SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the Season 2 finale of ABC’s High Potential.
EXCLUSIVE: For a second year in a row, ABC’s hit crime procedural High Potential ended its season finale on a major cliffhanger. This time, it involved the life of one of the main characters hanging in the balance after Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) found Captain Nick Wagner (Steve Howey) gravely injured.
The Season 2 finale marked the last episode as a series regular for Howey, Deadline can reveal. That is not a surprising development; he joined as a series regular early in the season with a one-year deal.
That said, Wagner’s fate — and Howey’s future on the show — have not been fully determined yet. According to sources, there is a chance for Howey to return as a guest star at the start of next season to wrap his character’s arc.
The final decision will likely rest with the new High Potential showrunner and their writing team. As Deadline reported at the time of the series’ Season 3 renewal in March, Todd Harthan is departing after running the series for the first two seasons. The search for a new showrunner continues.
Wagner has been a divisive character, starting with the infamous Stachegate. The new Captain was introduced sporting a mustache, a look that got such a strong negative reaction, the producers moved in to shave it off several episodes in. (The mustache was requested by another series Howey was filming at the same time that required his character to have a full beard.)
Steve Howey on ‘High Potential’
ABC
Overall, Howey didn’t have much to work with for most of the season. Wagner had only occasional presence and went MIA for awhile, coming across as a shady character and a possible villain who was set up as a potential love interest for Morgan early on.
That started to change in the final stretch when Wagner’s arc picked up momentum, culminating in the penultimate episode packed with Wagner’s emotional backstory and his first (and only) kiss with Morgan.
In the Season 2 finale, suspicious Soto (Judy Reyes) and Morgan confronted Wagner about his association with his corrupt politician father. In ultimate proof of his allegiance to Morgan, he gave her the wrong time for his meeting with a FBI source on the case of Morgan’s missing ex that his father had connected him with. The 30 min delay proved crucial as Wagner was shot during the encounter and Morgan was spared, arriving to find him bleeding out.
(L-R): Kaitlin Olson, Steve Howey in ‘High Potential’
Disney/Christine Bartolucci
Howey is keeping a very busy schedule. The Shameless and Reba alum has a major recurring role on the buzzy Prime Video college-set romantic drama Off Campus, based on the best-selling book series by Elle Kennedy, which already has been renewed for a second season. He also is set to recur in the upcoming second season of Netflix’s Ransom Canyon as Josh Duhamel’s half-brother and in Season 5 of the streamer’s The Lincoln Lawyer.
(L-R): Susan Kelechi Watson, Daniel Sunjata in ‘High Potential’
Disney/Christine Bartolucci
The High Potential finale also wrapped the storyline of another major Season 2 cast addition introduced to keep Morgan and Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) apart, Susan Kelechi Watson, who recurred as Karadec’s ex-fiancée Lucia.
Like Howey, the This Is Us alumna was underutilized, only appearing briefly, almost exclusively with Sunjata, with their characters having a glass of wine after work here and there. Also like Howey, Lucia got a meaningful storyline at the very end of the season as she became a key player in the finale’s murder. She was implicated in the case, with heartbroken Karadec handling her booking himself.