New season of gritty, edgy series loaded with Wilmington locations, actors

"Edgy" is not a word you'd use to describe the most famous TV shows shot in the Wilmington area. To be sure, "Dawson's Creek," "One Tree Hill" and "The Summer I Turned Pretty" all have their moments, but for better or worse they're mostly romantic and/or dramatic ones.

"Hightown," on the other hand, while perhaps not as well known as some other Wilmington-shot series, doesn't hold back. The show, which premiered its third and final season Jan. 26 on Starz, is about the world of law enforcement officers, sex workers, underworld crime figures and low-level hoodlums, all of whom have spectacularly messy, sometimes entangled personal lives.

Starz, which features such popular shows as "Outlander," is currently running a $20 for six months deal for new subscribers. You can also sign up through Hulu or watch the show on Amazon Prime.

"Hightown" has drawn notice not only for its grit and its graphic depictions of sex, drug use and violence, but also for its frank assessment of human sexuality.

The lead character, federal agent Jackie Quinones, is a hard-partying, lusty lesbian brilliantly portrayed by Monica Raymund. Jackie starts out as a National Marine Fisheries Services agent but gradually gets drawn into investigating drugs and murder for the police on land. Similar cop-type characters — conflicted, driven, super-attractive and deeply flawed — have often been portrayed by men in the past, less so by women.

"Hightown" also stars James Badge Dale ("Iron Man 3") as aggressive, sex-addicted cop Ray Abruzzo and Amaury Nolasco ("Prison Break") as his nemesis, underworld crime boss Frankie Cuevas. (Season two also features the great Luis Guzmán of "Traffic," "Punch Drunk Love" and "The Limey" as Frankie's villainous cousin, Jorge.)

As much as any show ever shot in Wilmington, "Hightown" is packed with Wilmington locations and Wilmington actors.

Though "Hightown" is set on Cape Cod in and around Provincetown, Massachusetts, the show's first season shot mostly in Long Island, New York, before moving to Wilmington to shoot its second season in 2020. Season three shot in the Wilmington area in 2022.

"I love Wilmington. I love Wrightsville Beach. I get Redfin alerts: I fantasize about retiring to Wrightsville," said "Hightown" creator and showrunner Rebecca Cutter. "We shot the first season in New York and we had to drive really far out, deep into Long Island to get anything that would look like Cape Cod.

"Season two we moved to Wilmington, really because of COVID. When we got there, I was like, 'Why didn't we shoot here the whole time?' I mean, it's such a good double, the beaches are beautiful, it has so many good different looks. And then on top of all that it turned out the crews there were amazing. So, it was a great experience."

Seasons of 'Hightown'

Only two of season three's seven episodes have dropped, but Wilmington is already well-represented.

Formerly Wilmington-based actress Barbara Weetman, who's also a co-owner of downtown bar The Blue Post, plays the matter-of-fact mother of Renee (Riley Voelkel), a one-time stripper who used to be married to crime boss Frankie but is now with hard-nosed cop Ray.

Season three's first two episodes feature a ton of Wilmington locations as well.

In one scene, a low-level drug dealer drives like a madman down South Fifth Avenue, near the Rusty Nail bar. In another, ascendant drug dealer Osito (Atkins Estimond), visits the relative of a supplier at a house on North Fifth Avenue, and Jackie's drug dealer lives in a house on North Fifth as well. Osito works a front job as a car salesman at the Rose Ice & Coal building on Market Street, which is dressed to look like a used car lot.

Ray sets up a drug buy on the corner of 20th and Pender near the Carolina Place neighborhood and, off Muters Alley downtown, Jackie breaks into the apartment of a sex worker she's trying to help. The Chandler's Wharf shopping center is dressed up for a Pride festival in gay-friendly Provincetown in yet another scene.

There's also a long, clear shot of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in one scene, and a meeting between law enforcement officers under the bridge in another one. The building at 2505 Carolina Beach Road plays the strip club Xavier's in seasons two and three.

And this is just the short list. Plenty more Wilmington locations to come as season three progresses.

If you go back to season two, "Hightown" has even more Wilmington-area locations and a whole stage's worth of locally based actors.

Dominic Santana gets lots of lines as Frankie's hulking heavy, Chuleta; Logan Siu plays a high schooler who overdoses, with Troy Rudeseal as his grieving principal; Justin Smith is a gun shop owner, Nick Basta a construction worker, Ed Wagenseller a prison guard ("No touching!"), Myke Holmes an airport worker, J.R. Rodriguez a happy strip club patron and Zach Hanner a bartender in various season two episodes.

Notable season two locations that haven't (yet) shown up in season three include: Lake Forest Baptist Church, Sea Merchants in Carolina Beach, the Carolina Beach Police Station, The Harp pub and restaurant, Za Pie on Carolina Beach Road, the Rusty Nail, the Wilmington Riverwalk, Johnnie Mercers Pier, the Community Arts Center/Hannah Block Historic USO, Cape Fear Community College's downtown campus, the Love Grove Bridge, historic Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church, the Wilmington Riverwalk (with a digitized backdrop of New York City) and Elijah's Restaurant.

Again, that's just the short list.

As for "Hightown" itself, Cutter, who's working on a new show for Starz, "The Hunting Wives," said, "My influences, they're very obvious: Very much 'The Wire' and 'The Sopranos.' Those were sort of my seminal shows. That's when TV was becoming this thing that could rival film. The depth of storytelling."

Like "The Wire," "Hightown" is never a whodunit. The audience sees multiple sides and usually has more information than any given character.

"We do get pretty deep on a lot of characters, but especially Jackie," Cutter said. "She was really my entry point into this. I literally was driving, and I had this image of this Fishery Service agent living in Provincetown, kind of an alcoholic, kind of a sex addict ... I was like, I know I can build a show around this. So she's always been kind of the basis."

Throughout, Jackie's growth (rehab, career advancement) and setbacks (relapse, professional and romantic screw-ups) have been intertwined with the crime-heavy plot.

As "Hightown" nears its final episode March 8, "Everybody finds their final form this season," Cutter said. "Everything get(s) to the inevitable place for everybody."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Season 3 of Starz show 'Hightown' packed with Wilmington, NC locations