'Hightown' Preview: What made Jackie Quiñones check into rehab and did she do so voluntarily?
Starz's 'Hightown' presents to us a Cape Cod town afflicted by a heroin epidemic. The plot kicks off when local marine and fisheries supervisor Jackie Quiñones wakes up to a dead body washing up ashore. But a look at the trailer - our only source of context for the show - reveals Jackie landing in rehab at one point or another on the show; our best bet is on the pilot itself. But what leads to Jackie in rehab is a question we need to be answered.
The trailer kicks off with a therapist running the rehabilitation facility asking Jackie why she has decided to check-in. After moments of deliberating, Jackie finally opens up to the therapist saying she saw a dead body - a traumatic event she laughs off saying its just "white girls looking for trouble."
Montages for the events leading up to this moment show Jackie drinking around the town carnival and also indulging in drugs - but what happens to finally force her to check into rehab? Local detective Ray Abruzzo can also be seen telling his peers that a regular 'Jane Doe' washed up on the shore; it sounds like a drug-related murder thus raising the possibility of this woman being someone Jackie knew. Is it this local woman's murder that drives Jackie to check herself into rehab? Is she somehow involved in this murder, that would encourage her to get clean?
With local drug traffickers also being on the rise, shooting people out of nowhere for whatever reasons, there's a high chance that Jackie is pretty much seeking asylum in the rehabilitation facility. It could be a means of protecting herself from whatever lurks outside, or worse - from the monster she herself has become.
The trailer continues to show Jackie's therapist ask her "Do you think you have an alcohol or drug problem?" and Jackie deliberates for a solid few seconds, as she probably weighs and measures the pros and cons of answering honestly. The trailer makes it pretty evident that her problems with drug and alcohol run deeper that she would like to admit both to others, and to herself. So right now, it doesn't quite look like Jackie is voluntarily in for her own alcoholism.
'Hightown' premiers on Sunday, May 17, at 8 PM, only on Starz.