High Potential Season 2 Questions Answered After Surprise Roman Reveal

The High Potential season 1 finale gave viewers some answers about Roman’s disappearance — and left Us with even more questions.

During the season’s conclusion, which aired on Tuesday, February 11, High Potential confirmed that Morgan’s (Kaitlin Olson) ex Roman was still alive after going missing for more than a decade. Morgan didn’t have any time to celebrate the news that her former partner was an FBI informant who could return home because she simultaneously realized that the LAPD’s latest case was far from solved.

Executive producer and showrunner Todd Harthan exclusively spoke to Us Weekly about wrapping up season 1 of the hit ABC series.

“The number one thing that we try to build in the writers’ room is a compelling case that will also be really wonderful to watch Morgan’s complicated brain take you through,” he noted. “That then is complimented by these wonderful detectives that are surrounding her. We know the audience — and we as the writers — have a big appetite for that serialized mystery. But the challenge is you don’t want that serialized component to overtake these wonderful cases that the audience looks forward to every week.”

High Potential balanced both by introducing a criminal who wasn’t caught by the end of the episode. Instead, Morgan realized he stole someone else’s identity and arranged a meet-cute, where she didn’t know she was speaking to the person who almost killed Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) and two other people (so far).

“Finding that balance is tricky and that’s why you have a staff of people that come in and keep you honest,” Harthan continued. “They tell me, ‘If we reveal that then it really overtakes the next episode and upsets the balance.’ So it’s tricky and it is one of the harder parts of building each episode of the show.”

High Potential, which premiered in September 2024, follows a high-potential intellectual named Morgan (Olson) who teams up with the LAPD to help solve murders. She gets paired up with Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), who is initially skeptical about how Morgan can assist the Major Crimes unit but ultimately starts to rely on her.

The show usually ends each episode with the criminal getting caught. But the season 1 finale threw Us for a loop by hinting that the unnamed man will continue to follow and taunt Morgan. Keep scrolling for answers to some of our biggest High Potential questions before season 2:

What Does Roman Being Alive Mean?

Despite Karadec confirming that Roman is alive, fans should prepare for a “deepening mystery.”

“I think frustration is a good thing with an audience. It is a healthy frustration —don’t give them too much of what they want too soon,” Harthan noted. “I’d be totally lying if I said I have all the answers to that mystery. The wonderful thing about welcoming other brains to the room is how we make sure we don’t fumble this ball and we tell this story in the most satisfying way imaginable. There’s some cool stuff coming though.”

Who Could Play Roman in Season 2?

“We’ve talked about it quite a bit like, ‘Wow we have the time and hopefully now the show is a success and we could go and get this actor or that actor.’ But the truth is, I haven’t had a deep conversation with Kaitlin about it — and she’ll have a strong opinion. She’s very active and involved with casting and has incredible instincts,” Harthan told Us. “So the short answer is no. We have some favorites and actors I really respect that would be great.”

Harthan was looking forward to bringing in more characters into the fold in season 2, adding, “Just the casting opportunities — not just for guest star roles — but recurring roles. We’ve never met Morgan’s mother and father either. We haven’t met anybody. So Roman is a really important and amazing piece of casting. I fantasize about who it could be but I haven’t zeroed in on a person yet.”

While discussing the casting possibilities, Harthan gave Olson a shout-out.

“Kaitlin is a magnet for talent. There’s a lot of people that go, ‘Oh, I get to act alongside her? That looks like a really good time.’ And they are right, It is,” he continued. “She’s a blast. But I hope you’re right [that there is actor interest in guest-starring on High Potential]. I want to see that list of people that want to come and dance with us.”

Is There Hope for Morgan and Karadec?

Now that Roman could be back in the picture, is a romantic moment (or even relationship) between Morgan and Karadec no longer an option? Not so fast.

“You never know. I don’t let my guard down about those things either. I don’t get overly confident until your audience dictates a lot of the things you do. What do they have a big appetite for?” Harthan shared with Us about his plans for the fan-favorite potential couple. “I might be infamous for slow planning things but I love a slow burn. Like selfishly I just love it.”

Harthan isn’t sure how Morgan and Karadec’s chemistry will be explored. “The biggest reason is because when you have chemistry like that — and two wonderful actors like that — I just feel like there’s so many different story paths,” he explained. “We can go down this early in the show. And what I love about them is this budding friendship that is starting to breed the kind of loyalty that then breeds the kind of unconditional friendship where people are willing to sacrifice just about anything to have each other’s backs. I love the charm of that.”

Season 2 will continue to invest in Morgan and Karadec — whether it’s a romantic pay off or not.

“We’re going to write that for a while. Even if you at some point fall in love with somebody, maybe you also are more in love with the partnership and the friendship. And maybe you are scared enough of the risk of crossing certain lines,” he hinted. “To me, it’s so fun to play in that space before you cross certain lines. There’s a lot of life in this show and I want to make sure we do it at a pace that doesn’t leave a good story on the table.”

Will the New Criminal Stick Around?

By the end of the finale, the LAPD know the guy kidnapping and nearly killing people because he missed playing board games isn’t who they think he is. They don’t know his real name though, when he found a way to cross paths with Morgan and her kids in a supermarket parking lot.

“We didn’t want [that story] to be so dark and so sadistic and brutal that it took you into a sort of a tone that felt like a departure from our show. That was a little bit of a fine line that we had to walk. Then if you’re going to have somebody go toe to toe with somebody like Morgan, they better be brilliant. They better be confident and they better be ready,” Harthan detailed. “She gets underestimated even by people that think they’re smarter than her and then look out. So we have to create a character that’s going to be fun to watch her play chess with.”

He added: “At her core, Morgan is such a good and empathetic human being. Then she sees somebody out there in the world who she knows is brilliant but is using that to do such harm and that’s a terrifying thing. We just wanted to make sure it hit all those notes without it ever feeling like we were reaching into the darkest of serial killer stories. That’s not the show.”

Harthan isn’t ruling out the mysterious man becoming the “serialized big bad” of season 2, concluding, “I don’t ever want it to feel predictable.”

How Has Fan Feedback Affected the Show?

“I do listen to the fans, I read their responses because I want to know what people are loving. It does have an impact on what we talk about and what we focus on sometimes,” he admitted to Us about getting the chance to expand the story with more episodes in season 2. “I always count on the 13 [episode order]. I love that it’s not eight or 10 episodes on broadcast and that you get those extra few hours to. I usually map out the 13 and if they call then I have a contingency to expand it and do some standalone episodes.”

What Will Season 2 Do Differently?

“I learned [in season 1] that I have this wonderful cast that you can write anything for. They really are,” Harthan noted. “With that said, what is going to be quite different in season 2 is that we didn’t have our sea legs yet. We haven’t really scratched the surface of some of those other characters in the ensemble. We haven’t gone home with a lot of them. We haven’t dug into their back stories and how they got to where they are in life. Like all their trials, tribulations and relationships.”

Season 2 would offer “rich fertile ground” for the show to expand on.

“We’re excited about writing some of the other characters more. But I think the biggest thing I learned about how we build each of these episodes is why do we care? Why do you care about this particular case or how it’s resonating with not just Morgan but every character,” he told Us. “It is making sure that we don’t get lazy with those stories that we choose to tell each week. I try to look at each episode as its own little movie and this year we have the luxury of the lessons we learned — good and bad — and planning and plotting the season so that we don’t waste any one of these episodes. However many episodes we end up getting, we will just try to treat each of them as their own little movie.”