Hightown

After reading all the great reviews for Hightown I thought I'd finally give it a chance. I'm glad I did because it was definitely worth watching. It's a crime drama about the war on drugs that has everything from drug use, drug dealers, corrupt cops, murders, etc. This is a lot better than your average crime drama because of its writing but mostly because of acting performances from its two stars, James Dale Badge and Monica Raymond. Hightown will hook you from the very first episode and hold on to you until the end. I'm glad that's it's already been renewed for a third season because it definitely deserves it.

This was a suprisingly good show that starred a lot of unknown actors. Monica Raymund who was the most widely known character actor headlined this series. One thing that stood out was the two leading characters, Raymund as a Federal Marine Enforcement officer (Fish Police) and James Badge Dale as state policeman Ray Abruzzo are the two most unlikeable characters in the series...yet it works. We still pull for them although they are reckless and both use people. She is a mess but deep down a good person. She has demons, maybe we learn in the next season why she is dead set on destroying herself.

The only thing my father ever told me that I paid attention to was when he said, "If you really hate a character in a show then the actor is doing a really good job". And he was right. Raymund's character is so unlikeable. She's a drunk, a drug addict and she spends way too much time on the hunt for sex with other women. She bedded at least 1/2 dozen women in the series. I'm not a prude but there was too much sex in the series. I'm looking for a crime show about murder & drugs and there's sex in almost every episode. Sex can play a part but thsi was over the top. Still, it was a good series. Ray Abruzzo the cop was a jerk to everyone around him but he was one of the 'good guys'.

There were a couple of hiccups in the series, in the form of silly dialogue but all in all the writing was pretty good.

I haven't watched the second season yet but season 1 is definitely worth watching.

I guess you could say that I am a "townie". I grew up and live on Cape and I work in addiction recovery. Once you get beyond the language and the sexual situations, you are left with 2 stories, the fictional murder/cop drama and the very real story of addiction and recovery which is messy and hard and has a lot of setbacks. It is an important story to tell and I am glad they are telling it even if it's uncomfortable for some people to watch. It's also important to see that this is a very bad problem even if you live in what would be considered an affluent community. Opiate addiction is a very bad problem here on Cape. So for those reviews that say this show is elitist, well, addiction affects the elites as well.

We saw the description for this show, cops, drug dealers, ect. And we figured we'll try it out.

Gave it a shot and we were weren't disappointed.

It is one of our favorite shows now.

Besides the great acting and writing, this show is a master class in pacing.

Some shows need half a season to get going but Hightown never drags, never gets bogged down, the pace of the story is perfect.

Nor is it too fast and relentless to make the storyline confusing.

Cheers to the showrunner, directors and the editors.

Once again , this show is "A Master Class" on pacing!

I am really looking forward to season four!

Maybe it's because too many of you only watched one episode (if that) but I found even the pilot well done. Maybe it's the fact that the main character is a lesbian. I don't know but this is a good series with good characters, excellent acting and great production values. Give it a try and ignore the haters.