"High Potential," Episode 1.11: the cleaning lady figures out whodunit in a rich family with secrets and gay sons. Bonus n*de Daniel, Noah, and Clark

   

Link to the n*de Daniel, Noah, and Clark

High Potential, based on a French series, stars Kaitlin Olson of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Mick as a genius employed as a cleaning lady (often people with high iqs have trouble fitting into ordinary society). Her ability to find connections leads to a job as a consultant, helping the police solve murders.  I reviewed Episode 1.11, "The Sauna at the End of the Stairs," because I figured sauna means gay bathhouse.

Scene 1: An old rich guy is lying in his mansion, surrounded by medical equipment, addressing his wife, adult daughter, and three men.  Maybe his children and their partners, including a gay couple?  He's been keeping a secret for ten years: He killed Barry!  Everyone gasps.

Scene 2: Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) previously a cleaning lady, now a police consultant, brags about her new credentials to her beset-upon boss, Karadec (Daniel Sunjata, top photo and center).  

The higher-ups John and Mellon (Garrett Dillahunt of The Walking Dead) appear to celebrate the closing of a cold case:  Rich Old Guy George Donovan confessed on his deathbed! 

Wait -- who's the hunk with Morgan and Boss Karadec?  Maybe Officer Oz, played by Deniz Akdeniz (left)

Morgan has not heard of this before -- she was busy in 2014 -- so Detective Selena, who was assigned to the case, explains: the day after Thanksgiving, Barry (TJ Thyne), who was married to Rich Guy's daughter, was found dead in the sauna, "broiled like a Texas barbecue." But he had a broken neck: it was a murder!  Someone pushed him down the stairs, then put him in the sauna so it would look like he broiled himself to death.

Rich Guy had Barry's blood on his shirt, so he went to trial, but was found not guilty due to insufficent evidence.  What would his motive be, and how could a 70-year old with a hip replacement carry Barry all the way into the sauna?

The murder had a disastrous impact on the Very Rich Family, so Detective Selena theorizes that Rich Guy didn't really do it; he confessed so his family could live "normal lives" after his death.

Breakdown of the men in the Family:

1. Rich Guy's oldest son Clark (Jonathan Chase, seen here getting a boyfriend in Another Gay Movie).

2. His second son, Matty, whom everyone in "true crime" podcasts thinks is the real murderer.

More after the break

3. Grandson Cody, son of Dead Guy Barry (Sutton Waldman as a teenager,  Noah Silver as an adult).  So much for the "gay couple" potential

Scene 3: At home, while doing the dishes and folding laundry, Morgan checks the files to see if the cops missed something that reveals the real murderer.

She returns in the morning to announce that Barry was not pushed down the stairs, he died in the common bathroom!

 The killer was walking down the hall at midnight, heard Barry taking a shower, electrocuted him with a hair drier -- which caused a fire, so they had to replace the scorched electrical outlet plate -- and shoved him down the laundry chute, thus breaking his neck and getting some blood on Rich Guy's shirt.  Then on to the sauna.

Scene 4: Saying that they have a "few loose ends" to tie up about the case, the detectives arrive at the Really Big Mansion when everyone is out scattering the ashes except for the housekeeper.  They use a dummy to test the laundry chute hypothesis, and find the scorched outlet plate.  "Someone in this family is a murderer," Detective Selena says.  "We just have to find out who."

Uh-oh, the entire family has just walked in, and hears her!

Meanwhile, Son Clark's ex wife, Social Influencer Nedda Donovan, invades the police station to work on her true-crime documentary, The Sauna at the Bottom of the Stairs.  She explains that she spent 16 years with that family, but has nothing to show for it, so she wants to sock it to them.  She doesn't know who killed Barry, but they all lie for each other, so it could have been any of them.

Scene 5: The detectives backtrack to the "some loose ends" story, but the family is sick of talking about the murder.  It cost Eldest Son Clark a wife, Matty a career (no wife?  maybe he's gay), and Grandson Cody his admission to MIT (why would the college care?).  He's a genius, but now he's stuck washing dishes.  Couldn't he live off his family's wealth?

