As the High Potential season 2 finale opens, we begin at a lively hotel pool where guests are enjoying drinks and a swim... well, all but one as a hotel worker comes across the dead body of a woman in a lounge chair.
We then cut to the Gilroy household, where Ava is working on her art project for her showcase and stressing about getting things right. Morgan tries to offer some words of encouragement, but Ava snaps back that art isn’t like her mom’s job; she has to come up with something undeniably original. Morgan reminds her that her dad used to fill up a lot of garbage cans full of trash, and it was in the moments when he was most frustrated that he’d make his best art before she was called away to respond to the murder.
Lucia and Karadec are in his car as he drives her to work. Just as he gets to the hotel where she's working as a manager for the VIP guests, he gets a call about the crime. He asks for the address and is surprised to find that it's the hotel.
We learn that the victim is Vera Hensley, a famous TV personality from a husband-and-wife renovation show. Morgan quickly picks up that she’s not dressed for a pool day and notices her styled hair, suggesting that she wasn’t there for a swim. Her clothes are wet from sprinklers that are likely set to go off at night, and they think she was killed somewhere else before being moved to the pool.
Morgan and Karadec sit down with Lucia and she informs them Vera's husband Frank had been staying in the penthouse for the last few days. She also reveals that cameras by the pool and elevators were turned off. They head to see Vera’s husband. As Karadec asks him about their relationship, he reveals that Vera wasn’t staying at the hotel as Morgan finds a bra in the bathroom. He admits he had a party that got wild as Morgan questions the location of the lamp and brass candlestick and bookend, which are missing in the room photos—suggesting one could be the murder weapon.
As they head out, they find blood on the elevator button and take Frank in for questioning. While Karadec leaves with Frank, Morgan goes to get her car and finds Lucia outside talking with a man, which raises some flags for Morgan. Back at the precinct, Karadec admits that Lucia is having a hard time with things as he then heads to interrogate Frank with Oz.
Frank admits he loved Vera and claims they were always honest with one another. He's adamant he hadn't seen her at the hotel and also admits the happy couple on TV was their brand and that sometimes they liked to do their own thing. After speaking with Frank, Oz finds that Frank and Vera had notifications set up so that if one of them books a hotel, the other will get an alert. We also learn they can’t find the bookend from the room, which appears to be the murder weapon.
We learn that Frank was having a party with his friends that included his manager Aaron, his producer Lois, his stylist Talia, and his longtime friend Boyd. As the team reviews photos from the party, Morgan notices the man Lucia was speaking with at the hotel that morning in the photos and points him out to the team. Before they head out to the hotel to speak with Lucia again, Willa Quinn calls Morgan to warn her about the danger she’s heading into. She says there is no way to catch up when the people who are helping her are helping her too as she warns Morgan to back off.
On their way to the hotel, Morgan ponders whether someone at the precinct could be in Quinn’s pocket. Karadec then tells Morgan about seeing Quinn leaving a hotel with Wagner’s dad and how Soto asked about Wagner’s involvement and how he denied knowing anything.
At the hotel, Morgan and Karadec ask about the man in the photos, and Lucia says the man was a guest named Charles. She gives them a phone number as Morgan observes something is wrong as they head out.
Charles comes in to see Karadec at the precinct and he claims to have met Henry at the bar, but Vera wasn’t there. He suggests there was a guy in his 40s there looking for Vera who gave him a bad vibe and sits down with a sketch artist.
Morgan goes to see Wagner and she asks if he’s working with his father and Quinn. He denies it, and Morgan believes him. Morgan has an idea, which she can’t do, as she tells him he can’t get caught doing this task either as she hands him a Post-it before leaving. After leaving Wagner's office, Ava calls Morgan and mentions she has an idea, but her mom might not like it. She wants to use the box of her dad’s things for the project; she’s not sure how yet but it seems inspiration has struck.
None of Frank's friends recognize the man in the sketch which is when Morgan notes she recognizes the eyes. She then realizes that the sketch is a mashup of all of Henry’s friends. Security footage comes through, and they begin looking through as they notice a cart being wheeled into the elevator as Lucia then comes into frame.
Morgan confesses she saw Lucia and Charles together having a conversation outside the hotel. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, just something about frosty trees and no city. She suggests that they seemed very friendly; the suggestion makes Karadec defensive, suggesting she was only friendly as it’s her job.
