‘High Potential’ Season 2 Episode 9 Recap: “Under the Rug”

By
Rebecca Murray
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High Potential Season 2 Episode 9 Recap
Kaitlin Olson and Daniel Sunjata in ‘High Potential’ season 2 episode 9 (Disney/Jessica Perez)

ABC’s High Potential season two, episode nine opens with a man shooting photos and carrying a rifle from a hiding place as his target plays golf. After packing up, he drives off only to discover too late that his brake lines have been cut. His truck flies over a cliff.

(The following is a recap of season two, episode nine and contains spoilers.)

Ludo (Taran Killam) delivers expensive flowers that he didn’t purchase to Morgan’s home. It turns out the flowers are from Rhys, and Morgan’s family is full of questions. The discussion needs to wait, as Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) is called to the Santa Monica mountains to investigate the photographer’s death.

Adam (Daniel Sunjata), Oz (Deniz Akdeniz), and Daphne (Javicia Leslie) have already discovered the location where the brake lines were cut by the time Morgan, in semi-appropriate shoes, arrives. The victim is Curtis Behr and he’s an ex-con. Oz shows off what was found in the truck, including $3,750 in cash with a note that the balance will be delivered upon completion of the job. He also had a rifle and a notebook with details on whoever he was tailing.  

There’s a lot of ground to cover for a search for a possible second body, if Curtis did kill his target before he was murdered. Morgan gives a short lesson on hitting golf balls after some are found near the crash. Working backwards from their current location, Morgan points to a cliff above them. She also notes the golfer is a leftie.

Morgan doesn’t notice anything unusual about the golfer’s spot and doesn’t think Curtis’ target is dead. A nearby golf club indicates the target uses a 3-D printer to make golf clubs. Adam thinks that the target might have turned the tables and killed his would-be assassin.

A camera is also discovered nearby, and when examined back at the station, the photos show the target. Lt. Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) recognizes him as inventor Douglas Newmeyer (Keith Carradine), inventor of a popular vacuum that apparently has had lots of problems. His vacuums catch fire because of faulty wiring, and there have been four deaths attributed to it.

Douglas’ lawyers have kept all the problems hidden, so most people don’t know how horrible the vacuum is. And it’s still sold in stores. Selena reveals there’s a case in court now for negligent homicide, and he’s been facing death threats.

Douglas had bodyguards with him while Curtis was spying on him. Adam doesn’t think the bodyguards did it, but they need to find Douglas quickly. He’s been moving from house to house because he doesn’t want to be found.

Selena gets Morgan alone and tells her that forensics didn’t find any blood or prints from other people in Arthur’s truck, but he’s still missing. It’ll go to Missing Persons to investigate if he doesn’t pop up in 24 hours.

Adam and Morgan narrow down the firm that supplied the bodyguards to Kluger Security. Daphne spots two of the bodyguards from the photos leaving the building, and she, Adam and Oz tail them to a house where Douglas might be holed up.

Douglas is on the floor and has blood on his chest and looks dead. However, it’s not at all what it seems; the FBI’s already inside the home and is working with Douglas. It’s some sort of sting and the FBI initially believe Adam’s team are threats. When everything calms down, the agents look at Curtis’s photo and inform Adam that he was undercover FBI Agent Curtis Belanger and was just posing as a hitman.

Someone thought they were hiring a hitman, and the FBI was building a case against that person. FBI Special Agent Mayra Taylor (Rebeka Montoya) is the case manager, and she’s happy to work with them. She knows Captain Nick Wagner (Steve Howey) so he’s also brought into the meeting at the FBI headquarters.

Morgan wants to take Douglas down since his vacuums kill people, but that’s not what the FBI cares about in this case. Their only focus is to find out who killed their undercover agent who normally worked out of Denver and was highly decorated.

The FBI agent in charge, Wayne Vincent (Peter Jacobson), confirms they don’t know who hired Curtis Belanger. No one saw the person who hired Belanger and they haven’t been able to trace any of the contacts.

Morgan and Daphne go to Douglas’ home and Douglas hands over his laptop that contains death threats he’s received. Morgan doesn’t mince words and suggests he should confess to covering up that his vacuums kill people.  

Morgan knows the laptop won’t provide any clues and heads to Douglas’ study to snoop.

Meanwhile, Nick and Adam look through Belanger’s hotel room. Whoever killed him might have discovered he was an FBI agent while spying on his room. Nick confesses he thinks something is still fishy about the stolen painting case and wonders why Morgan went missing for a while during the investigation. Adam remains loyal to Morgan and doesn’t tell Nick anything.

