One High Potential Guest Star Was Happy To Be Brought Into The Show As 'Eye Candy'

The midseason finale of ABC's "High Potential" left viewers on a major cliffhanger... while leaving Morgan in an extremely compromising position with dashing art recovery specialist Rhys Eastman.

Played by "All My Children" vet Aiden Turner, Rhys worked with the LAPD to catch a high-profile art thief, but Morgan realized too late that Rhys might actually be the art thief in question. And by "too late," we mean she was already drunkenly undressing him in a hotel room.

"I enjoy being eye candy," Turner tells Deadline. "There was a big responsibility I knew, that wasn't necessarily weighing on my shoulders, but being a fan of the show myself and watching it with my lady Jessica [Miller], they've got such a great loyal fan base. I definitely wanted to make it look good, seem real and give the fans basically what hopefully they've been looking for."

As a "High Potential" fan himself, Turner knows that Morgan hasn't been the luckiest in love; Tom (JD Pardo) is technically the only man she's actually dated over the course of two seasons. So Turner was also honored to be playing the man who ended that romantic drought.

"I feel like, within the show, you kind of see her longing for a good man," Turner says. "So I felt like it was a big compliment for me to be the man that was lucky enough to win the audition and to be lucky enough to be on the show with such good writers and a great director, and such a great talent like Kaitlin Olson. I really didn't want to screw it up, so I really worked hard on trying to make it as authentic and as real as possible."

TVLine also discussed Rhys' casting with "High Potential" showrunner Todd Harthan, who said he "knew right away" that Turner would be perfect for the part. "We just needed [him to feel like] Pierce Brosnan or James Bond without it being too smarmy or arrogant," Harthan explained. "Like, why would Morgan be drawn to this person? Well, they'd better be smooth and smart and mysterious. All the things. So [Turner] walked in and it was just like, 'Yep, there it is.'"

That delicate combination made Turner the perfect person to play a slippery fellow like Rhys, someone we want to trust despite all of the evidence pointing towards him being a villain. Here's the thing, though: Just because Morgan suspects Rhys of being the art thief (and potential murderer), should we really assume that she's connecting all of the dots correctly?

"Just because he has a scar, that doesn't mean he's the guy, you don't know!" Harthan tells TVLine. "We've got surprises, we've got tricks up our sleeve. We have some pretty interesting twists and turns in the [second] part. It's a really fun ride."

Good question! Unlike the wait between Seasons 1 and 2 (an agonizing seven months!), you're only going to have to wait two months for Season 2 to resume. ABC has set a Tuesday, Jan. 6 airdate for the "High Potential" midseason premiere. More importantly, it's now airing one hour earlier at 9/8c.

And as Harthan recently teased to TVLine, the new year will bring a satisfying face-off between Karadec and Wagner as they "discuss" Wagner's recent bizarre outburst towards Morgan at the precinct.

"That particular moment is something that Karadec is really going to interrogate him about in the next episode," Harthan says. "It came out of nowhere and felt very heightened, considering Wagner knows who Morgan is and how she works. So why do that? What's his agenda?"

How do you feel about where "High Potential" left things for the year, and are you a fan of Turner as Rhys? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.