Thank You ‘High Potential’ for Finally Making Kaitlin Olson TV’s Biggest Star

Only seven episodes into the first season of High Potential, Kaitlin Olson’s crime drama is already ABC’s most-watched new series in six years — so where were these hordes of fans when The Mick needed saving?

On High Potential, Olson plays Morgan, a self-confident single mother of three who works as a cleaning lady for the LAPD. However, and unlike a certain janitor from another Olson project, Morgan is not-so-secretly a “high potential” intellectual with an IQ of 160. In the first episode, which a staggering 20 million viewers have watched since its premiere this past September 17th, Morgan successfully Good-Will-Huntings herself into a consultant position at the police department by cracking open a murder case during her graveyard shift. 

And just like that, Olson isn’t just the biggest wise-ass at the LAPD – she’s one of the biggest stars in all of television. Nearly two decades after Olson made her big break playing Sweet Dee on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the mainstream masses are finally noticing that Olson is an unmissable talent with a knack for characters that’s unmatched in all of broadcast. It’s like the ABC crowd never even saw Mr. Covington.

What separates High Potential from the standard police procedural fare is, of course, Olson’s lead performance. In fact, while the show is currently sitting at 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, some critics think that Olson’s impeccable work is above the level of the rest of High Potential. For instance, The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg was lukewarm on High Potential in his review, noting that, despite the show’s phenomenal viewership, Olson may single-handedly be keeping it watchable. “Olson represents this series’ high potential,” he wrote. “Everything else needs to catch up with her.”

While High Potential is shaping up to be the show that makes Olson a household name (at least in households that don’t have FX), this isn’t the first time that Olson has overperformed her own show. On her criminally short-lived Fox sitcom The Mick, which ran for just two incredible seasons from 2017 to 2018, Olson played a similar but significantly more crass version of her High Potential character in Mackenzie “Mickey” Molng, a foul-mouthed Rhode Islander who must take custody of her niece and nephew while their parents are on the lam from the FBI. Again, even the critics who were unimpressed with The Mick as a whole pointed out that Olson was enough to justify a watch all on her own.

Then there’s Olson's work on the lauded HBO dramedy Hacks, which has already earned her as many Emmy nominations as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has garnered through 16 seasons. On Hacks, Olson plays DJ Vance, the unaccomplished daughter of a comedy legend whose chaotic demeanor and crushing insecurities are equal parts heartbreaking and hilarious. Despite commanding less screentime on her HBO project, Olson is still an absolute scene-stealer on Hacks and a highlight of every episode that features her talents.

And, finally, there is, of course, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the show that first put Olson on the TV map and introduced her to her husband. Olson’s Sweet Dee is the abused, birdlike cornerstone of the show’s formula, and Olson’s eagerness to unleash herself on the beloved sitcom has cemented her status as an all-time TV comedy legend on par with any Seinfeld or The Office actor.

Any one of these previous projects could have and should have made Olson a superstar. Between the lack of Emmy nods for Always Sunny and the unceremonious end of The Mick, Olson was arguably the most underappreciated actor on television until High Potential helped her kick down the doors of the TV A-list. But now that Olson has finally found her place at the very top of television, all we care about is that she stays there — we all know how she feels about rock bottoms.