Minor spoilers below for High Potential‘s latest episodes for anyone who hasn’t caught up on ABC or via Hulu subscription.
When Shameless star Steve Howey joined the cast of High Potential for its second season, I can’t imagine anyone expected it to lead to arguably the strangest case of disappearing facial hair on the 2025 TV schedule thus far. When Nick Wagner entered the fray as the LAPD squad’s new captain, he was rocking quite the caterpillar above his upper lip. But now, mere weeks after that mildly unsettling introduction? The mustache has joined the choir invisible and ceased to exist.
So…like…what was that about? Is Wagner just that impulsive a character that he all of a sudden lops off a healthy ‘stache without a second thought? Not exactly, although that’s perhaps not entirely untrue either. Showrunner Todd Harthan told TVLine that the reasoning for it was due to behind-the-scenes circumstances, but did address whether or not he thought Morgan’s critical comment about the mustache had any influence on Wagner’s decision. In his words:
It was time for it to go, and I don’t think it had anything to do with what Morgan said. I think he’s probably had plenty of people in his orbit other than Morgan comment on that particular part of his aesthetic, and at some point you’re just like, ‘All right, enough is enough. This thing’s got to go.’
Ha! I love that Morgan wasn’t necessarily the cause for it, but she very well could have sent him over the edge in that respect. I can imagine him taking a few potshots from others and thinking, “If I hear one more damned comment about my mustache, I’m ripping this bitch out in front of everyone,” and then having to live with Morgan’s simmering joke.
Not that Nick Wagner truly comes across as the kind of person who would let first-impression snide drill down to his actual ego, which does seem to be fairly large, if not entirely impenetrable. He’d maybe shave if he thought it would help him get a woman, but probably not if the woman directly said it was a good idea. Maybe that’s just the kind of energy the mustache itself projected, and not the character himself.
In any case, the actual reason for Steve Howey’s “now you see it, now you don’t” facial hair was entirely related to another role the actor was still in the midst of playing when High Potential‘s second season began filming. The showrunner explained that Howey was also filming another TV show in which he rocked a full beard, which wasn’t a look that Todd Harthan was interested in. So a compromise was made. As he put it:
So we thought he’d be clean shaven, but the other show was like, ‘Can we not [shave] the whole thing? Can you leave a little?’ So we said, ‘OK, we’ll leave the mustache and see how it looks.’ We looked at it and thought, ‘All right, it’s not quite Tom Selleck, but cool.’
I mean, even though there have been quite a few fans who have ripped on the mustache, I think it fits Howey’s face, and it fit Nick Wagner’s corporate swagger. Plus, it was all over the Season 2 first looks and early trailers, making it seem like a look that would last a lot longer than a half-season. Who looks this confident about a mustache they’re going to shave off in a month?
While it wasn’t confirmed, it’s feasible that Howey’s other TV show is the romantic drama novel adaptation Off Campus, which is currently filming for Amazon MGM’s Prime Video. If he’s rocking way more hair on that show, that’ll be the proof. Just keep the pudding away from it.
HIgh Potential‘s midseason finale is set to air on ABC on Tuesday, October 28, at 10:00 p.m., presumably without Wagner sporting porkchop sideburns.
