RJ Decker season 2 premiere: ABC replaced High Potential with a show whose hero's prime murder suspect is himself
High Potential girlies, I have news, and you should sit down on something upholstered. Kaitlin Olson isn't back until midseason 2027, and her cozy Tuesday-night real estate now belongs to a scruffy Florida man with a camera.
That man is RJ Decker — Scott Speedman's ex-con photographer turned private investigator — and his show returned this week with a premise so unhinged I respect it completely: the season's big murder mystery has one confirmed suspect so far, and it's the protagonist.
A quick refresher for the unwashed
The show is Carl Hiaasen pulp (it's based on his 1987 novel Double Whammy) filtered through Robert Doherty, the guy who ran Elementary, which explains why the cases are weird and the banter is load-bearing. Season 1 ended with corrupt senator Victor Ochoa dropping dead at the exact moment RJ was celebrating beating him — a move Doherty told TV Insider was always the plan, calling the death:
"A good punctuation mark at the end of our various first-season arcs."
A punctuation mark. The man ended his season on a corpse and called it grammar. Iconic.
Everyone's a suspect, especially the lead
Season 2 opens with RJ genuinely unable to rule himself out — the list of people who wanted Victor dead is a phone book, but the only person RJ can vouch for is nobody, including himself. Meanwhile his maybe-love-interest Emi is the dead man's daughter and was part of the plot against daddy, which is not great for the relationship, romantically or legally.
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Doherty has been openly rubbing his hands about this, saying:
"The people closest to him will have to find themselves under a magnifying glass."
Why this slot swap might actually work
- The premiere stacked a whodunit on top of a bank-heist case-of-the-week, so it's doing double duty from minute one.
- A musical episode is reportedly coming, set to a certain 1997 Backstreet Boys anthem, and I need it intravenously.
- It airs right after Dancing with the Stars, and yes, a crossover with the ballroom is apparently happening, because ABC has decided synergy is a personality.
Is it High Potential? No. Is it a show where the hero has to solve a murder he might get arrested for, in cargo shorts weather? Yes. Tuesday is fine. Tuesday is thriving.
Previously we wrote: What is DTF St. Louis about? Cast and plot explained
