Like Dead to Me, Party Down, The Leftovers, and The Newsroom, Hightown joins the Just Three Seasons list of exceptional shows that fade to black a bit too early. Or just in time — it’s not necessarily a bad thing to leave audiences wanting more. The third and final season premieres on Starz on Jan. 26, and fans are eager to know how creator Rebecca Cutter’s (Gotham, The Mentalist) high-stakes, mystery cop drama will bow. At the end of Season Two, Jackie (Monica Raymund) relapsed, sending herself into a spiraling depression. Expect the third season to keep the drama flowing as Jackie’s road to salvation doesn’t get much easier.

When asked why it was important for her to create a show around a specific kind of female protagonist, Cutter said: “It certainly wasn’t a conscious choice. The show was really sparked by this vision of Jackie that I had about a lesbian fish cop in Provincetown circling out in her alcoholism, and I was like, ‘That’s a character. I’ll figure out the show afterward.’ I felt lucky to get Monica Raymund to do this because she brought the vision to life. It doesn’t happen all the time to have someone come in, meet you right there, and create something together from the beginning.”

That beginning turned into a significant chronicle of a murder investigation and moved onto a swirl of shady loyalties and one woman’s quest for sobriety. Monica Raymund and Rebecca Cutter revealed more in this exclusive interview with MovieWeb. Before getting to that, check out a clip from the new season:

Monica Raymund Says Season 3 Is Explosive
Hightown Release Date May 17, 2020 Creator Rebecca Cutter Seasons 3

In Season Three, Fishery Service Agent Jackie Quiñones is off the wagon and the force, and suddenly heading into the grim underbelly of seemingly pristine Cape Cod — all to save a missing woman and a murdered sex worker. Former colleagues Ray Abruzzo (James Badge Dale) and Alan Saintille (Dohn Norwood) keep their focus on taking down drug syndicates. Shane Frawley (Garret Dillahunt), a gangster from Boston, also factors into the mix.

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This proved to be challenging for Monica Raymund, even though the actress knows how to embody complex characters. As Gabriela Dawson on the hit show Chicago Fire, Raymund played a tough paramedic and Matthew Casey’s wife. She also had a recurring role in The Good Wife, playing Dana Lodge, an assistant state’s attorney on the opposing side of Stern, Lockhart & Gardner. As Jackie in Hightown, her character is intense, tormented, and flawed, yet still eager to find balance in her life.

Raymund says it all factored into the grit of season three, adding that fans are going to have “a hell of a ride” with these final episodes.

“Every single episode ends with a cliffhanger. It’s explosive. I think a character is going to do one thing and then something else happens. It’s a really good exploration on cliffhangers. It couldn’t be more extreme for each character. And I think for Jackie, specifically, we’re watching her go on this road of redemption and how difficult it can be to finally accomplish her goal, and how messy it is along the way. But in the end, hopefully she finds some kind of peace in that.”

Tackling Those Intense Scenes

About those emotional and sometimes gritty scenes… surely they stretched Raymund as an actress. Jackie is not an easy character to embody. “When dealing with scenes that are so emotionally charged with such a high level of intensity, it’s very important, for me, as the actor, to be very present with my co-stars and whoever else is in the scene, and to be very present with the writer,” she said. “So much of it has to happen between the listening in those scenes so that we can really allow ourselves to be affected by the circumstances of each scene.”

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“It’s very tricky to do — listening and being able to do it without looking like you’re doing it or trying too hard to do it,” she added, saying:

That’s very difficult for me because it also requires a part of my personal investment in each scene. It’s very vulnerable to be going through Jackie’s transformation and especially when she hits those lows. It can be very, very scary for me, and also incredibly fulfilling.

Rebecca Cutter’s Upcoming Projects

Beyond Jackie’s compelling story arc, everyone will face a deep reckoning this season as crooks and corruption emerge from all sides. For Rebecca Cutter, it’s been great fun to execute and yet another success for the creator. Cutter teamed with executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Top Gun: Maverick, “CSI” franchise) and Jonathan Littman (Lucifer, The Amazing Race) for Hightown, after previously making a dent as a producer on The Mentalist and Gotham.

Cutter says she’s eager to focus on future projects. “I have a new show coming out on Starz, which is also a sort of propulsive, fun romp with a lot of sex called The Hunting Wives,” she said of the eight-episode endeavor based on May Cobb’s novel about one woman’s move from the East Coast into deep-red East Texas. “And I have a lot of different things, always female-forward, and always with a crime background. I just love twists and turns. I love writing stories that really go somewhere.”

The third and final season of Hightown premieres at midnight on Jan. 26 on the STARZ app, all STARZ streaming and on-demand platforms. On linear, the series drops at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Jan. 26 on STARZ in the U.S. and Canada. You can stream Hightown on Starz below or through a premium subsciption with Starz added to Hulu, Prime Video, Sling, and other digital platforms.

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