The second half of High Potential Season 2 kicked off with an intense conclusion to the two-parter, which saw the Major Crimes team expose the real thieves of the Rembrandt, and then Rhys (Aiden Turner) steal it and get it back to its rightful owner. Arthur (Mekkhi Phifer), on the other hand, ran into some more danger related to Roman's backpack, and the episode ended with him disappearing from his truck after previously calling Selena (Judy Reyes) to tell her that he was being followed.
This week's episode returns to the procedural's weekly case format. Arthur is still missing, but there's nothing Major Crimes can do in the first 24 hours, because nothing suspicious was found at the scene of his truck. The main focus of this episode is a murder that turns out to have ties all the way to the FBI, revealing a little bit about Captain Wagner's (Steve Howey) past and potentially hinting at the Roman storyline.
In 'High Potential' Season 2, Episode 9, The Major Crimes Team Investigates the Murder of an FBI Agent
The episode opens with a man playing golf while being watched from afar by a hitman. In the perfect fake-out, the hitman's car starts having issues and goes over a cliff, killing him. The Major Crimes team initially takes this at face value. They realize that the hitman's brakes were cut, so they look into his target to get more information about his murder. The target turns out to be Douglas Newmeyer (Keith Carradine), a famous inventor who was recently under fire for making and continuing to sell a faulty vacuum known to cause fires. The Major Crimes team tracks Newmeyer down, only to run into the FBI when they find him.
As it turns out, the hitman was actually an FBI agent named Curtis Bellinger who was undercover as a fake hitman. The FBI was going to fake Newmeyer's death through pictures so that Bellinger could arrest the person who put out the hit, but Bellinger was killed before they could. Wagner joins the team as well, even though they didn't call him, because he used to work undercover with the FBI a long time ago. The investigation into this case is being led by Wagner's old friend and former colleague, Mira Taylor (Rebeka Montoya), as well as her boss, Wayne Vincent (Peter Jacobson). Wagner acts particularly suspicious this episode, dropping more information about his past working with the FBI, and making it even more likely that he had some involvement in Roman's disappearance. He also takes Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) aside to interrogate him about Morgan's (Kaitlin Olson) possible role in stealing the Rembrandt, but Karadec has her back like always.
The Major Crimes team figures out that Newmeyer was having an affair, and that the husband of the woman he was seeing ordered the hit on him. This answer just brings more questions, though, because the man who ordered the hit had no idea that Bellinger was an undercover agent – and he definitely didn't kill him. The Major Crimes team realizes that so much of this case was staged by someone with insider information, and they make the connection that the real killer is someone who works for the FBI. They do some discreet investigating into the FBI agents on the case, and Karadec even reaches out to Ronnie (Jocko Sims) off-screen for help. This leads to the big reveal: it turns out that Vincent took bribes from Newmeyer to bury the investigation into the vacuums, and when Bellinger found out, Vincent killed him.
In 'High Potential' Season 2, Episode 9, Ludo Has a Difficult Talk With Elliot
Ludo and Elliot Radavic talking in Elliot's room in High Potential Season 2
At the start of the episode, Rhys sends Morgan flowers, hinting at a potential continuation of their romance in the future. Elliot (Matthew Lamb) initially believes that the flowers are from Ludo (Taran Killam). Elliot is delighted at the thought of his parents getting back together, and he gets upset when Ludo has no problem with Morgan dating other people. Ludo calls Morgan to fill her in, and the two of them handle this very well together. Ludo gives Elliot a talk explaining that he and Morgan weren't a good fit romantically, and Elliot takes this very well.
Later, Morgan checks in with Elliot as well, and he has moved past it. This is a sweet storyline that shows how well Morgan and Ludo work as co-parents, and that gives Elliot a realistic concern for a kid his age. Still, though, it felt pretty standard and surface-level, and the show could have done more with this subplot. Ludo's explanation to Elliot made sense, but I would have liked to hear more specific examples of Ludo and Morgan's differences, what their relationship was like, and what Ludo's love life is like now. It felt like a missed opportunity to go deeper here, but it was still nice to see overall.
