When High Potential’s second season lands on the 2025 TV schedule, it’ll no doubt follow up on one or more of the Season 1 finale’s cliffhangers, hopefully with an additional clue or two about its mystery Game Master antagonist. However, seeing that overarching narrative play out runs a close second or third to simply seeing Kaitlin Olson back in her groove as hyper-brilliant police consultant Morgan. The actress shared her thoughts about about portraying a character whose neurodivergent tendencies can often be misinterpreted on TV.
With the movie and TV series Limitless arguably being a hyperbolic extreme, an intimidatingly high IQ is often played up as being a quasi-superpower in fictional settings, while High Potential doesn’t ever shy away from highlighting the foibles and fumblings that can come part and parcel with all of the additional synapses. For Kaitlin Olson, bringing out that side of Morgan’s life is more ideal than only leaning into her victories. Talking to Deadline, she said:
It’s so much more interesting to me to have a person who is not perfect and who’s still trying to figure it out and who makes mistakes. So, I want her to make personal life mistakes. I want her to make professional mistakes as well, but be really convinced that she’s right, but be wrong. I mean, also it just would get boring if you just are like, OK, well, Morgan’s going to figure it out. You know what I mean? You want to surprise people and you don’t want to do the same thing over and over.
Preach it! I don't think there's ever been a point where Kaitlin Olson popped up in a show as a character who could be described as "perfect" or "predictable," which is why she's among the very best and deserves all the Emmy-related praise that comes her way. So it only makes sense that she aims to keep Morgan and her family on a similarly varying path forward into Season 2 and beyond.
Kaitlin Olson On Exploring This Particular Form Of Neurodivergence On TV
More often than not, extremely smart characters are friends of the lead whose lives aren't explored in full. The Big Bang Theory's characters are obvious exceptions to the norm, though within a sitcom universe that isn't exactly faithful to realism. So bringing a character like Morgan to the masses is important to Olson, as is making sure these characters' differences aren't being unfairly exploited. As she put it:
I don’t know how much it’s been explored on TV. Someone with an incredibly high IQ like that, I believe that’s classified as a neurodivergent brain, and there are so many people in the world who are neurodivergent in some way. I think most of the world looks at that and thinks of that as a disorder, and it’s upsetting and it’s bad, but oh, if you’re super smart, it must be really great. And that’s not necessarily the case.
I love that even in its first season, High Priority gave audiences episodes that tweaked the format where Morgan's expansive knowledge was the most vital piece of each investigation, while also playing up how much she struggles with not knowing answers to things. Olson spoke to that feeling of anxiety over the unknown being such a relatable character trait.
She also spoke to the]negativity that neurodivergent people deal with, whether stemming from within or from exterior factors.
There’s a lot that goes on in there, and I’m sure it can be very lonely and people can feel very misunderstood, and people who aren’t as intelligent or don’t have a crazy- high IQ can maybe be jealous of that and lash out, and their way of feeling good about themselves is putting those people down.
Olson continued, pointing out that super-smart people inspire the same kinds of misplaced assumptions that extremely affluent people might. In her words:
I mean, it’s a rich world that I think we can tap into, and I think it’s too common to have the perception that because someone’s smart, they must have a wonderful life. It’s the same thing with anything, right? Just because someone’s rich, they must have a wonderful life, or if someone’s attractive, they must have a wonderful life. Not necessarily true. People are well-rounded human beings, and that’s why I wanted to make sure Morgan was multifaceted and not just a smart person in short skirts.
Just because someone has three of the coolest and cutest kids on TV, that doesn't mean her life is grea...wait, no, that part of Morgan's life actually does provide a ton of happiness and good feelings. And Olson said she's hoping Season 2 will dig deeper into the issues that Morgan's son Elliot faces as a high-IQ student, and how that may or may not contrast with Ava's life.
Of course, some High Potential fans are no doubt reading this and saying, "Yeah, that's great, but what about Morgan and Karadec getting it on?" And I'm sorry to say it, but Olson recently addressed Morgan and Karadec’s shippers in flippant way that doesn't exactly inspire a ton of first-date speculation.
While waiting for Season 2 to arrive, fans can rewatch all of Season 1 with either a Hulu subscription or a Disney+ subscription.
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