Spoilers for High Potential Season 1, Episode 12 – “Partners” – are ahead! If you miss any episodes when they air on ABC every Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, you can stream them with a Hulu subscription the day after.
Watching High Potential this week made me feel all the feelings. As a Morgan and Karadec shipper, their becoming partners warmed my heart. However, at Morgan’s home, Ludo collapsing gave me a genuine fright, and it’s stuck with me. So, when I interviewed Amirah J, the actress who plays our leading lady’s daughter, Ava, I had to ask about this scary instance. It also got me thinking about how it could impact Season 2 now that it’s been renewed.
After being shook by Ludo’s collapse — which seemingly happened because of stress and being overworked — I asked Amirah J how she felt when she read the script and saw that her character’s step-father fell in a worrying way. She responded by saying she was “alarmed” by it at first, but excited to film it. However, when it came to Ava’s reaction to this moment – a moment that her mom was not there for, by the way – it was all about getting in contact with Morgan, as the actress explained during an interview with CinemaBlend:
I mean, she’s honestly just thinking about how she can reach her mom, and how she can get her mom to get help. And she’s just trying to find any way to help her step-father, who she cares about very much, because she is only a teenage girl and she doesn’t really know what to do in this situation.
She’s right, it’s a scary and overwhelming instant, and Ava isn’t sure what to do during it.
To me, that served as one of many points where it became clear that Morgan’s work and home life balance could become a greater issue. So, I asked Amirah J about that, and she said:
I feel like this episode kind of shows how overwhelmed everyone kind of gets, especially Morgan, trying to find the perfect balance between her work life and her home life with her kids and her ex-husband. And I think it kind of shifts in Morgan’s mind of like, ‘Oh, maybe she needs to take a step back from work and focus on her kids or find a perfect balance.’
Shifting from Morgan’s perspective to Ava’s, Amirah J explained that her character is trying really hard to support her mom and her new job. It’s clear this career means the world to her, and Ava knows that. So, to that point, the actress said:
And I do think that Ava kind of sees her mom struggling, in a way, to overcome everything. You know, she has this job that she is very good at and is, you know, finally not getting fired, or, like, all these things. And so Ava kind of sees her mom in this new position, and she wants to help as much as she can.
This balance has been a central point of High Potential. However, there’s no question that the stress of Morgan working so much is weighing on her entire family – as illustrated by Ludo’s collapse. So, that’s got me thinking about how that will impact the show when it comes back around on the 2025 TV schedule for Season 2.
I’ve been curious about how Morgan’s job would impact her relationship with Ludo and her kids. While they have a solid agreement in place, Kaitlin Olson’s character does work overtime often, and detective work can be (and has been) all-consuming. That’s hard to balance with three children.
So, as she gets more into the work in the sophomore season, I think we’ll see how the stresses of the job rub off on her family and impact her relationships with her kids and ex-husband. His collapse was no accident, and it was a reflection of the pressure that is on everyone in this whole family, not just Morgan.
So, as we move forward, will her ex and their kids be resentful? Will they support her? Will they really find balance? These are all big questions that I can 100% see them addressing in more detail come Season 2.
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