ABC’s High Potential has kept fans in the dark about Roman Sinquerra, the father of Morgan Gillory’s (Kaitlin Olson) daughter, Ava. The show, about a single mom with a genius-level IQ who teams up with the LAPD to solve crimes, has kept the personal mystery alive from episode 1.
Fans have been asking the question: What happened to Roman, and where is he? We learned last season that Roman was alive, but the whole story wasn’t revealed. Now that the season 2 ending nears, this puzzle is beginning to fall into place.
Season 2 Episode 14, titled If You Come For the Queen, was a huge win for the Roman arc. Even though the episode centered on Detective Daphne Forrester (Javicia Leslie) working on a case close to her, the Roman mystery advanced greatly. At long last, the identity of the person responsible for Roman’s kidnapping was spoken aloud: Willa Quinn.
She is described as an extremely dangerous and influential woman who hired ex-military special agent Eric Hayworth to kidnap Roman 16 years prior. The actual reason for her commission of the crime has not yet been stated, but just hearing her name set off alarm bells across the entire audience.
High Potential Season 2 Episode 14: Who is Willa Quinn?
And at this point in High Potential Season 2, Willa Quinn has no face or a backstory. The show has been quite cautious about revealing her true identity. What the viewers know is that she is a woman with the potential for serious influence. She is such a threat that a trained ex-Special Forces soldier like Eric Hayworth is afraid of her more than he would be afraid of being put behind bars. This is enough to suggest to viewers that she is not an ordinary thug. She is dangerous on a level where people who double-cross her tend to end up hurt, or worse.
High Potential Season 2 Episode 14 reveals that Willa Quinn is actually the employer of Eric Hayworth. He is the guy who was watching and intimidating Arthur Ellis (Mekhi Phifer), the ambiguous stranger who introduced himself as Roman’s friend and had been watching over Morgan and Ava at Roman’s behest. Hayworth, who was brought in for questioning by Detective Soto (Judy Reyes), refused to say much, but what he did say created a very disturbing image of who Willa Quinn really is.
Hayworth told Soto he would rather be in a jail cell than speak about the person behind the abduction. Then, he chillingly described her, saying that she doesn’t even need a name, because she is known for the fear she leaves behind her. That sort of image implies a person of some considerable power: a political fixer, a crime boss, or someone who has seeped deep into institutions of power.
The next episode, Pie in the Sky, even implies that Soto is going to New York City looking for a high-profile political fixer who has a hand in Roman’s disappearance, which implies someone deep in political or governmental circles.
Why did Willa Quinn have Roman abducted?
This is a question every High Potential fan wants answered, and sadly, Episode 14 has not brought us closure yet, but it has shown us that Roman’s abduction was not random. Someone who has the clout and the means ordered for Roman Sinquerra to be abducted, and that someone is Willa Quinn.
A look back at what we already know about Roman can help us understand the possible reasons for his disappearance. By High Potential Season 1, it is established that he was acting as an FBI informant at the time of his disappearance. That is, he was involved with law enforcement investigations at a level where he was surveilling people who would rather remain out of public view. If Willa Quinn truly is the kind of powerful, dangerous woman the show depicts her to be, then Roman must have stumbled into her world, or been deliberately used to investigate her, and she found out.
Another possibility is that Roman must have known something, perhaps about Willa Quinn, that was so damaging that she couldn’t let him be on the loose. Individuals in positions of political or criminal power have the most to gain from eliminating witnesses. If Roman was really supplying information to the FBI, he would have been a prime threat to anyone like Quinn. The fact that she chose to have him abducted rather than outright murdered indicates that she needed him to remain alive.
On another note, it is interesting how long Arthur has been a player in High Potential. At one point, he said that he was Roman’s friend and that he cared for Morgan and Ava at Roman’s request. This raised questions about whether Arthur himself has insight into or a link to Willa Quinn. When Hayworth came to threaten Arthur, it implied Willa Quinn’s people were concerned Arthur might get too familiar with Morgan and Ava, which indicates that Morgan’s investigation is making folks nervous at the top.
By the time High Potential Season 2 Episode 14 ends, Detective Soto has revealed what she knows to Karadec. She intends to tell Morgan everything the next morning, although she is uncertain as to whether or not she will be able to absorb the truth. Morgan has been trying to find out what happened to Roman for the last fifteen years. To discover that he was abducted by a dangerous and wealthy woman is going to shock her, especially now that they finally have a name.
Edited by Sahiba Tahleel