Nick finds the items Belanger has stashed.

Douglas joins Morgan and Daphne to see if they’ve found anything and Morgan reveals she learned he owns the charitable foundation that gives him awards. She thinks the only reason Douglas isn’t in prison is because of a lucky break. The Feds had a letter from his factory warning him about the vacuum’s wiring. Douglas tries to explain it’s more complicated than that, and Morgan immediately proves him wrong.

Douglas insults Morgan and actually gets under her skin a little, but she remains calm. A call from Ludo about Elliot believing they can get back together momentarily takes her mind off Douglas, but she snaps back into work mode when she notices scar cream. She connects the cream to a framed photo of Douglas and a woman and then notes the woman has a wedding ring. Morgan wonders why Douglas didn’t tell the FBI he’s having an affair, and Douglas claims it’s because the woman’s husband is feeble.

“The kind of guy who hires a hitman to do his dirty work?” asks Daphne.

High Potential Season 2 Episode 9 Recap
Daniel Sunjata, Deniz Akdeniz, Javicia Leslie and Kaitlin Olson in ‘High Potential’ season 2 episode 9 (Disney/Mitch Haaseth)

Back at the station, they learn the woman’s husband is Joel Dorskind, a Beverly Hills CPA. He has a clean record, but surveillance footage shows Joel bought the same envelopes used in the note found in Belanger’s truck. Adam was able to get the internet provider to confirm it was Dorskind who logged onto the website and hired Belanger, the fake hitman.

 A warrant’s issued for Joel’s arrest, and he tries to make a run for it through his crowded office. Daphne takes him down and places him under arrest. But they’re all shocked to discover he thinks the hitman is still alive and that he can call him off.

Oz finds the next payment to Belanger in Joel’s office, so he’s definitely not the killer. He hired Belanger but didn’t kill him. However, the FBI disagrees. They think Joel set things up to look like he didn’t kill Belanger. Nick strongly disagrees.

The team continue to go over the evidence, convinced they still haven’t located Belanger’s killer. Daphne suggests it might have been someone from an old case of Belanger’s. Morgan discovers orange fibers on the envelope from Belanger’s truck, and Belanger’s hotel room had orange carpeting with fibers that got on everything. If that’s true, how did the money with carpet fibers get from the hotel room back into Belanger’s truck? Someone wanted the cops to think Belanger’s murder had to do with the hitman job. Also, the team no longer believes the note about the down payment came from Joel.

So, they’re back to square one. But there’s something fishy going on because whoever did all this knew where Belanger would have kept the money in his hotel room and knew where he was headed to spy on Douglas and take him out. That means the killer is probably an FBI agent working the case!

Selena wants them to dig into all the agents to find out who had a reason to murder Berlanger.

Meanwhile, Ludo has a heart-to-heart with Elliot, confessing that he and Morgan will never get back together. They both realized they are better together as just friends. Elliot understands and just wants them to be happy.

Back at the station, the team continues to look through the FBI officers. Morgan picks up a paper and claims she’s just figured it out.

Morgan and Adam meet with Douglas Newmeyer at the FBI office and he’s shocked when Morgan says they’re going to send him to prison—but not for his faulty vacuums. They join Agent Walker and Agent Taylor to go through newly discovered evidence, presenting a slideshow with photos that were found among the deleted photos on Belanger’s camera’s memory card. Among them are photos of Walker handing Douglas a file. Walker is stunned that they’ve pieced things together and that they know he was passing info on the vacuum deaths case to Douglas.

They believe Walker killed Belanger so that these photos would never come to light. Belanger must have told Walker what he saw and Walker silenced him. Morgan decided to look at the deleted photos after seeing a mention of Uppsala, Sweden, in Walker’s personnel file. Douglas taught at a college there, and that was probably where the two met.

Douglas claims he had no idea, but the team’s found bank transfers that say differently. They’re both placed under arrest for Belanger’s murder.

Later that evening, Adam finds Morgan staring at the murder board. Adam wonders if Douglas reminded her of her dad and that’s why she got into it with him. She admits he’s just like her dad in that they both told her she’s wasting her gifts. Adam reminds her she’s incredibly valuable to the team and has helped a lot of people while working at the LAPD.

He suggests that if she needs proof the world’s a better place because she’s in it, all she needs to do is go home.

 

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