The murder-of-the-week at the center of ABC’s High Potential episode 10, “Chutes and Murders,” is introduced when two little girls literally collide with a dead body. A playground slide turns into a murder scene when the girls find their passage blocked by a corpse.
Nannies reveal the dead woman is Tara Foley, also a nanny who frequents the park. The medical examiner tells the detectives a heavy blow to the head killed her. Her attacker hit Tara nearby, and then she crawled into the slide to escape. She died around 10pm, and unfortunately, there aren’t any CCTV cameras nearby.
The nannies reveal a weird guy had been hanging around the park, and he seemed interested in Tara.
Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) has been quiet during all this, but Tara’s dinging phone is driving her crazy. She puts on a glove before retrieving it and discovers eight recent messages from Brett Lewis. The angry tone of a voice memo indicates Brent’s her employer, and he’s pissed she didn’t show up for work.
Lt. Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) orders Daphne (Javicia Leslie) and Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) to investigate the strange guy. Also, they need to speak with her next of kin or anyone who can provide clues about her life.
Meanwhile, Morgan and Adam (Daniel Sunjata) interview Brett and his husband, Jeff (Jai Rodriguez), and learn Tara had been their son Ward’s nanny for four months. Brett claims he liked Tara and wouldn’t have left an angry message if he’d known something was wrong. They describe Tara as sweet, loving, and a fan of TikTok dance videos. Jeff remembers her complaining about a guy who would follow her everywhere. Tara said he had a limp and was always reading a French paper.
Of course, Morgan knows where to find this stranger because only one place in LA sells French newspapers. While staking out the newspaper stand from a nearby diner, Morgan and Adam have a flirty exchange about orgasms. They spot their man, and Adam follows him into a building. It turns out the stranger is Charles Lavoie (Ken Marino), a private investigator. Adam knows Charles (aka Chuck the Canuck). He used to be a detective in the LAPD traffic department.
Charles explains that he and Adam came up in the LAPD together. But Charles retired early after accidentally shooting himself in the foot.
Charles was hired by Tara’s employers to see if she did anything “out of the ordinary.” She didn’t, and the Lewis’ fired him after not getting the desired results. (They thought she was abusing Ward.) Fortunately, he took lots of photos of Tara that he’ll bring them to the station.
Adam and Morgan question the Lewis’ and Brett comes clean about hiring the investigator without telling his husband. They discovered their former nanny, Rosa, let their son wander into the street after seeing a post in their Facebook group. She admitted it, and they fired her. Brett hired Charles after posts popped up saying Tara was endangering Ward. However, Ward loved her (he didn’t love Rosa), and Tara said the accusations were false. But Brett hired a PI anyway, to be safe.
Brett shows Morgan screengrabs of the posts about both Rosa and Tara written by Carina, and Morgan excuses herself to snoop around. She spots multiple nanny cams, which Jeff knew nothing about. Adam wants their footage … and their alibis from the time of Tara’s death.
Charles shows up with 1,500 photos of Tara and plops down next to Oz to go through them. (Lucky Oz!) Daphne’s happy that going through Tara’s phone will make her unavailable to join them.
Adam and Morgan question Carina (Eliza Coupe), and she admits she wrote the post about Rosa but not about Tara. Carina’s husband, Mark, usually watches their daughter, but she was with her when she witnessed Wade running out of the library unattended. After she wrote the post, group members slammed her for ruining Rosa’s career. She ultimately deactivated her account.
Daphne discovers Tara’s got someone in her phone labeled “Little Sketchy.” Tara may have had a stalker (besides Charles). She forwards the texts to Morgan, and they are super creepy. One even says he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he doesn’t see her soon.
Adam and Morgan comb through Tara’s apartment (Morgan much less methodically than Adam) and it appears Tara might have had money trouble. They find printouts of Carina’s posts and Morgan locates pepper spray. They’re puzzled that a lawyer’s number on a stickie turns out to be an immigration attorney. Her calendar shows she was planning to go to church the night she was murdered.
A flyer for a poetry slam in the trash leads them to “Little Sketchy.” Little Sketchy (real name Bryan Schlotzky) recites a horrible poem about Tara’s death on stage, he tells Adam and Morgan he knows who killed her.
Back at the station, Daphne continues to research the Facebook group while Oz suffers through 1,500 photos with Chuck the Canuck. Daphne’s not having any luck, but Oz thinks Carina’s husband, Mark, seems cozy with Tara in Chuck’s photos. There’s even one photo with him holding a bat that could be the murder weapon.
