'Hightown' Episode 3: Renee gets close to Ray on Frankie's orders, but what is his plan? Will she break Ray's trust?
'Hightown' Episode 3 saw Jackie Quinones (Monica Raymund) continue on her path of obsession towards solving the mystery of Sherry's death. Detective Ray Abruzzo (James Badge Dale), on the other hand, continues to base his conclusions on facts and is following the trail of Frankie's right-hand man Osito (Atkins Estimond).
He cannot hope to find Osito without Renee's help and he hopes to foster Renee (Riley Voelkel) as his new CI (civilian informant). Ray is aware that Renee is Frankie's girlfriend but has been nursing a 'hard-on' for her since he began speaking to her. In Episode 3, he acts on it and Renee reciprocates but her intentions are not as simple as Ray would assume.
Renee is Frankie's girlfriend and his son's mother. She is a stripper who goes by stage name Candy, goes the extra mile if the dollars are right and one couldn't call her loyal if we were to go by standard definitions, but the relationship between Renee and Frankie goes beyond this. When Renee visits Frankie this time around, he cops a conjugal visit. He most probably bribed the prison guards, and while he does have sex with Renee, he gets aroused to the thought of his girlfriend having had sex with others. This includes Ray. At this time, Rene has tried to stay away from Ray so when he asks her if she slept with Ray, she says no.
To this Frankie says, "Tell me what I want to hear" and that's when she responds, yes. Later, when Frankie sits down to talk to her, he asks her on a serious note. Has she had it going with Ray? When she says no, he is unhappy. He wants Renee to get as close to Ray as possible, even if she has to sleep with him. Frankie tells Renee that behind the bars, his hands are tied and that there is not much that he is capable of doing (except copping conjugal visits) and pressures Renee into fostering a relationship with the cop to sneak him information that he would otherwise be unable to access.
Especially now that Ray is closing in on Osito, the stakes are high for Frankie. From the moment Ray approached Frankie after his CI Sherry died, Frankie knew that trouble was on the horizon. Then we saw Junior (Shane Harper) want to back out of the deal that he has run with Frankie after he messes up by dumping the body in the sea when the current was able to toss the body back on the shore. So Frankie is definitely under a lot of pressure to ensure that the operation that he has run with Osito is not unraveled.
With Renee getting close to Ray, Frankie hopes to hear news pertaining to him that would help him plan his moves and be ready for any action that Ray has planned. However, will Renee continue to do Frankie's bidding? She sure did take the first step and got physical with Ray, but will she continue to betray Ray's confidence?
New episodes of 'Hightown' drop every Sunday on Starz.