Season two of Hightown arrives on Starz Oct. 17, depicting Jackie Quinones trying to bring down drug dealer Frankie Cuevas out on Cape Cod.
Monica Raymund plays Jackie, Amaury Nolasco plays Frankie and Luis Guzman joins the cast as Frankie’s cousin Jorge.
Rebecca Cutter created the show. Growing up outside of Boston, she spent summers in Provincetown and was eager to set a show out on the Cape. She said there hasn’t been much pushback from Cape residents who don’t like that the beachy locale’s darker side is exposed on the show.
“We’ve gotten a lot of thanks from people who recognize the darker elements of the Cape and felt like we got it right,” she told B+C. “People were happy to see another side of their own reality reflected.”
Cutter directs an episode this season and so does Raymund. She said the new season offers a tasty mix of ingredients. “If you want a crime story, a very sexy story, the recovery and redemption thing,” she said, “there’s something in there for everybody.”
Cutter executive produces with Gary Lennon, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Littman, KristieAnne Reed and Ellen H. Schwartz. Lennon spent six years on Starz drama Power. “I liked the setting, I liked the characters, I liked the dilemmas and I liked the themes,” said Lennon when he read the scripts for Hightown, then titled Ptown. “Then I met with Rebecca and I liked her.”
Cutter wrote the Jorge character with Luis Guzman in mind. They’d previously worked on the CBS medical drama Code Black. “He was always in my head,” she said. “I wrote it with his voice in my head.”
Guzman’s credits include the movie Traffic and series Narcos and Roadies.
Cutter likens the Jorge character to Joe Pesci’s Tommy in Goodfellas. “He brings humor but a real undercurrent of threat,” said Cutter.
Lennon shares a similar thought on Guzman. “Most people know him as an actor who is funny,” he said. “There is humor but here’s a real darkness to him that I don’t think we’ve seen a lot before.”
Guzman joins a lively mix of characters in season two. “Who was up is now down and who was down is now up,” teased Cutter. “Everybody is in a new place and the dynamics of that are really exciting and fun.”
Lennon said Hightown offers a main character you won’t find anywhere else on TV. “Give me one other show that has a Latinx lesbian lead that’s a fish cop that becomes a cop who’s an addict,” he said. “There’s a lot going on.”
