TV Recap: A Nanny is Mysteriously Murdered in “High Potential” Episode 10

It’s all fun and games until someone gets murdered in this week’s new episode of High Potential. Featuring guest stars Ken Marino (Wet Hot American Summer, Party Down, The Other Two) and Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings, Future Man, Benched), Morgan Gillory finds herself struggling with being a single mother and having a full time job as she tries to balance Elliot’s social issues with solving a murder case. Can she have it all? We find out in this week’s episode recap.

Episode 10: “Chutes and Murders" - Written by Kassla Miller

A woman, Tara Foley (Kate Boyer), was found dead in a slide at a public park, kickstarting a new investigation by the LAPD. Dr. Darius Farzan (Kayvon Esmaili) determines that Tara was hit in the back of the head, likely running to the slide to hide from her attacker. Daphne (Javicia Leslie) and Oz (Dennis Akdeniz) interview a quartet of nannies who recognize the victim as a nanny like them. They describe a creepy guy who was frequently seen stalking Tara while she was working. Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson) finds a phone on Tara, with the most recent messages coming from her employer, Bill, angry that she’s late for work. Lieutenant Selena Soto (Judy Reyes) asks Daphne and Oz to look through the phone while Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) and Morgan talk to Tara’s employers.

Husbands Jeff (Jai Rodriguez) and Brett Lewis (Rory O’Malley) welcome Karadec and Morgan into their home, describing Tara as quiet and loving to their son, Ward. Jeff recalls seeing Tara’s stalker, noticing that he had a limp and was reading a French newspaper.

Morgan knows that there’s only one newsstand in L.A. that stocks French newspapers, so she takes Karadec to a diner where they can watch it. A man shows up who matches Jeff’s description, and Karadec follows him into a building, discovering that it’s someone he knows - Private Investigator Charles Lavoie (Ken Marino), better known within the LAPD as “Chuck the Kanuck." Chuck brags to Morgan about his time at the LAPD, which was abruptly ended when he acidentally shot himself in the foot, literally. Chuck tells them he was hired to trail Tara by the Lewis’. Karadec asks him to stop by the office with all the photos he took of Tara. In the end, Chuck was fired for being unable to deliver the information the Lewis’ expected. “They thought the nanny was mistreating their son," he tells them.

Back at the Lewis’, Morgan and Karadec discover that the husbands are having marital problems. Brett hired Chuck behind Jeff’s back, and Jeff wasn’t even aware that Brett hid several nanny cams around their home. Before hiring Tara, they had a nanny named Rosa. On a Facebook parent group for their area of Brentwood, a mom reported an issue of negligence she observed from their former nanny that put their son in danger. Things were going great with Tara until other parents in that same group started saying similar things about her, including the parent who raised the first concern about Rosa. Before leaving, Morgan opens a cabinet and sees a child’s bento box with stickers on it, including one of Sporty Spice, which seems odd to her.

That night, Morgan makes dinner while talking to her son Elliot (Matthew Lamb), who needs advice on what to get a classmate for his birthday party. Morgan is annoyed at Ava (Amirah J), who sits next to her boyfriend Ryder (Hudson Macready) on the couch, texting with him instead of talking. They’re able to break through long enough for Ryder to suggest that Elliot get his friend a LEGO set, recalling a Toy Story 2 one he loved as a kid. Morgan tried to register for the Brenwood parent Facebook group but was rejected.

The next morning, Karadec and Morgan visit Carina Wilson (Eliza Coupe), a powerful executive and the woman who outed Rosa’s negligence. They show her screenshots of the messages from the parent Facebook group, and she doesn’t recognize any of them, other than the one she made about Rosa. She shares that she was harassed after making that post and ultimately deleted her Facebook account.

Daphne’s search of Tara’s phone revealed an unusual text change with someone named “Little Sketchy," with all of his texts to Tara in poetry. The last one was from three days ago, and Tara didn’t respond to it.

Karadec and Morgan search Tara’s apartment for clues. She lived alone and among her few possessions was a bible and rosary prayer beads, with a calendar highlighting the Exaltation of the Cross on the 27th. She also had printed versions of Carina’s posts about her, plus a sticky note with the number of a lawyer. Karadec calls the number, discovering that it’s from an immigration law firm. In the trash, Morgan finds a flier for a weekly poetry slam event, with the next one happening tonight.

Calling home, Morgan finds Elliot upset after learning that he’s the only kid in his class who wasn’t invited to Finn’s birthday party. Morgan calls Finn’s mom who says that her son doesn’t know Elliot well. Morgan sets up a playdate for the boys to fix that.