'High Potential' Season 2, Episode 9 Brings Up Tough Feelings for Morgan
Morgan and Karadec walking with Douglas Newmeyer in High Potential Season 2
Without spoiling too much, Morgan's father plays an important role in the French version of High Potential, and High Potential seems to be building up to his introduction later this season. He was previously mentioned during the investigation into the Game Maker (David Giuntoli), when Morgan told Karadec that her father has her same condition. He put a lot of pressure on her to live up to her genius when she was younger, which both isolated her from other kids and made her feel like she couldn't do anything right. In this episode, Newmeyer hits too close to home, reminding Morgan of her father.
When Morgan criticizes Newmeyer for how he handled his faulty vacuums, he hits her with some harsh words that clearly resonate with her, telling her: "I've seen your type before. All that intellect, wasted. And this chaos act you put on, you pretend it's a choice; it's all a cover to hide that you can't apply yourself even if you wanted to, because you lack self-discipline. It's the real reason you've accomplished nothing, and you never will." Newmeyer is harsh and wrong, but his words get to Morgan's deepest insecurity, which is that she's all too aware of the downsides of her condition, and she's ashamed of the way it has affected her life and her relationships.
Later, Morgan throws Newmeyer's words back in his face when he gets arrested, and then Karadec talks to her about it. In a lovely scene, he figures out why Newmeyer was able to get under her skin, and he tells Morgan just how much she's accomplished and how many people she's been able to help as a consultant. Karadec tells Morgan that the world's a better place because she's in it, but even after he leaves for the night, she sits there struggling with her thoughts. It's a great ending to a strong episode that sticks the landing with its killer reveal while setting up weightier storylines for the rest of the season.
High Potential airs Tuesday nights at 9:00 P.M. EST on ABC.
CIA Season 2's Fate Officially Decided By CBS After Rocky Season 1 Production
The fate of CBS' new FBI spinoff series, CIA, has now been decided.
CBS confirmed that CIA has officially been renewed for season 2, following impressive viewership numbers from its series premiere. According to Paramount, the premiere episode saw 8.4 million multiplatform viewers via broadcast and streaming within the first seven days of its release.
Ratings for the first three episodes of the series showed a 39% improvement on Monday at 10 p.m. compared to the same timeslot in fall 2025.
Behind the scenes, though, CIA has had a rocky production. FBI: Most Wanted showrunner David Hudgins was initially in charge of the series, but Warren Leight later replaced him. That wasn't the end of the turnover, though, as he eventually departed, along with executive producer Eriq La Salle. Mike Weiss, who was the showrunner on the original FBI series, was hired as the CIA showrunner.
All of this turmoil, plus Michael Michele's departure from the cast, caused production delays, and CBS decided to give CIA a mid-season 2026 premiere after previously announcing it would debut in fall 2025.
CIA stars Tom Ellis and Nick Gehlfuss as CIA Agent Colin Glass and FBI Agent Bill Goodman, respectively, who are tasked with working together on a secretive joint CIA/FBI task force. The two agents couldn't be more different, with the latter a rule-follower and the former more mischievous in nature.
While on the job together, Glass and Goodman stay in the shadows as they solve domestic and international crimes away from the eyes of the public.
Before CIA, Ellis was best known for his role as Lucifer Morningstar on the Fox/Netflix drama Lucifer, while Gehlfuss has starred in The Newsroom, Shameless, and Chicago Med (another Dick Wolf-created series).
Their CIA co-stars include Necar Zadegan and Natalee Linez. Zadegan, who plays Nikki Reynard, will guest star in the March 30 episode of FBI season 8, in which the Deputy Chief of Station is called in to help following a double homicide. The episode will mark Maggie Bell's return to the team after suffering a major loss.
Wolf created the hugely popular Law & Order and One Chicago franchises on NBC, and then went on to create the FBI crime procedural franchise for CBS. The first FBI series debuted in 2018 with star Missy Peregrym and is currently airing its eighth season.
Two years later, the first spinoff, FBI: Most Wanted, launched and aired for six seasons. FBI: International followed in its footsteps and aired for four seasons.
CIA, which currently has a 63% critic score and 51% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, marks the third FBI spinoff, with Wolf, Weiss, Ken Girotti, Paul Cabbad, Nicole Perlman, David Chasteen, Anastasia Puglisi, and Peter Jankowski serving as executive producers.
CIA airs Mondays at 10 p.m. EDT on CBS.
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