After it was announced that veteran actor Mekhi Phifer would join the cast of High Potential season 2 in an unspecified role, theories started to fly about who he might be. Unlike fellow newcomer Steve Howey, who was confirmed to be playing new precinct captain Nick Wagner, Phifer’s character in High Potential season 2 was never named. He was, however, confirmed to have a recurring role, meaning he’ll be important to the plot.
Of course, that led to theories, one of which was that Phifer was set to play Morgan’s long-lost ex in High Potential, Roman Sinquerra. It’s not a huge leap to make that guess, considering Roman has to be introduced soon, and the deliberate ambiguity surrounding Phifer’s character points to him being related to the mystery in some way. Now, it would appear, the High Potential season 2 premiere has confirmed that Phifer is playing Roman – except, I’m not so sure.
Mekhi Phifer Is Playing Roman Sinquerra In High Potential Season 2 – Or Is He?
Lieutenant Soto has been doggedly working to track down Roman’s whereabouts, as has Karadec, ever since Karadec’s contact confirmed in the High Potential season 1 finale that Roman is an FBI informant – and also still alive. After the team trauma bonding of Oz almost drowning at the hands of the Game Maker, Soto decided to bring Oz and Daphne into the loop.
Thus, the partners hit the road to Nevada, hoping to find Roman at the address that Soto’s own contacts had finally tracked down. In one of the final scenes of the episode, a shot shows a man’s hand pulling an envelope out from under a motel bed mattress, with a piece of paper containing an address: 3476 Sandstone Ave., Henderson, NV.
A second later, Oz and Daphne knock on his motel door and call out his name: “Roman Sinquerra?” Cue the camera panning up to reveal that the actor playing the man they’ve tracked to the hotel room is Mekhi Phifer, and his character looks none too happy about being found.
Finally, High Potential reveals the answer to the season-long mystery of where Roman is, and the shorter mystery of who Mekhi Phifer is playing: it’s Roman. Except that may not actually be the case. As with so many things in High Potential regarding the tangled mystery of Roman’s disappearance, I don’t think it will be that easy.
Roman’s High Potential Mystery Won’t Be This Easy To Unravel
Instead of confirming that Phifer is Roman, High Potential season 2 is potentially setting up a red herring for both the audience and the LAPD cops. For starters, Phifer’s character never actually meets with Oz or Daphne, nor does he confirm that he’s Roman. There’s only the shot of him looking troubled before it cuts to the final scene in the episode.
Everyone knows the rule in movies and TV that you should never assume a character is dead unless you see a body (and, in some genres, even that isn’t enough confirmation). But the same could be said of confirming a character’s identity, especially when it ends on a cliffhanger. Unless the character responds in the affirmative, it’s up in the air. High Potential left that scene on an ambiguous cliffhanger for a reason.
Beyond that, it just feels far too convenient. For starters, the Roman and Game Maker mysteries have been running on parallel tracks. With the Game Maker plot being so twisty and full of so many false leads and fakeouts, it’s hard to believe that the Roman story would somehow be less complex than its parallel narrative.
Further, it’s never made sense that Morgan couldn’t solve the mystery of Roman’s disappearance. Solving mysteries no one else can is literally her entire driving force in the show, so it’s impossible to believe that she wouldn’t have already tracked Roman down if he were this easy to find. And he wouldn’t be easy to find if he were a high-value FBI informant. Either the government would make sure of it, or Roman would, knowing that he would have had to go to extreme lengths to go off the grid.
Thus, I’m not convinced that Mekhi Phifer’s character is Roman, even if that’s clearly what the High Potential season 2 premiere wants us to believe. It’s too clean, too obvious. Roman has evaded law enforcement, his enemies, and one of the most brilliant women in the world for 15 years. There is no way, with all due respect, that the LAPD would track him down in just a few months.
Mekhi Phifer’s character clearly knows Roman and will get them one step closer to finding Morgan’s ex, but I don’t think he has been found. Showrunner Todd Hartman has already confirmed that one of the two big cliffhanger stories from season 1 will be wrapped up fairly quickly, and it will likely be the Game Maker plotline, as that’s further ahead – and ultimately less important to the overall story moving forward.
If that’s the case, then it means the mystery of where Roman Sinquerra is, what he’s been doing for the past decade and a half, and why he disappeared has many more layers yet. Mekhi Phifer’s character – whoever he is – might be a huge puzzle piece, but I don’t think High Potential has revealed Roman just yet.
- Release Date
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September 17, 2024
