'Hightown' Episode 7: Did Osito kill Junior McCarthy? Fans say he 'didn't deserve this'
Spoilers for 'Hightown' Episode 7 'Everybody's Got a Cousin in Miami'
After seven weeks of teasing us with the wholesome Junior McCarthy (Shane Harper) and his path of recovery, 'Hightown' granted the character a tragic fate. What had started off as Frankie Cuevas (Amaury Nolasco) asking Osito (Atkins Estimond) to 'take care' of this loose end, ended with Junior ambushed in the middle of the woods, forced to watch another man die and then chop up his body into pieces and eventually asked to go into exile. But that wasn't all. Things got worse to the point where fans are claiming in unison how the character didn't deserve this torment, even though this tragic fate hasn't been sealed yet.
In the woods, after building up to what looks like Osito and his sidekick Kizzle aiming to kill Junior but it's not the death we witness right away. As Kizzle is counting down to three, before he finishes, Osito shoots him in the head. Then Junior is asked to chop up the body and bag it up before he is asked to leave for good and he knows he better not defy the orders. Having already bid his goodbyes to Donna and all those who matter, we somehow knew Junior's path was headed for tragedy, but it is the final scene that has fans heartbroken.
After an entire episode of hunting Junior down, trying to get to him before Frankie's men do, when Jackie Quinones (Monica Raymund) finally finds him, he is slumped against a bus station bathroom, lying there motionless after a drug overdose. Sad as it might be, this has led to fans coming up with their own theories about how Junior - believed to be dead after that scene - was actually killed. Torn between the possibilities of the whole thing being a suicide or just another of Frankie's men finishing what Osito couldn't, fans took to Twitter to share their reactions to Junior's fate.
It started with fans tweeting how "Junior didn’t deserve this" and "We gonna miss Junior", but soon theories about his death popped up. One fan went on to lament "Wow #Hightown junior couldn't beat the addiction after all huh? He was the best part of the show." Another theorized how Junior leaving for good meant he would have taken another path, and was definitely killed by Osito only. "Osito did that on purpose because he couldn’t bring himself to directly kill Junior, he used the fentanyl that they were supposed to give to Krista."
It's a sad day for the fandom, most of whom were looking forward to Junior's arc coming full circle with him holding on to sobriety like a champ and finally becoming the man he wanted to be for his family. Instead, he got involved with the wrong kind of people and we have to wait a whole week to find out what really happened to him. Worrying about how his closest friend and protagonist Jackie might feel, a fan also tweeted: "Yeah, I kind of expected something bad happening to Junior (he was heading down a bad road) but the way that played out totally caught me by surprise. Now I'm super sad and I dread Jackie finding out about this next week!"
'Hightown' airs every Sunday at 8 pm only on Starz.