Scenes 6-8: Through interviews with the family, with a lot of "How dare you!" and "What are you implying?", plus  Social Influencer Nedda's stories at the police station, the detectives get a timeline of the events of Thanksgiving Day, 2014.  I put them into the proper order.

While they are lounging around the pool that afternoon, Dead Guy Barry shows up high on coke, and Rich Guy lays into him, yelling about bringing drugs into the house with his "no good drug addict son."  So Matty is a recovering addict?  Due to internalized homophobia and minority stress, gay men are twice as likely as the general population to abuse drugs.

Then they try to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner, but Barry starts sniping at everyone.

Grandson Cody storms out.

Matty the Recovering Drug Addict (Ryan Devlin, left) tells everyone about Barry and Eldest Son Clark losing a lot of money in failed investments.

Daughter Heather (Barry's wife) accidentally sets, herself on fire. They put it out right away, but when they pull off her top, everyone sees huge bruises on her arm.  Domestic ab use, which no one mentioned during the first investigation because "it's a family matter"!

They start yelling at and trying to attack Barry.  He claims that he didn't do it and runs upstairs to watch tv.  

Daughter Heather can't stay in Barry's room anymore, so Nedda the Social Influencer goes up to grab some of her clothes.  In his bathrobe, Barry yells profanity and throws the clothes at her.

They start to play Monopoly -- Grandson Cody comes back to join them.  Soon Barry is playing the tv too loud, and it's an adult video!   "I'm going to kill that bastard," Rich Guy snarls. Obvious red herring -- he didn't do it.

Matty the Recovering Drug Addict and Eldest Son Clark offer to "take care of it."  They pound on his door, yelling at him to turn down the tv.  He does, so they go up to the attic and start sorting through the Christmas decorations.  But Clark lays into his brother Matty for drinking while a recovering addict, and he storms out.  They were separated for about 15 minutes. Did the gay guy do it?

While waiting for the sons to return, Mom lights some Christmas candles. Nedda the Social Influencer can't stand the smell, so she goes outside, and sees Matty the (non-recovering) Drug Addict buying cocaine from drug dealer Billy Ross (Noah Silver, left, who also plays the grown-up Grandson Cody). Or maybe Nedda is lying!

Everyone except Barry returns to the Monopoly game.  

Afterwards they all go to bed, except for Mom, who sticks around to clean up.  About midnight she sees Barry headed down to the basement sauna.  But she was highly drunk at this point.

Have you figured it out?  

Hint: who has the biggest motive, and is smart enough to plan the misdirections?

Scene 9: Everyone gathers in the living room, and like Poirot, Morgan relays her conclusion: Grandson Cody!

He killed Barry in the shower, threw his body down the laundry chute, and stashed him in the sauna while everyone was playing Monopoly.  Then he used a remote to turn on the adult movie so they would think he was watching tv, and turned it down when his uncles banged on the bedroom door.  At midnight he went to the basement in Barry's bathrobe so everyone would think that he died in the sauna. 

Everyone gasps and yells "See here!  See here!  See here!" until the adult Cody admits that he killed Barry to protect his Mom from the abuse.  He wanted to confess, but Grandpa told him not to.

"Don't worry, we'll try Cody as a minor.  He'll serve less than three years."  For premeditated murder? The end.

There's a subplot about the Captain ordering the detectives to not re-open the closed case, and disapproving of Morgan's job as police consultant.   

Beefcake: None.

Heterosexism: None in this episode, but Morgan took the police consultant job so she could use their resources to find her missing husband. She has a second ex-husband, Taran Killam, and dates janitor JD Pardo (left).

Gay Characters: Neither Matty the Recovering Drug Addict nor Grandson Cody express any heterosexual interest or mention heterosexual partners.  That's the most basic queer code.  Of course I would prefer more, but....

My Grade: It kept my interest, but that's because I don't watch a lot of whodunits.  I don't want to watch more episodes unless there is an overt gay character. 

See also: The Breakthrough: Swedish murder mystery with Peter's d*ck, some Stockholm hunks, and a lot of sobbing

The Mick, Episode 1.12: Strong gay subtext and ample beefcake in this gloomfest

American Sports Story: Football player turned murderer, with Evangelical homophobia everywhere