ABC’s High Potential episode 11’s case of the week involves a deathbed murder confession. An elderly dying man asks his family to record his confession and then claims he murdered his son-in-law, Barry, 10 years ago by pushing him down the stairs.
Lieutenant Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) gets a surprise visit from Lt. Melon (Garret Dillahunt) and another detective, there to brag that they’ve got a confession and closed a cold case. The detectives and Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) watch the action from outside Soto’s office and can only speculate about what’s going on since they brought champagne.
They drop off the champagne, and Soto slams a chair into a desk after they leave. She’s pissed they solved the Bucket Lane murder and that it turned out George Donovan was the murderer. Selena and Melon were on the case years ago, and Melon always believed George was the killer. Selena didn’t, and George got off.
10 years ago, Morgan was preoccupied with two small children, so she’s fuzzy on the cold case details. Selena provides a rundown of the case: Barry Johnson was murdered in the family home and found in the sauna. The cause of death was a broken neck. Whoever did it pushed him down a flight of stairs and put him in the sauna hoping they’d assume he passed out and died there.
George was fingered for the murder because a drop of Barry’s blood was found on his shirt in the laundry. However, there wasn’t enough to convict because a coke dealer was pulled over close to George’s house, and Barry had coke in his system. The defense suggested the murder was a drug deal gone wrong.
Selena’s gut instinct told her George didn’t do it. Plus, George was an old guy with a hip replacement and couldn’t have carried Barry into the sauna. Selena still doesn’t believe it and thinks George only confessed to clear his family’s name. It’s been difficult for the family and this will end years of speculation. However, Selena doesn’t know who did it.
After the walk down memory lane breaks up, Selena asks Morgan to look through the old files and see if they missed something. This case is the one that got away, and it still bothers her a decade later.
Morgan spends the whole workday pouring over the file and keeps it up as she does chores at night. She finally has that “a-ha” moment as she’s folding laundry.
The following day, Morgan reveals that no one pushed Barry down the stairs. Barry was killed in the bathroom upstairs while he was showering. The killer tossed a hair dryer into the shower, hoping his death would pass as a heart attack. The killer then sent Barry’s body down the laundry chute into the basement, which resulted in a broken neck and Barry’s blood on George’s shirt. Barry’s body was placed in the sauna and “cooked to perfection.”
Backing up a moment, the electrical outlet in the bathroom upstairs caught fire; the cover was scorched. However, the scorched wall plate was removed and replaced by a plain cover. The other covers all had wallpaper on them but not that one.
If they remove the wall plate, there will be scorch marks underneath it. And although now hair dryers don’t cause electrocutions, the dryer in that bathroom was from the ‘80s before precautions were put in place.
Selena recalls being told that they only needed to get the family’s alibis for their time after midnight. The murder could have happened before that since Barry’s wife, Lenore, was the only person who claimed to have seen him at midnight. (Lenore drinks.)
Selena wants to reopen the case, but Adam (Daniel Sunjata) warns her that reopening a cold case got another detective moved to traffic. Selena isn’t worried about that; she wants this case reexamined.
Selena gets permission from Lenore to examine the house while they’re out spreading George’s ashes. They start in the upstairs bathroom, and Morgan is right; scorch marks are visible once the wall plate is removed. They find the scorched wall plate behind the bed in Barry’s room.
Morgan tosses a mannequin nicknamed Ida Perp down the laundry chute, and it’s confirmed that would break a neck.
Meanwhile, Neda Donovan (Nasim Pedrad) arrives at the station with a camera crew in tow. She has a story about the Bucket Lane murder to tell, but Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) and Daphne (Javicia Leslie) refuse to speak on camera. Neda claims The Sauna Stairs documentary is a “legit production,” but Daphne isn’t impressed even when she whips out a poster.
Neda claims she’s doing the documentary because George’s confession is a sham. She’s been part of the family for 16 years, but now she wants to tell her story. George didn’t want her to participate in the documentary and draw more attention to the family, so he confessed to put an end to the story. But if he murdered Barry, he would have confessed a decade ago to stop the speculation.
Neda doesn’t know who did it but believes they’ll all continue to lie to protect the family.
George’s family returns from spreading his ashes just as Selena, Adam, and Morgan emerge from the basement. They explain how Barry’s murder and the resulting gossip has ruined their lives, and that Matty’s been the focus of murder blogs. They also reveal that George and Barry had a fight the night Barry was murdered because he brought cocaine into George’s house. Matty was a recovering addict, and George was upset that Barry would do coke around him.
