Sara Keller is. Karadec reveals that they looked into John’s phone records. After Sara called him, he texted, “Must speak, urgent,” to a prepaid phone. Karadec presumes the message was to Ashrod’s personal fixer. He puts pressure on the hotel magnate, asking how long his fixer is prepared to keep his granddaughters alive.

Ashford gave Karadec the name of his fixer, Eddie Malone (Spencer Rich). An LAPD Officer (Katie Rowe) accompanies Karadec and Morgan to Eddie’s house, ambushing him when he steps out. They search his van, which is pristinely clean. Eddie admits that John paid him to keep Wendell quiet, but when he got to his house, Mia was there, and they were in the middle of an argument. This goes against Mia’s claim that she didn’t see Wendell the day he died.

Back at the LAPD, Morgan’s lack of sleep has gotten the best of her. She is overly agitated as Karadec and Soto toss around theories that involve Mia murdering her ex-husband, abducting her own kids, and reporting their disappearance to the police. The tire tracks in Wendell’s driveway match Mia’s car, and Daphne discovers that Mia withdrew $100,000 from the bank that day. Morgan tries to call Mia, but the call goes straight to voice mail. “I promised her that she could trust us,” Morgan says in frustration. Karadec says they don’t know if they can trust her. He asks Morgan to go home and get some rest, but she says she won’t be able to sleep knowing those two girls could be in danger.

While she might not be able to sleep, Morgan does go home. She gives her daughter, Ava (Amirah J), a hug and kisses her forehead, prompting Ava to ask if her mom is ok. Her son, Elliot (Matthew Lamb), spent the day watching a docuseries on his iPad, and Morgan asks him to write an essay on it for her. The kids go to their room, and her ex-husband/nanny, Ludo Radovic (Taran Killam), asks how she is. Morgan admits to being stressed, and she’s frustrated with herself, feeling like her brain wasn’t working right today. “You with half a brain beats the rest of us on our best day,” Ludo comforts her. The news is on in the background, and the reporter is covering the missing Ashford girls. Morgan notices the photo on the screen, with the two girls in front of the cabinet of Chinese artifacts. There was a statue of Buddha on the counter that has since been moved. That’s where the scratch now is. She pulls out her laptop and does a quick search.

Morgan’s instincts lead her to an antique shop that specializes in Chinese artifacts. She’s not surprised to find Mia there, meeting with an antique dealer (Jay Charan), selling a Ming Dynasty vase that she swapped for a fake at her parents’ home. Mia tells Morgan that she received a ransom call for $200,000 and that she was only able to take $100,000 out of the bank today. She is selling the vase to make up the other half. She didn’t tell her parents because she knew they would want to call the police, and the kidnapper specifically told her not to. Morgan asks about her visit to Wendell on the day he died. She says she went to beg him not to report her father, a request he wouldn’t agree to.

Morgan joins Mia for the ransom drop, and she calls Karadec to come help. He wants to call backup, but there won’t be time. Morgan waits with the car while Mia listens to the blackmailer’s instructions. Karadec follows her in the shadows. After giving the bag of money, the shadow figure runs. Karadec pursues them, even firing a bullet at them, but they get away. Thankfully, Karadec put a tracker in the duffel bag of cash.

The tracker leads them to a burning car. Karadec breaks the trunk open, and everyone is relieved to find that the girls aren’t inside. Morgan looks in the car, hoping to find a clue, frustrated that her brain isn’t functioning properly. She turns on the radio and hears a broadcast about sports betting. And then she remembers who she recently saw making notes about sports statistics – Curtis, the chauffeur. “I know who took the girls,” she tells Karadec. “Curtis is in love with Mia,” Morgan declares, remembering how he parked his car under a tree where it would run the risk of attracting bird droppings but at a vantage point where he could see Mia’s room clearly. The alibi he gave them for John was really an alibi for himself.

Curtis is arrested and questioned. He says he was never going to hurt the girls; he just wanted to spare Mia from having to deal with her ex-husband. However, a flaw in his plan is that he took the girls to a cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains, and they escaped. He doesn’t know where they are now.

A huge search and rescue effort is carried out, with Morgan and Karadec joining the party. Morgan remembers the things she read in Surviving 101. She follows the moss north and finds walnut shells on a log, placed by a human, indicating that they’ve been eating off forest resources. Another rule was indicating their presence with a recognizable sign, and they soon find broken branches that form an arrow on the ground. The last step was to take shelter and wait for help. They find a makeshift fort made of branches. Inside, they find Paige and Ellie.

Back at the LAPD, Morgan and Karadec seem to have reached another level of mutual respect. Morgan didn’t know that she lost her badge in the woods during their search for the girls, but he gives it back to her. Morgan returns home to find Ludo, Ava, and Elliot all asleep on the couch. She carefully joins them, finally closing her eyes. Finally getting some much-needed rest.

Next Episode: “Croaked” – Airing Tuesday, 10/22, at 10/9c on ABC

The team investigates the death of an exotic animal veterinarian, uncovering a complicated love triangle in the process. Work interferes with Karadec’s dating life, while Morgan follows a parental hunch about her teenage daughter and snoops on Ava.

Songs Featured in this Episode: