"High Potential," Episode 1.11: the cleaning lady figures out whodunit in a rich family with secrets and gay sons.

   

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

"AP Bio": Glenn from "Always Sunny" as a rascally philosophy prof turned high school teacher.

Link to the uncensored review

The television series AP Bio was broadcast on NBC in 2018-19, and then on Peacock in 2020-22, and is now streaming on Netflix.  It stars Glen Howerton, who plays the amoral sociopath Dennis Reyolds on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so I imagine his AP Biology teacher will be similar.  It may be a nice break from looking for gay characters in endless Christmas romcoms.

Scene 1: Whitlock High School, home of the Rams.  The stereotyped students sit in the classroom, waiting.  Crash!  Jack, played by Glen, has just hit a bicyclist and crashed into the school sign. The biker wants to argue, but Jack scares him away with a crowbar.

In class, he explains that he's an "award winning philosophy scholar" with a free year, so he took a job teaching Advanced Placement Biology.  Ok, that's impossible. College professors can't teach high school; you need a degree in education, plus student teaching experience.  And philosophers can't teach biology; you would need a degree in biology.  How do these tv shows get off, thinking that anybody can be hired as  a teacher?

But he won't be teaching biology.  He also won't be doing any sharing and caring. He's going to be spending the year trying to steal the job of his nemesis as head of Stanford Philosophy, so he can sleep with every woman in California.  I already hate this douchebag.

Scene 2: The students have some questions.  He promises to give them all As if they keep quiet about not learning biology. Upon discovering that a student is named Sarika Sarkar, he starts lecturing on philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, but stops when they pull out their notebooks to take notes.  He won't be teaching them philosophy, either. 

Uh-oh, the Principal, Patton Oswalt, would "like a word." At 5' 3", he's a member of the Short Guy Prigade

The Principal is angry about the accident that wrecked the school sign, but Jack fast-talks him into apologizing and promising to be more laid-back.  They hug.  He  asks Jack out for a beer tonight, but Jack will be busy trying to bang his ex.

Scene 3: At home at his "dead mother's house," amid pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and himself as a geeky teen, Jack is getting drunk-er.   He calls his friend Miles in California while giving 0 stars to his bestselling book of "philosophical rubbish." 

Miles: "It's a shame you were kicked out of Harvard, but stop by anytime you're on the West Coast." Aha, the nemesis!

Next Jack showers.  Beefcake, no nudity.

Scene 4:  The next day, the School Bully, Spence Moore II, knocks down the Troubled Loner Devin,  Jacob McCarthy, and throws his backpack into the river. 

Cut to three lady teachers having lunch and discussing their sex lives: "So my date comes to my house in a sopping wet t-shirt, talking he had just got out of the bath.  What kind of baby-man takes baths?  Let's hear more about that wet t-shirt.

Jack introduces himself, and is asked if he has any interesting dating stories. "No, but tonight I'm going to bang my high school ex."  They are delighted.

Turns out they're all jerks.  "I make the students take a photo of me and show it to their dads." "I make them clean my car to learn about recycling."  Jack is delighted to discover that as a teacher, he make his students do whatever he wants and call it "education."

Scene 5: In class, the students have prepared a rap number about how much they like biology, but Jack cuts them off.  He has a new project: they're going to work together to destroy Miles.  "It's basic utilitarianism.  Jeremy Bentham..." They open their notebooks. "No, don't write that down.  I'm not teaching you!"

The project: catfishing.  Make up fake profiles with pictures of beautiful women, and send him flirty messages.  How will that destroy him?

Scene 6: The students find a video online explaining why Jack was kicked out of Harvard: at his tenure hearing, he attacked an elderly professor, who defended himself and put him in a headlock. Embarrassing tenure fail.

Jack enters and wants to hear their catfish messages.  First up: Troubled Loner Devin: "Dear Miles, you don't know me, but you will. We will marry under the black sun of Satan's breath.  I'll be the final face you see as I wrap my hands around your neck and suck your soul into my mouth."  

Jack likes it, only "make it a bit more feminine."  Sounds like Devin is gay.

More after the break

Andrew Santino: Aren't gay men hilarious? But have you heard what they do in bed?

Link to the NSFW version

Today I started a review of Royal Crackers, an animated series on MAX about a family running a cracker empire.  As usual, I checked to see if any of the actors have beefcake photos or are gay.

Andrew Santino, who plays the washed-up rock star son: About a dozen beefcake photos.

Including a group rear.  Notice that the guy on the left has a cock hanging down.

And a frontal with a sock.

Gay: he's on a list of gay male celebrities, but there are also clips saying "Andrew responds to gay rumors," "I'm not gay no more," "Andrew finds out that he's gay,"  "Andrew's gay lover," "Andrew fails the gay test," "Andrew comes out."

Well, which is it?  Is he gay, ex-gay, straight, bi, pan, straight but pretending to be gay as a joke?

Who is this guy, anyway?'

He appears in Game Over, Man and Adam Devine's House Party, and later interviews Adam on the Whiskey Ginger podcast: "What was your worst review?"

Adam: "I don't really get bad reviews, but sometimes they devote three paragraphs to my dick and only two lines to my acting."

He hangs out with the Always Sunny guys. 

He has 40 credits on the IMDB, including substantial roles in:

 I'm Dying Up Here, about the L.A. comedy scene in 1973.  All fictional comedians.

This is Us, "a heartwarming and unique story of a unique set of triplets." Andrew does not play one of the triplets.

Beef, about a road rage incident that spins into a comedy of errors.

Dave, with Dave Burt playing himself as an aspiring rapper. Andrew plays his roommate and manager.

Ricky Stanicky: Three best friends, one gay, invent Ricky to blame their misdeeds on. Andrew plays the focus character, who wants to kill Ricky to get out of attending his pregnant wife's baby shower.

More Andrew after the break