Lenore claims they at least briefly called a truce so they could enjoy the family’s Thanksgiving dinner. But the dinner quickly deteriorated after Matty drank and Barry insulted George and Lenore’s parenting skills. Matty revealed a secret about George and Neda’s ex-husband Clark (Heather and Matty’s sibling) losing money investing in Barry’s friend’s failed company. But all money talk was shut down when Heather caught her sleeve on fire, something that Detective Melon didn’t feel significant enough to put in the initial police report.
Barry and Heather’s son, Cody, left during the argument and returned in time to play Monopoly. Barry went upstairs to bed and cranked up his TV. George reacted by saying he was going to kill Barry.
Neda’s recollection of the events is pretty much the same, with the addition of one key fact: Heather had bruises on her arm that were revealed once they ripped away her burning sleeve. Barry abused Heather.
Oz calls Selena with the abuse news, which the Donovans never mentioned during their description of the events. That detail gives any of them reason to have wanted Barry dead.
Unfortunately, they’re running out of time and need to solve Barry’s murder quickly. Melon saw Heather Donovan at the station and questioned what’s going on with the case.
Selena, Adam, and Morgan demand to know why the Donovans covered up the abuse. Lenore claims it was a family matter that didn’t need to be brought up. They all confronted Barry about the bruises at the time, and he denied it and stormed out.
The next time Barry was seen was by Lenore at midnight. She saw him come down the stairs in his bathrobe and enter the basement. She only saw the back of him and can’t remember how much wine she was drinking.
The next step is to question the family members individually. Neda tells Daphne and Oz that she fetched Heather’s clothes from her room and Barry threw them at her. That was the last time she saw him.
Selena questions Heather and Cody and implies that as a former nurse, Heather would have been trained to lift bodies.
Lenore tells Adam and Morgan that Cody was winning at Monopoly when they heard Barry change the channel from a war film to a porno. She sent Clark and Matty upstairs to take care of it. They were gone for 30 minutes. The TV never came back on.
Clark claims Barry locked himself in his room, and they banged on his door until he turned the TV off. Clark never saw Barry after dinner. He and Matty went to the attic to fetch their mom’s Christmas decorations. Matty left him to carry all the heavy boxes for 20 minutes.
Neda left the house to get fresh air and saw Billy selling drugs to Matty – not Barry.
With their time running short to solve the case, Morgan does a brief recap of who was where, when, and why. But even Morgan can’t pull together all the pieces.
Captain Pacheco and Lt. Melon arrive at the Donovan home to apologize to the family and blame Selena for interrupting their day of mourning. Captain Pacheco isn’t done dishing out discipline and says the cleaning lady experiment is over. That’s just seconds before Morgan pipes up and says she knows who did it.
The room falls silent as Morgan explains that Lenore thought she saw Barry but only saw his bathrobe. Therefore, the murder was before midnight. Barry died after being electrocuted in the shower, and his body was stuffed down the laundry chute. She believes Cody killed Barry before the family began playing Monopoly because his dad was abusing his mom.
Cody staged Barry’s death in the sauna after everyone except Lenore had gone to bed. And, Cody had used a remote to change the channel on Barry’s TV after Barry was already dead, making it seem like he was alive. However, he accidentally turned up the volume, which made Clark and Matty go upstairs to shut it down.
Captain Pacheco’s second apology to the family is interrupted by Cody’s confession. The secret’s been eating him alive, and he confessed to his grandfather right before he died. His grandfather then made the deathbed confession to save him.
Heather tries to take the blame, but Selena assures her that Cody will be tried as a minor. He’ll probably only serve a few years.
The captain reluctantly tells Morgan she did a good job. But if Selena goes behind his back again, she’s out of Major Crimes.
The episode ends with Selena and Morgan complimenting each other’s skills. Morgan and Adam exchange good nights, and she’s happily surprised to see he’s pinned a badge on her jacket.
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 1 Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 2 “Dancers in the Dark” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 3 “Dirty Rotten Scoundrel” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 4 “Survival Mode” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 5 “Croaked” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 6 “Hangover” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 7 “One of Us” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 8 “Obsessed” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 9 “The RAMS” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 10 “Chutes and Murders” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 12 “Partners” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 13 “Let’s Play” Finale Recap
