‘High Potential’ Episode 5 Recap: “Croaked”

By
Rebecca Murray
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High Potential Episode 5
Kathleen Munroe, Kaitlin Olson, and Daniel Sunjata in ‘High Potential’ episode 5 (Disney/Raymond Liu)

A vet tech listens to messages as he starts his overnight shift as ABC’s High Potential episode five, “Croaked,” gets underway. He can’t turn on the lights because of the reptiles and is forced to search for one of the missing patients in the dark. Instead of recapturing the patient, he stumbles upon the dead body of Dr. Monica Davis (Rosslyn Luke).

Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) begins her day shocked that her teenage daughter Ava is being nice to her. Her ex-husband, Ludo (Taran Killam), arrives to perform his manny duties, and she passes off the baby to head off to investigate Monica’s murder. Detective Daphne Forrester (Javicia Leslie) reveals Monica is a single veterinarian specializing in exotic animals. Detective Lev ‘Oz’ Osman (Deniz Akdeniz) adds that the ME believes it’s a cardiac arrest. However, dozens of printouts on the floor around her body beg to differ. They each state a single word: “Murder.”

Monica’s hands have blotches which could be from an allergic reaction. Morgan looks around and finds a glass cage containing one poison dart frog when there should be two. The enclosure’s lock is open, and Morgan screams, “Wait!” as Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) starts to wash his hands. Adam doesn’t stop what he’s doing, so Morgan picks up a dart gun and shoots him in the neck.

One touch from a poisonous dart frog is deadly, and Morgan’s figured out there’s poison in the soap dispenser that paralyzes humans. Morgan deduces that Monica was drying her hands when she became paralyzed. She couldn’t pick up a pen, so she used the voice-controlled printer to indicate she was murdered.

Daphne finds poor dead Fred the Poison Dart Frog in the soap dispenser. Lt. Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) calls with the news that Bethany Reed, a friend of Monica’s, reported her missing last night.

Adam’s still a bit out of it from the tranq dart, so Morgan drives to Bethany’s place. Adam’s pissed about taking a dart in the neck but concedes that he understands why she did it. He’s still woozy and seeing double, so Morgan handles the questioning. Bethany’s upset while explaining that she couldn’t reach Monica so Morgan hugs her. That hug is enough to snap Adam out of his stupor, and he takes over the investigation.

Bethany describes Monica as seeming distracted at breakfast and admitting she had “guy” troubles. Bethany’s husband, Nathan, and young son, Gavin, show up, and Gavin reveals he saw a man yelling at Monica at her clinic a couple of days ago. The kid has a rough time describing the man to Daphne, and Oz spots an Avengers comic in his bag. Oz has Gavin think of the Avengers’ looks and then how they compare to the man he saw.

Selena and Adam question Monica’s parents and learn they haven’t seen her in 12 years, even though they live eight miles apart. Oz brings them the sketch, and they immediately recognize it as Shane Seger, the worst thing that happened to Monica. She was 16, he was 21, and after a year into their relationship, Shane went to prison for armed robbery.

Shane was released from prison last month, so they bring him in for questioning. Adam and Morgan wonder why he’s not shocked that she’s dead, and why he’s acting so cocky. He shows off his ankle monitor and says he’s allowed to be a personal trainer at Muscle Beach during the day.

Daphne confirms the ankle monitor indicates he was home when Monica was murdered. They have to cut him loose, but Morgan wonders if maybe Monica’s parents had something to do with their daughter’s death. Adam doesn’t think so; parents rarely kill their kids.

Morgan comes home a little early, ready to snoop around in Ava’s room. She swears she saw Ava swallow a pill that morning, and Ludo warns that snooping is a dangerous, slippery slope to go down. Morgan’s worried Ava is taking Adderall or something worse when she stumbles on a packet of birth control pills. Ludo confesses he’s not emotionally prepared for this but then takes a deep breath and pulls himself together. He thinks they should just pretend it didn’t happen, but Morgan wants to confront their daughter. Ludo believes she should wait until Ava comes to her with the news so as not to break her trust. But Morgan’s adamant that she needs to step in so that Ava doesn’t screw up her life.

Ava walks into her room while they’re talking it out, and Morgan does what Ludo suggests: she doesn’t confront their daughter.

High Potential Episode 5
Javicia Leslie and Deniz Akdeniz in ‘High Potential’ episode 5 (Disney/Carlos Lopez-Calleja)

Back at the station, Daphne shows Oz and Selena recent reviews of Monica’s clinic. They were great until six months ago, and now there are many one-star reviews posted online. One customer who goes by A$modiu$1999 even threatened that she’ll pay for what she’s done. Oz and Daphne track A$modiu$1999 (real name: Rodney) down at a tattoo parlor and learn Monica killed his spider, Fernanda. Fernanda was his best friend and Monica incinerated her before he could even say goodbye. Rodney hated her but claims he didn’t kill her. However, he did follow her home once to scare her.

Oz mentions her house in Brentwood and Rodney is confused. He followed her to an apartment in Hollywood. Coincidentally, the Hollywood connection is simultaneously being brought up at the station. Morgan recalls a bag in the trash and wonders why food was delivered to Monica at a Hollywood apartment when she lived on the other side of town.