At the poetry slam, Morgan and Karadec watch Brian Schlotzky (Lurie Poston), aka “Little Sketchy," finish performing a poem he wrote for his deceased friend Tara. They bring him in for questioning and he tells them he believes Tara was being romantically pursued by Mark, Carina’s husband, who he often saw hanging around her. With Chuck’s photos, Brian points out how Mark is in many of the shots the P.I. took. Brian also says that Mark edged him out of Tara’s life.

Daphne goes to interview Mark (Amir Talai), who says he and Tara were just friends. His alibi for the night she died is that he was hosting a book club. Daphne shows him one of the photos Chuck snapped, which has Mark behind Tara looking angry and holding a baseball bat, an instrument that could’ve been the unknown murder weapon. As further proof of his innocence, Mark shows Daphne that the bat in the photo is for wiffleball, made entire of plastic.

Elliot’s playdate with Finn (Sawyer Holt) is a disaster. Finn plays a portable video game system that Elliot doesn’t own, and he gets increasingly frustrated as Elliot tries to share fun facts with his classmate or suggest other activities they can do. Morgan witnesses Finn tell Elliot he’s a downer, which is why he wasn’t invited to his party. Morgan tells Finn that she’s going to take everyone in their class to Knott’s Berry Farm, and he will be the only kid left out. She asks him to wait on the porch for his mom to pick him up.

Back at the park, Karadec, Morgan, and Oz interview the four nannies - Cynthia Flemmings (S. Zylan Brooks), Binh Pham (Luna Tieu), Manuela Torres (Alejandra Flores), and Oksana Petrov (Irina Dubova). They paint a sad picture of Tara, someone who was working for $10 less per hour than the rest of them, and who kept to herself, opting not to join them for nanny bonding sessions outside of work. They describe Mark as Tara’s only friend, and recall an event where Carina came to yell at her husband at the park. They say Tara looked freightened by the incident. Oksana uses three fingers to make the sign of the cross as she says, “God rest her soul."

Daphne makes an important discovery - many of the parents in the Brentwood Facebook group are fake profiles.

Visiting Carina at her office, Karadec and Morgan learn that the fight she had with Mark at the park was about the fact that he chose the wrong kind of wood for their backyard deck construction project. In that moment, Morgan puts all the pieces together. She tells Karadec about the Spice Girls stickers on the lunch boxes, theorizing that the five nannies (with Rosa) likened themselves to the girl group from the late ‘90s, something the kids in their care likely weren’t into. They likely tried to include Tara to replace Rosa, but found that she wasn’t interested in socializing with them. Morgan also remembers how, in the posts that Carina claims she didn’t make, days of the week were uncapitalized the way days of the week are written in Russia, whereas Carina’s post capitolized them. And she recalls how Oksana used three fingers to make the sign of the cross, something specific to Eastern Orthodox, which also uses a Julian calendar, so the Exaltation of the Cross for their church would be on the 27th, rather than the 14th, which is when Tara’s faith would celebrate. She believes that Tara discovered that it was Oksana who was making the Facebook posts and went to confront her at her church. As for the immigration lawyer, identity crime would make Oksana subject to deportation. Oksana’s church is just a block away from the park.

Cynthia, Binh, and Manuela are all brought in for questioning. They say they were all having a movie night together when Tara died and that Oksana was with them. When Karadec informs them that each of their families use a nanny cam that will be able to confirm their alibi, the story changes. They reveal that Oksana wasn’t there and they were asked to cover for her.

Oksana is arrested and she comes clean. As Morgan deduced, Tara threatened to have her deported for trying to get her fired with her fake posts. Oksana grabbed a big rock and hit Tara in the back of the head, thinking she killer her on impact. Oksana says she would rather spend the rest of her life in a U.S. prison than go back to Russia.

Morgan goes back to the park with her kids. Elliot is in a funk about the situation with Finn, and Ava is buried in her phone. Morgan excuses herself when she sees Jeff, bringing a folder over to him. She gives him some of Chuck’s photos, which show how much fun Ward had with Tara at the park. It makes Jeff emotional because, as a working parent, he rarely gets to see those joyful moments in his son’s life. Morgan looks over at her kids and sees that Elliot is on the spinner as Ava spins him around, the way they used to do when they were younger. To her delight, when Ava gets a text, she chooses to ignore it, staying in the moment to cheer up her brother.

Next Episode: “The Sauna at the End of the Stairs" - Airing Tuesday, January 28th, at 9/8c on ABC

Soto reopens an old murder case in the famous Donovan family, determined to uncover the true killer in classic “whodunit" style.