Lucia is not who Karadec thought she was
Lucia comes in and Karadec interrogates her. She notes that Frank’s party got a little out of hand, and she was called in to clean things up. She revealed something had been broken, so she loaded them into the cart she was seen pushing in the elevator footage. She reveals that Charles stays at the hotel when he's in town, and that’s all she knows.
Karadec tells her they suspect Vera was killed in the penthouse and moved, as he notes the only person in the footage was Lucia. She gets defensive as Karadec asks about the conversation on the street. She says sometimes she had to be friendly, and a man like Charles can take things too far, and he crossed the line. She declined his invitations, and he followed her to the street, and she told him to never come back. She says she didn’t want Karadec to worry, which is why she hadn't told him.
After Karadec sends Lucia away. Morgan asks him to bring Lucia back in to ask more questions. He asks whether Morgan wants Lucia to be guilty of something, as Morgan points out this is personal and questions how he didn’t press her because it was Lucia as he storms off, telling her to stop treating him like one of her kids.
Following the argument with Karadec, Morgan and Wagner go to speak with his father and confront him about Quinn. He calls Quinn and Wagner pieces together that Quinn was a fixer for his father. Morgan pulls out a drive with detailed calls and documents. They threaten to release it to the press. Morgan presses for answers about what happened to Roman
Quinn asks if she’s even thought about how pressing this could put Elliot and Chloe in danger. After leaving, Morgan races after Quinn and rear-ends her car as she confronts her over who she’s protecting as Quinn warns her to think about things. Finally Quinn promises to give Morgan what she wants as she warns her that she might not like the answers she'll get.
Daphne finds Charles's prints were connected to three different identities; reports seem to be connected to multiple scams, and Frank seems to have been his next target. Morgan wonders how Charles knew Frank was there since he’s a "do not announce" guest. She deduces that Lucia must have been the one to tip Charles off.
Morgan suggests Charles was going to blackmail Frank, but then Vera walked in, so he had to take out the witness. Vera ran to the elevator but then took the stairs. Morgan notes that while Lucia might not have been involved in Vera's death, it appears she helped erase the footage and was the one who brought Charles into the hotel by tipping him off when Henry checked in. Karadec doesn't want to believe Morgan's theory, but it sadly proves true.
Karadec finds Charles up in a tower with a gun as Lucia tries to talk him down. Karadec manages to talk Charles down and arrests him. After, Lucia admits she didn’t want anyone else to get hurt and tells Karadec about how she met Charles in New Mexico while she was still trying to get over him. She confesses to helping point him in the direction of some high-profile guests, but he never changed. He then showed up at the hotel threatening to tell Karadec everything if she didn’t help him with one final mark.
High Potential season 2 ends with Wagner's life hanging in the balance and hints at Roman's arrival
Back at the precinct, Soto informs Morgan that they have arrested Charles. Wagner gets a tip from Quinn about a dirty undercover FBI agent who was selling intel and laundering money that was murdered. He then hands Morgan a file that reveals that Roman was suspected of working with the dirty agent, and he killed her when she intended to come clean. Security footage placed Roman at the scene, and it seems Quinn helped cover this up for the FBI as it was too big a scandal for them to let leak.
This new information sends Morgan into a spiral as she tells Soto they should drop this investigation. Morgan is scared and doesn’t want anything to happen to anyone else as Soto assures her whatever happens next, they’ll do it together.
Later that night, Karadec drops by to see Morgan. He admits that Lucia is being taken to the precinct and apologizes for not listening to Morgan. She assures him that he did things right in opening his heart and letting her in, and he admits that now he doesn’t even know who she is. She invites him to join her at Ava’s art show, and he declines the invitation before heading out.
While attending Ava's art show, Wagner calls Morgan to tell her about meeting with a contact his father gave him. Morgan presses him for the location, and he gives her the address of the meeting as she heads out to meet him. When she arrives, she finds Wagner on a picnic table, blood pouring out of his mouth, and finds he’s been shot several times. She calls for 911 as the show intertwines shots of Lucia being processed and saying goodbye to Karadec as a mysterious figure watches Ava from afar at her art show to bring the finale to a close.