Oz and Daphne stakeout the apartment and see a man enter the building with a gun. They track him to an apartment and barge in, only to discover Morgan and Adam are already investigating the place. The man is Larry, the building supervisor, and the gun is a drill to fix the ceiling fan.

They look around and Morgan discovers a room full of exotic animals, including Rodney’s very much alive best spider friend, Fernanda. It appears Monica Davis was an exotic animal trafficker. They keep looking for clues and discover a list with what looks like codes about animal sales. Morgan corrects them and explains it’s a list of houses for sale. Apparently, Monica was selling animals to get money to buy a house.

Oz is ordered to look through Monica’s patient files while Daphne will look into the buyers. Meanwhile, Morgan and Adam speak with realtor Ty Williams who was working with Monica. Ty reveals Monica had a partner and hands over a flyer on the house she wanted to purchase.

The flyer has bees and Morgan points out it’s a pollinator garden, just like the one outside Monica’s best friend’s salon. Bethany’s salon also had bees and flowers on its windows. Morgan believes that Monica and Bethany were planning on moving in together.

Bethany confesses they were more than friends, and she was leaving her husband for Monica. However, she doesn’t know anything about an illegal animal trafficking business. Bethany admits her husband, Nathan, knew about Monica and that she was leaving him.

Meet our next suspect: Nathan Reed. Adam’s interrogating Nathan when Oz interrupts with a book titled The Complete Book of Frogs and Toads. Inside is information on Poison Dart Frogs. Nathan confesses to killing Monica.

However, there’s still 15 minutes left in the episode. Plus, Morgan thinks there’s something wonky about the confession. Unfortunately for Morgan, it’s the weekend, and all the detectives are ready to take time off. She gives Adam a hard time about a date he completely forgot he’s going on and about having an incomplete profile on Bumble. Morgan also refuses to stop talking about Nathan’s confession. She thinks the timeline is off.

A photo in Monica’s place showed Bethany’s son, Gavin, with his yellow karate belt hugging his mom. Today, he got his purple belt, yet Bethany claimed she’s only known Monica for two years. How did Monica have a photo that’s obviously older than two years of Gavin when she hadn’t met Bethany yet?

Adam refuses to engage in more speculation and is done for the week. Morgan’s not, and on Saturday takes her kids to the market that Monica’s ex-boyfriend Shane went to jail for robbing. She recalls Monica’s dad mentioning that Shane was wearing flip-flops when he held up the store, which wasn’t in the police report. How did Monica’s dad know that?

High Potential Episode 5
Kaitlin Olson and Daniel Sunjata in ‘High Potential’ episode 5 (Disney/Carlos Lopez-Calleja)

Morgan takes her kids to Muscle Beach and confronts Shane. She’s figured out Monica was with him during the robbery, but he didn’t tell the cops. Morgan suddenly realizes it’s because Monica was pregnant.

Next, Morgan and the troupe interrupt Adam’s lunch date, helping themselves to food from the table while Morgan claims she’s Adam’s wife. His date’s shocked, and Morgan comes clean that they’re just non-romantic partners who work on cases together. Adam tries to clear things up but doesn’t succeed as Morgan reveals Bethany’s son is adopted and that Monica and Shane are the boy’s biological parents. She deduced this because Gavin and Shane both have ear dimples in both ears, which is super rare. Bethany and Nathan don’t have dimples, but Shane does – and it’s 100% hereditary.

Adam’s date is really getting into this whole thing as Morgan says Shane basically admitted to covering for Monica on the day of the robbery. A teen pregnancy is why Monica’s dad was so ashamed of her and why they were estranged. Morgan believes Bethany learned that Monica was actually with her so that she could have Gavin in her life and became angry. Which means Nathan confessed to a crime he didn’t commit to cover for his wife.

Morgan and Adam interrogate Bethany and Bethany admits she destroyed her marriage for Monica only to discover it was all a lie. She heard Shane yelling at Monica for giving up their son, and figured out that Gavin is Monica and Shane’s child. “She was trying to steal my son, and it was working!” says Bethany.

Oz is babysitting Gavin when Monica’s mom arrives to pick up her daughter’s possessions. Monica’s mom overhears Daphne telling Oz that Bethany confessed after learning that Monica was Gavin’s biological mom.

Oz retrieves Nathan to let him go, and Nathan admits he confessed just because he didn’t want Gavin to grow up without a mom.

The case is closed, but Morgan’s down because it doesn’t feel like a win. She stands back and watches as Monica’s mom helps Gavin get something out of the snack machine. Gavin doesn’t know this is his grandmother, but Monica’s mom is now aware this is her grandson.

Gavin runs into his dad’s arms and is caught up in a big hug.

Morgan makes it back home and stares at her sleeping daughter in bed. She caresses Ava’s head but doesn’t wake her up.

Oz and Daphne make Rodney’s day when they bring his beloved spider back home to him.

Morning arrives and Morgan confesses to snooping in Ava’s room and finding her birth control pills. She’s sad Ava felt she had to hide them from her and claims she’s her daughter’s ride-or-die. Ava admits she should have told her mom she’s taking them because her skin got bad. Morgan’s stunned (and relieved) that her daughter went on birth control for her complexion and not to have sex. Ava says she is having sex, and Morgan tries to react like she’s fine with it. Ava finally lets her off the hook and says she’s kidding!




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