High Potential's Showrunner Previews Season 2 and Hasn't Ruled Out a Morgan-Karadec Romance

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for High Potential Season 1, Episode 13, "Let's Play." Read at your own risk!]

Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson) may have just met her match on High Potential. In the season finale of the ABC crime drama, which has become one of the unexpected new hits of the 2024–25 broadcast season, the boldly dressed savant-turned-LAPD-consultant is tasked with helping to catch an astute serial kidnapper who seems intent on leaving piecemeal clues for the authorities in the form of mind games.

With the support of her team — including her by-the-books partner, Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), who has now taken a special liking to her unique ability to notice details others miss — Morgan is able to work her magic to track down the kidnapper's three known victims: a diabetic tied up in his own storage locker, a woman trapped in a locked safe at an art gallery, and her own colleague, Lev "Oz" Ozdil (Deniz Akdeniz), who was knocked out by his own airbag and tied down to the bottom of a pool. Oz's near-death experience leaves the rest of the Major Crimes unit badly shaken and even more committed to finding the perpetrator.

TV guides and recommendations:

• The Ultimate guide to what to watch in February
• Everything to know about winter TV
• The best shows on Hulu

But in the final minutes of the finale, Morgan comes to the chilling realization that she recently crossed paths a couple times with the kidnapper — who seems ready to resume their game of cat-and-mouse — including on a recent trip to the grocery store with her family. And in a phone call with Karadec, she learns that Roman, the father of her first child who disappeared 15 years ago, is actually alive.

Below, executive producer and showrunner Todd Harthan breaks down that tense finale (and jaw-dropping cliffhanger), opens up about how lucky he feels to give Olson a new starring vehicle that allows her to show her dramatic chops, and teases what lies ahead in the second season, which ABC ordered last month.

You previously said that you wanted to "rip [people's] hearts out" with this finale, in which Morgan goes toe-to-toe with a brilliant serial kidnapper. How did you approach the ending of this season?

Todd Harthan: I love these kinds of shows, and I love a good serialized villain. What I liked about the challenge of this one was I didn't want it to skew too broad in the way that we did it on Psych, which was a show I did for a handful of years. I didn't want it to skew too dark. So it was about coming up with a villain I thought would fit into the tone, in the world of our show. I had a big appetite for it just because, yes, I'm somebody who's sitting in the room and generating ideas, but I also try to put myself in the position of a fan who's watching the show.

If I were on the other side of this, what would get me excited going into Season 2, especially as a push-off into Season 2? We have all these other wonderful cases that we're going to give you and other great serialized threads, but what if the last little nugget was, "Ooh, here comes our serialized villain"? So, to me, it was too delicious of an opportunity to not at least take a stab at it. And once I felt like we had a version of it that I was excited about for the finale, we went for it.

One of the victims of the kidnapper is Oz, who barely survives being chained and essentially drowned in the pool of a mansion. Why did you feel it was necessary to put one of the precinct's own in grave danger?

Harthan: At that point, having lived with him for that many episodes — 12 episodes going into our thirteenth — I felt like we had fallen in love with him enough to be really worried about his well-being. I thought you would believe that he was in real peril and that it could go either way. I have a real aversion to schmuck-bait. I think you know what that means, but I just don't love the idea of threatening a character that is never going to actually go away permanently, so that was part of [the reason for that storyline]. And also, I love this ensemble [which also includes Javicia Leslie and Judy Reyes]. We didn't have a chance to write to them enough, frankly, if I'm being transparent — we will in Season 2 — and it was just a way to give him a little something more to chew on.

Did you ever consider killing Oz off? Was there ever any doubt in your mind that he would survive the events of the finale?

Harthan: No, I didn't want to kill him. We barely did anything with this ensemble, right? So I think there's too much story to be told with Oz and his backstory. There's too much to love there for us to take that off the table prematurely. I never considered it for a second.

I watch this show with my younger brother, and we had different interpretations of the season-ending cliffhanger. Morgan learns from Karadec that Roman is still alive, just as she discovers that she has seen the brilliant perpetrator before and even crossed paths with him in the parking lot of a grocery store. Some people might think the perpetrator is Roman; some might think they are two different people. What is your interpretation of the ending?

Harthan: Huh. [Pauses and laughs.] God, that's so weird. I love it. I love when this stuff comes out of the audience. I love an earned cliffhanger, and I hadn't really thought about the possibility that Roman could be [the kidnapper]. [Laughs.] I guess when you open in Season 2, anything is possible. I wouldn't say I'd take [that idea] off the table.

Here's why I think it's highly unlikely, though: My strong instinct — and we've hinted at this with Roman, so I think it's safe to say — is, at his core, this is not a bad human being. This is not an evil human being. This is not somebody that I think is purposefully bad. I think that that opens a can of worms as it relates to Morgan's character moving forward that really makes me flinch a little bit. So I think it's highly, highly unlikely. I like the way your brother's brain works, because that's a cool twist.

We only get a brief glimpse of the villain in the finale, and you still have to flesh out the character, but what can you say about this guy's motivations? Why did he choose to go after Morgan and the rest of the Major Crimes unit to begin with?

Harthan: Well, in the mind of some of these sick and sadistic people out there, it's [about] challenge and attention. "I think I'm smarter than everybody." A lot of criminals think they're smarter than detectives, FBI, CIA, whatever it may be. And if you think you're the smartest person in the room, sometimes you want to test that. I think there's a lot of criminals that want notoriety, that want fame. I think the surprise here was that our villain didn't know, when they engaged with Major Crimes, that there was this unicorn in the bullpen that was going to get their attention over the course of these games they're playing. But I think when we really get under the hood of what makes this villain tick and why they're doing it, which is the early part of Season 2, we're going to answer some of those questions.

