This week’s episode of High Potential featured a dedication during the closing credits, so here’s why the instalment was “in memory of Nicolas Jean.”
High Potential was one of the TV hits of 2024. The show launched in September of that year, and starred It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia actress Kaitlin Olsen as a cleaning woman with a sizeable IQ who ends up consulting for the police.
A comedy procedural, the show was a ratings winner for ABC, and the network renewed it for a second season this past January, which started airing on September 16, 2025.
But High Potential actually started life as a French series, which is how and why this week’s dedication came about.
Who is Nicolas Jean?
Nicolas Jean was the co-creator of HPI, the original series that inspired High Potential.
The screenwriter died on September 29, 2025, which is why Season 2 Episode 7 – titled ‘The One That Got Away’ – was dedicated to him this week.
Jean created HPI: Haut Potential Intellectuel alongside Stéphane Carrié and Alice Chegaray-Breugnot in 2021, and the show has aired all over Europe for 38 episodes across five seasons, while it can currently be viewed on Hulu in the US.
His other credits include soap opera Tomorrow is Ours, serial killer thriller The Mantis, prison drama Impatients, and crime series Promethea.
The French writers’ guild also payed tribute to Jean, with SACD administrator Florence Philipponnat writing on social media (as per Deadline): “Nicolas Jean entered the industry 13 years ago and had a meteoric rise. Self-taught, with an atypical background that enriched his fictional stories, he quickly established himself as a talented and essential screenwriter on television.
“He had a gift for freely inventing original concepts, freeing himself from imposed constraints. And he knew how to intelligently surround himself with creative writers to develop them with him, because he was passionate about sharing and generosity.”
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