Last week I wrote how, even before the
2016 elections and infinitely more in its aftermath, I had become exhausted of
the antiheroes that were a large part of TV this century. Well before that monumental election I had
started to get exhausted of show after show with White Male Antagonists and Complicated
Women and all the people of Shondaland doing bad things not so much to protect
the people they loved but more or less because they wanted to. I argued that during that period America
needed escapism and to believe in good people and Hollywood seemed more unwilling
than ever to let us have them.
In many ways the last few years
network TV at least seems to have heard the call. So much of the best dramas
and comedies on networks show us flawed professionals trying to do their jobs
in a broken system. There's something rewarding after twenty years of Don
Drapers and Olivia Popes walking around screens looking good doing horrible
things to see group of messily clothed people just trying to do the best they
can under terrible circumstances. And
for whatever reason particularly on network television the majority of these
shows have been led by women.
One of the most watched new shows last
year was ABC's High Potential. Kaitlin Olson made her entry into the
world of drama but unlike her most famous predecessors in this field Bryan
Cranston and Bob Odenkirk her Morgan,
the cleaning lady with an IQ of over 160 wants to use her gifts to do go. In this
case help the LAPD solve the kinds of murders by spotting things the rest of the
detectives miss. Olson has been wondrous
because while she is clearly the smartest girl in the room, there's never a
moment where you think she's flaunting it or showing off. To be sure, she loves to push people's
buttons (particularly her unlikely partner Detective Karadec) but there's no
selfishness in it. She's blue collar to her roots; a loving mom and she cares
about people in a way that is evident in every scene she's in. She has a heart that is just as big as her
brain and she never stops showing that part of it off.
This is just as clear in the two part
season opener that took place in the immediate aftermath of the season finale.
During that incredible episode Morgan and the LAPD found themselves up against
a villain called the 'Gamemaster' who abducted and sent puzzles to the
LAPD endangering peoples lives with sole
the purpose of playing a game. At the end of the season Morgan found that she
had come face to face with him – and was clearly terrified.
It helped matters the villain was by
far the best that the show had created to date and one of the best I've seen on
TV in a while. Not since Andrew Scott's breakthrough portrayal of Jim Moriarty
in Sherlock has their been a villain like David Giuntoli's Game Master. Giuntoli
spent the 2010s and the early part of the decade playing handsome leading men
first in Grimm and then A Million Little Things so the fact that the
moment we see him start to taunt Morgan (which he actively does throughout the
season premiere) we instantly believe that he is evil incarnate. It says
something that in years of watching procedurals I've never seen a villain do
something quite as brilliant as the Gamemaster does, pull the strings of the LAPD to investigate an
abduction, set up the possibility of a murder, lead the victim's ex-husband and
the most likely suspect to set up a murder that he will have no connection to
when it happens. All of that is appalling enough but when he placidly walks
into the station and into the interrogation room, not a care in the world and with
a calm demeanor its some of the greatest work of evil I've seen. Not even Gus Fring
would be so bold as to openly mock the person his target is while pretending
he's not talking to anyone the way Giuntoli does in an exceptional scene.
All of this is riveting enough but
what makes it all the more exceptional is Olson's work in the first two
episodes. We never seen Morgan this close to the edge so far, certain the Game
Master has been taunting her all this time, knowing that he knows where she
lives and is manipulating her but her innate sense of good unwilling to walk
away. Her performance in last night's episode was just as brilliant as we see a
Morgan coming apart at the seams, trying to find a chink in the armor, heading right
into the lion's den to try and save an innocent life. There are two exceptional scenes in the Game
Master's apartment that are individually Emmy worthy for Olson. And what makes Morgan
a heroine is when she manages to triumph she proves herself yet again to be the
better person. When the Game Master finds out that he has finally irrevocably
lost and the façade drops for once, he makes it very clear that he's going to
test her morality one last time. On any other TV show even now it would be so
easy – and far more understandable than most case – for Morgan to give into her
dark side. Most TV shows would do that.
So what happens in the climax is, I'd argue, not a letdown but I true sign that
good has triumphed over evil. She's going to play by the rules; she won't let
the bad guy win.
Olson's supporting cast is as always
just as brilliant as before and it is looking like High Potential is now
moving back to the other major subplot of the first season: what happened to
Morgan's husband Roman, who disappeared fifteen years ago? At the end of Season
1 we learned Roman was alive and two of the detectives went to Nevada to follow
him. They found a man using his name but he pretended not to know her – and Morgan
said flatly it wasn't him. But at the end of last night's episode that man
(Mekhi Phifer) showed up outside the school of one of Morgan's kids and said
that Roman sent him. He tells her that Roman may be doing something illegal and
doesn't like that she's working of the cops. He left her his card but Morgan
knows her husband is alive and clearly doing something that doesn't meet the
code of ethics. The question is how much will she tell the detectives or her
family?
High Potential takes itself just seriously enough to
make it fun to watch all the way through, making all the characters relatable,
making it easy to follow Morgan's thought process, making Morgan good in every
job we see. It's telling that even as Morgan is trying to bring down the
biggest monster possible she takes just as much time to make sure her son is
okay at the school talent show and then show up for it after she's arrested the
bad guys. So many of even the best female characters in the era of Peak TV have
been forced to sacrifice their home lives for their careers; it's wonderful to
see a show where Morgan is determined not to let one overwhelm the other. In that
sense she takes after two of the other women we've met during the 2024-2025
season: Kathy Bates in Matlock, trying to be a good grandmother and wife
while working to bring down a law firm and Molly Parker's Doc who gets a
second chance to repair her personal life on the worst possible reason.
I've mentioned in previous articles
that I believe the next era of Peak TV has been primarily driven by female-based
TV shows. Two of my choices for TV shows of the decade so far are Yellowjackets
and The Gilded Age which are almost entirely female centric. Hacks
and Abbott Elementary which are on the shortlist for that list have female
relationships and female talent in front of and behind the camera. The shows I listed above, along with the
brilliant Elsbeth, fit this same mold even if none of them are (at least
yet) at the same level as the ones I've already listed. What the shows on network television do have
is that they are led not by the archetype 'Strong Female Character' (though all
of them are) but women trying to do their best in a chaotic and messy world.
That's not the only reason I love High Potential but it's certainly a
reason to root for it and its wonderfully messy lead.
My score: 4.5 stars.
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