Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for High Potential Season 2, Episode 10
High Potential has been delivering consistently strong episodes since it returned for the back half of its second season, but Season 2, Episode 10, “Grounded,” is especially fantastic. This week’s episode shows the Major Crimes team investigating a particularly suspenseful and compelling case, where a part-time skydiving instructor (and full-time Air Force therapist) was murdered midair while skydiving. The case is interesting enough on its own, but it is everything that happens outside of it that really makes this episode stand out.
“Grounded” isa character-focused episode that sees a number of ongoing problems finally boil over. Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) has to attend detective training to face the consequences for her frequent rule-breaking, while Selena (Judy Reyes) and Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) really start to question Wagner’s (Steve Howey) overbearing leadership style. It’s a bold and intense episode that delivers some shocking moments, and that sets up a number of really exciting and concerning storylines for the rest of the season.
In ‘High Potential’ Season 2, Episode 10, Major Crimes Investigates the Murder of an Air Force Therapist
The episode opens with a skydiving class. Everything is going smoothly until the instructor is killed midair,and he’s dead before he hits the ground. The victim is Captain Alonso Padilla, who worked as a therapist for the Air Force and taught skydiving classes every week. In Padilla’s jumpsuit was a note with a death threat, and the Medical Examiner’s report says that he died from a lack of oxygen. Morgan gets in trouble for rushing the report, so she has to take a detective training class, and they continue investigating without her. Morgan helps on the case throughout the day, though. She voices her suspicions about Padilla’s skydiving student, Ethan, and Karadec and Wagner later catch him at Padilla’s house.
Ethan is an aerospace engineer for Flagstone Defense Systems. He was seen recently arguing with Padilla, because Ethan’s brother, Silas, was one of Padilla’s patients. Silas died a few weeks ago in a car accident, and it was seemingly caused by his PTSD. Meanwhile, Arthur (Mekhi Phifer) calls Selena to check on Morgan. He had to go into hiding to get away from the man (John Pyper-Ferguson) who was following him, and now he’s planning to track the man down to question him about Roman. Separately, Major Crimes meets with Padilla’s boss and learns that after Silas died, Padilla was worried that other patients were dealing with his same issue, and he started looking into it. Karadec finds a secret investigation board of Padilla’s and after Wagner pushes Karadec to ask Morgan for help, she discovers that Padilla’s patients had a shared condition that wasn’t PTSD.
The Major Crimes team figures out that there was an issue with a plane prototype that Ethan’s company was working on. Because of the symptoms that Padilla noticed in the test pilots, he realized something was wrong with the plane, and he shared this with Ethan. There wasn’t enough oxygen getting into the cockpit, so all of the pilots got hypoxia, which is what killed Silas. The investigation then points to the plane’s lead engineer, Randy Pike, as the one who killed Padilla. Major Crimes can’t prove anything without Padilla’s flashdrive with the files, though. Morgan gets them the files, but she gets caught working while she’s supposed to be focused on the class.
Morgan Gets (Temporarily) Fired In ‘High Potential’s Latest Episode
As punishment for rushing the Medical Examiner’s evaluation, Solomon (Jesse Bradford) from Internal Affairs sends Morgan to the detective training academy. It’s a clever way for High Potential to remind viewers that there are consequences for Morgan’s actions, because even though she always means well, she regularly breaks protocol. Sergeant Dottie Reynolds (Michael Hyatt) teaches the course which Karadec helped her put together a while back. Morgan gets in trouble for helping with the case one too many times that day, but when she meets with Solomon later, Dottie praises her for her instincts and how she is able to see things that trained detectives miss.
Dottie recommends that Morgan keep her job with additional training and supervision, but Solomon fires Morgan. Morgan still works the case before her paperwork is filed, and she figures out that Pike killed Padilla by replacing his skydiving mask with a faulty one that froze at a certain altitude and killed him. Morgan’s team is unable to stop her from losing her job, and Karadec blames himself, even though Morgan doesn’t. Selena takes things into her own hands, though. After getting the go-ahead from Wagner, she blackmails Solomon with pictures of him having an affair with the Chief’s wife, and he gives Morgan her job back.She doesn’t tell Morgan what she did to get Morgan her job back, so a worried but grateful Morgan celebrates with her, unaware that there will likely be consequences for Selena down the line.
Wagner’s Questionable Authority Is Finally Challenged on ‘High Potential’
Wagner spends the episode once again going over Selena’s head, questioning her authority, and assigning himself to cases that he shouldn’t be working. Finally, though, both Karadec and Selena confront him. Karadec points out that captains aren’t usually on the field, and that it’s odd that Wagner keeps putting himself on these cases. Although Wagner has been strict with Morgan about rules in the past, he reveals himself as a hypocrite and says that he likes to know “when and how to bend the rules to help someone on your team.” Later, Selena uses this mindset to her advantage when it comes to bringing Morgan back.
Selena also finally confronts Wagner about how poorly he’s been treating her. She calls him out for regularly stealing her office, taking over her cases, and making her feel small just because he got the promotion that she had earned. Selena now demands respect for her and her team as long as she is Lieutenant, and even tells him to fire her if it doesn’t work for him. This does the trick, and he backs down. They even work as a team later to get Morgan back, but I still don’t trust Wagner, especially after his last scene.
In the final moments of the episode, Karadec and Wagner talk in the elevator on the way out of work. Karadec says that he figured Wagner out. In a great mic drop moment, Karadec says, “See, a guy like you doesn’t take a job he knows will keep him from the thing he loves: being in the field. Unless, of course, someone forced you. So I have to ask, who is the one person Nick Wagner is too scared to cross?” Karadec leaves after that, and Wagner looks frightened. The answer seems to obviously be Wagner’s powerful family, and more specifically, his father. It’s clearer to me than ever that Wagner’s family is at least partially responsible for what happened to Roman. My working theory is that Wagner’s father made him take the job to cover up their involvement and keep the investigation from getting anywhere, and I can’t wait to see how this unfolds.
High Potential airs Tuesdays at 9:00 P.M. EST on ABC.