Morgan sees a photo of Tara wearing an old Seattle Supersonics sweatshirt, and she’d deduced from photos in Carina’s home that Mark’s from Seattle. Daphne’s sent out to interview Mark while Bryan arrives at the station for questioning.
Bryan reveals Tara was his babysitter, and on the night that she died, he was outside her apartment pulling off a John Cusack in Say Anything move. Other tenants can vouch for him since they weren’t happy he was disturbing the peace. Bryan believes Mark killed Tara and that Mark made Tara kick him out of her life.
Bryan’s sure Tara would never sleep with a married man.
Daphne questions Mark (Amir Talai), who claims he’s devoted to his wife and Tara was only a friend. On the night Tara died, he was hosting a book club at home. Also, he grabs the bat in the photo and proves it’s a plastic wiffle ball bat.
Adam confirms Brett’s alibi checked out, so their potential suspects list is shrinking. Tara’s toxicology results proved negative; defensive wounds were absent. She probably knew her attacker.
Photos suggest the other nannies knew her better than they admitted, so they need to be questioned again. Morgan and Adam handle it and learn Tara was working for $10 less an hour than the other nannies. They felt sorry for her and didn’t think she knew her worth. However, she wasn’t a joiner and didn’t take them up on their offers to help.
The nannies were all together the night Tara died. If she’d accepted their invitation, she’d still be alive. They claim Mark was the only person Tara was close to, and they know Mark’s wife, Carina, didn’t like that. Carina even showed up at the park and screamed at Tara and Mark.
Carina moves up on the suspect list, but the office security log confirms her alibi. Oz, Morgan, and Adam are leaving the nannies when Daphne calls with big news. The other people who posted negatively about Tara in the Facebook group are fake!
Morgan and Adam speak with Carina again and learn the argument wasn’t about Tara and Mark; Carina was mad about the wood Mark chose for their deck. She scoffs at the possibility she’d ever be jealous of a nanny. Also, she reminds them she deactivated her Facebook account after her one post about the Rosa incident during story time.
Morgan suddenly figures out the nannies are the ones posting negatively about Tara because all the texts come in during the story time hour when they have time off from watching the kids. They made up fake accounts, infiltrated the group, and then bullied Carina after she reported Rosa. They posed as Carina after she quit and dragged Tara. Morgan believes the nannies were lying to them and didn’t like that Tara replaced their friend and worked for less.
Rosa was super close with the other nannies, and each of the children’s lunch boxes had Spice Girl stickers. Rosa was Sporty Spice, and Tara refused to use that lunch box when she took the job. Morgan concludes that the nanny, Oksana, murdered Tara. Oksana’s Russian and the posts in the Facebook group follow Russian capitalization conventions. (Days of the week aren’t capitalized.)
A whole lot of exposition later and it turns out Oksana is Eastern Orthodox and Tara was classic Catholic. Tara had Exaltation of The Cross at 7pm marked on her calendar for September 27th. But Catholics recognize that on the 14th, so that means Tara was going to Oksana’s church – not her own. Tara must have realized it was Oksana bullying her. The immigration lawyer’s number on her board was to report Oksana for making a fake identity, which could get her visa revoked.
Oksana’s church is near the park, and Tara must have confronted her there. Oksana reacted by killing her.
The nannies lie and say they were together the night of Tara’s murder. However, when Adam brings up hidden nanny cams and the possibility of checking footage, they change their tune and admit Oksana wasn’t there. They claim Oksana is scary and forced them to lie.
Oksana’s arrested and confesses she killed Tara after Tara threatened her. The Russian government persecuted her family, and she won’t go back. She’d rather go to prison in America than be sent back to Russia.
The episode ends with Morgan meeting up with Jeff as he watches Ward play at the park. Morgan hands him a photo showing Tara and Ward together. It’s obvious Tara loved Ward, and Jeff gets emotional just looking at them together.
Morgan smiles as she watches her own kids, who’ve grown apart as Ava grows up, play on the spinner, laughing like they did when they were little.
***Congrats to the cast and crew for picking up a well-deserved season two order!
- 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 11 “The Sauna at the End of the Stairs” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 12 “Partners” Recap
- High Potential Season 1 Episode 13 “Let’s Play” Finale Recap
