There’s a lot about Morgan in High Potential that isn’t relatable, especially when it comes to her HPI. This is rare, but it’s real. Of course, to make the character someone we could all get behind, the show had to make her relatable to the masses.
There are a few ways that the series has certainly offered that. We have a single mom who is struggling financially, and we have someone with two ex-partners, one of them considered a deadbeat. Yet, it’s none of that which makes her as relatable as one particular character trait. It’s all about how she needs to help other people.
Morgan focuses on other people instead of herself in High Potential
For 15 years, Morgan has avoided the search for Roman. It’s a problem that she could potentially solve if she put her mind to it, but she sort of buried herself in the rest of her life. She only started putting focus on the search after finding out that someone else could start the trail for her.
When it comes to everyone else, she wants them to solve their problems right away. Just look at how she’s gotten into Karadec’s mind to understand why his fiancée left him and what the flower on the wall of his apartment means. Think about how she wanted to solve the cold case for Soto, despite not remembering a blink about it when it actually happened.
Morgan routinely wants to solve other people’s problems and not her own in High Potential, something that so many people do. This is especially women who are hyper independent. They won’t necessarily tell other people about their problems, but they also don’t necessarily solve them. Instead, they put their effort into helping other people and forming a solution.
Yes, I speak from experience. I’d much rather bury my head in the sand on my own issues, but help friends with theirs.
High Potential has prevented Morgan from becoming a Mary Sue
There’s always the risk of a lead female character being a Mary Sue. If you haven’t heard of that term, it’s a character who has no flaws and is able to save the day every single time. When there are character flaws, they’re written as a way to serve the plot and just to make the character more likable.
When it came to Morgan, her HPI was always a risk of making her a Mary Sue character because the whole purpose of her being a consultant is to help solve cases. How is she the lead if she doesn’t save the day each episode? The problem is that’s not realistic, and High Potential has managed to prevent that through Morgan sometimes getting hyper-focused on something that doesn’t necessarily solve the actual case—like “tiddlywinks.”
This need to solve everyone else’s problems and hide from her own also helps prevent her from becoming a Mary Sue. It’s something we can believe her doing, especially as she gets hyper-focused on something about a person. We need to see more of this throughout High Potential season 2, and we need to see other flaws in her personality.
High Potential season 2 premieres on Tuesday, Sept. 16 at 10/9c on ABC.