More TV to get excited about:

• The new shows of the winter TV season
• Our most anticipated TV series of 2025

What else can viewers expect from Season 2? What would you like to explore that you didn't get a chance to do in the first season?

Harthan: We open [the writers' room] officially in a couple of weeks, two or three weeks. But in the time I've had away from it, it's been a nice digestion period where I've talked to a couple of the writers and just started spitballing. I think we have a big appetite for, as I mentioned before, digging deeper into each of their respective backstories — not just Morgan's, right? We haven't even gotten into the friends and family yet and all those messy storylines; we've barely scratched the surface of some of the relationships. Yes, we're always going to give you hopefully a compelling case. I like a variety of cases — some that skew a little bit lighter, some that skew darker, and everything in between. You're going to get that.

But, man, I will tell you this: Now that we have some time to really sit down and really put the thought and attention into the serialized threads, I think the Roman story is going to bloom in Season 2. In this little villain story, there's some twists and turns coming. I love to go, "What do I expect if I was an audience member?" I like to really turn the dials and give you something unexpected, so I'm excited for all of it. I think the things that people were loving about the show are going to stay and hopefully even get better, and the things they have a big appetite for that we barely did last year are going to bloom.

High Potential doesn't exactly break the mold of procedurals, but the fact that you have put this single mother of three in the middle of a police drama means you have a natural way to explore more of Morgan's home life. How did you decide to craft Morgan's relationships with Ava (Amirah J) and Elliot (Matthew Lamb) in particular?

Harthan: I think there's a certain maturity and wisdom that goes beyond Ava's years. I think that actually does speak to Amirah, who plays the role. There's some overlap there between reality and fiction. I inherited two really wonderful young actors, and then I also inherited Kaitlin Olson, who is wonderful with those kids. You almost forget that they're not her children at times. She's so great with them, and she really sets them up for success before we start filming. A lot of the little pregaming she does, it's really quite impressive and lovely and generous that she does that — and the kids adore her.

I think that kids these days are smart; they're savvy. I feel like on TV sometimes, we portray them to be petulant and immature. And these are two kids that have been through some things, right? I think that it gives you a thick skin, and a certain sort of street smarts and things like that. I wanted to write to that and write to the unexpected. So, by the end of the season, I think Ava specifically has come around to the idea that, "Wow, my mom is so brilliant and has such good instincts. Maybe she's right, and I've been wrong all these years. Maybe my stubbornness and my heartbreak get in the way and cloud my judgment." I thought that was an unexpected place to land her — and then what are we going to do in Season 2? We're probably going to shake that up again. [Laughs.]

Morgan briefly dances with Tom (JD Pardo) at the gala before she is pulled back into action to save Oz, but just before that, she had a real heart-to-heart with Karadec about how far they have come as partners. You've already spoken about how it is too early for any discussion of a will-they-won't-they dynamic, but how consciously have you and the writers been writing to the Morgan-Karadec dynamic, knowing that it could pay off years down the line?

Harthan: A lot, a ton. To me, they really do become a duo by the end. That's the bedrock of these shows; the really successful ones are built [on that dynamic], so you've got to get it right. I think if you overplay your hand too soon, you get audiences who go, "Well, you gave me the thing that I really wanted. Thank you. What's that thing on the other channel, which I really don't want?"

The thing we talked about the most is … neither wanted to be in each other's orbit so badly at the beginning. She was ending up behind bars, and he was just happy to see her go. So, how do we authentically build that to a place where they actually look across at each other and go, "Wow, I'm getting closer to telling this person my deepest darkest secrets because I trust them" or "I'd sacrifice [something] to protect them"? I think there's a certain charm to that that I really love, and I think I want audiences to fall in love with that too.

Let's live in that space while, yeah, we'll see if loving each other as partners bleeds into something else at some point. I'll never take that off the table. I'll never take it off the table because in a long-running series, you never know. I just love this blooming loyalty and friendship. And, yes, it happens to be a gorgeous man and a gorgeous woman, but does that mean they're going to cross a line anytime soon? I don't think so. Does it mean they're going to really be there to support each other when the other one falls in love with somebody else? Yes. I love that. I don't love jealousy and all that stuff that comes into play in other shows, so I don't think you're going to see it here.

Kaitlin has been working steadily for over two decades — most notably on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia — but it feels like she has really hit the mainstream with High Potential and her recurring guest role on Hacks. What are your takeaways from working so closely with her over the course of this first season?

Harthan: When I was first coming on, I knew that we had somebody that was pretty fearless. Once you have an actor that is willing to go to certain places and try things and be in constant communication about how layered we want this show to be and how complicated we want this character to be, that meant adding all these other dimensions, and it also meant keeping both of her feet firmly on the ground. Even Kaitlin would tell you, "Sweet Dee [on It's Always Sunny], she's out there. She's almost like a caricature; she's almost like not even a real person." Whereas Morgan is a mother of three and very grounded. She has an Erin Brockovich-adjacent vibe to her. I think that meant that we had to go to some darker places.

Once I realized there wasn't anything Kaitlin couldn't do — once you have an actor where you go, "We can write anything and always know that she's going to be able to stick the landing" — you don't go in the writers' room going, "Well, here's our limitations." You go, "We don't have any limitations, so let's push the envelope." And now that we have a second season, we're just going to go for it.

The full, 13-episode first season of High Potential is now streaming on Hulu.