High Potential’s Weirdest Mysteries, Ranked

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Great crime shows often stand out with unique and funny elements. This show does that immediately with its story: Morgan Gillory (Kailin Olson), a single mom who works as a custodian, is secretly a genius and gets recruited by the LAPD as an investigative consultant.

ABC’s new version of the French show HPI: Haut potentiel intellectuel, titled High Potential, keeps captivating audiences with its strange and complex cases involving Morgan, Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), and the team. While some episodes are wilder than others, which one features the most shocking twist?

The Time Morgan Solved Two Cases In One

In the second episode, “Dancers in the Dark,” Morgan Gillory begins her first official job as a consultant. She’s tasked with figuring out how a tap dancer named Roland ended up falling off a roof and landing on his car. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Melon, who leads the Robbery-Homicide Division, asks Lt. Selena Soto for assistance with a jewelry store robbery investigation.

Morgan finally figures out that the person who killed Roland is the same person who stole the Melon jewel. While High Potential has a few strange occurrences, this connection is particularly clever and funny.

The True Identity Of Jean Baptiste

The latest episodes of High Potential’s second season center around a case called “The One That Got Away.” Morgan and Karadec team up with art recovery expert Rhys Eastman (Aiden Turner) to find a stolen painting. They soon learn the valuable artwork was originally taken from a family of Holocaust survivors and, despite their attempts, the family couldn’t afford to reclaim it when it reappeared.

The main suspect is a mysterious art thief called Jean Baptiste, and Morgan reluctantly believes he might be Eastman. She’s usually right about these things, and this time is no different. However, she decides to trust Eastman when he promises to return the stolen painting to its original owners.

A Case Of Great Heart

The third episode of Season 2, titled “Eleven Minutes,” features the discovery of Nathan Gould (played by Daniel Passer) in an alley. He’s brain-dead from suffocation, and it appears he intended to end his life. Evidence suggests he planned to sell his heart to Carson Wood (Jon Manfrellotti), a wealthy man needing a transplant, in order to pay off a gambling debt.

Interestingly, the heart intended for Gould was originally meant for a woman named Rosemary Caferri, whose son, Christopher, was an EMT who responded to Gould’s emergency. It’s later discovered that Christopher intentionally caused Gould’s death to make sure his mother would be able to receive the heart transplant.

The Game Maker Case

A particularly famous and influential case from the series involves a mysterious criminal dubbed ‘The Game Maker.’ This three-part story starts with the Season 1 finale, where the kidnapper forces the LAPD into a dangerous game to find and save his victims—a premise reminiscent of the Saw films.

When Detective Lev “Oz” Özdil is captured by a dangerous criminal, the case becomes deeply personal for the team. They discover the perpetrator is Matthew Clark (played by David Giuntoli from Grimm), and Morgan realizes she previously encountered him in a grocery store parking lot. Fortunately, Morgan is able to outsmart his manipulative tactics, ultimately leading to his arrest and bringing him to justice.

The Worst Hangover Ever

Throughout the series High Potential, Morgan Gillory has repeatedly prevented innocent people from being wrongly convicted of crimes. A prime example is Samantha Wozniak (played by Alison Jaye) in Season 1, Episode 6, “Hangover,” where Morgan successfully proved her innocence and saved her from a potential wrongful conviction.

Samantha, an assistant to a healthcare CEO, wakes up in her boss’s office after a company party with no memory of what happened. She discovers her boss is dead, and all signs point to her as the culprit. However, video footage reveals the CEO attempted to drug and kill Samantha, causing her memory loss. It turns out she survived and, in self-defense, accidentally killed him.

A Veterinarian Dies From Washing Her Hands

A particularly humorous cold open in Season 1 of High Potential happens in the episode “Croaked.” Morgan and Karadec are investigating a veterinarian who was poisoned by a poisonous frog – the toxin is absorbed through the skin. Morgan realizes the frog was likely hidden in a soap dispenser near a sink, just as Karadec reaches for the soap. Without hesitation, Morgan quickly stops him by shooting him in the neck with a tranquilizer gun that was close by.

The mystery deepened when investigators learned the veterinarian was secretly keeping exotic animals in her apartment, planning to sell them illegally to help her girlfriend buy a house. Suspicion quickly fell on the girlfriend’s husband. Morgan then discovered the vet’s biological son had been given up for adoption years ago and was raised by the girlfriend. The truth came out: the girlfriend killed the vet because she feared losing her relationship with her son.

The Team Proves A Deathbed Confession Wrong

The eleventh episode of Season 1, “The Sauna at the End of the Stairs,” is a classic whodunit in the style of Agatha Christie. When wealthy George Donovan confesses on his deathbed to killing his son-in-law, Barry Johnson, a cold case Selena previously investigated is reopened. She brings in Morgan and Karadec to help uncover the truth.

Morgan’s investigation reveals that Barry didn’t die in a fall as first thought; he was actually electrocuted in the shower. The shocking truth is that Barry’s teenage son, Cody, was responsible. Cody intentionally rigged a hairdryer to cause the electrocution, then staged the scene to look like a simple accident after sending his father’s body down the laundry chute. He did this to protect his mother from his father’s abuse and alcoholism.

The Woman Who Cried 911

Raina Viera calls 911, claiming someone has broken into her home, but immediately retracts her statement when detectives Morgan and Karadec arrive. Later, after she is found deceased, investigators discover she was experiencing cognitive issues and the break-in was a hallucination.

The truth eventually comes out: she was actually remembering the unsolved murder of her competitor, Greta, a crime she saw but was threatened into silence about by the killer, Mac Epps. It’s revealed that Greta’s daughter, Lucy Hastings, committed the crime unintentionally, pushing Raina down the stairs during an argument when she demanded answers about her mother’s death.

The Team Busts A Ghost

The show’s first Halloween episode, “Chasing Ghosts,” kicks things off with a spooky scene: three people in costumes see what looks like a ghost committing a murder in a house known for being haunted. The victim is Danny Sternblatt (played by Matt Kaminsky), a well-known divorce lawyer who reportedly believed his home was actually haunted.

This discovery sends Morgan and Karadec to speak with Danny’s spiritual advisor, Calliope (Marié Botha), and Morgan quickly believes she’s a fraud. She’s right – Calliope is eventually found to have murdered Danny by messing with his medicine. The ‘ghost’ they’d been investigating turns out to be a college student hired by Danny’s wife, Lorraine, to frighten him and make him move out.

A Mystery Of Demons And Doppelgangers

The eleventh episode of Season 2, titled “NPC,” centers around the death of professional gamer Declan Harker (played by Kyle Butenhoff). Harker believed he was being pursued by a demon before being struck by a car. The investigation reveals he was poisoned with puffer fish toxin, leading detectives to Chef Yasuda (Eijiro Ozaki), a highly skilled sushi chef. Chef Yasuda has twin sons, Jin and Ryo (Kota Horiuchi), and Ryo’s intense passion for gaming quickly makes him a key person of interest.

Okay, so the whole thing with Declan’s death is seriously twisted. I initially thought Yasuda was paying Declan to repeatedly kill Ryo’s character in the game, hoping it would annoy Ryo’s son into quitting gaming. But then it looked like Jin had poisoned Declan, acting on Ryo’s orders! Turns out, none of that was right. The real shocker? Jin actually died before he was born. Yasuda forced Ryo to pretend to be Jin, basically his unborn brother, to cover up the fact that he’d killed Declan. Thankfully, Ryo figured it out and went back to a gaming café, where Morgan and Karadec finally found him and put a stop to it all. It’s a wild story, honestly!

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2026-02-07 06:10