A wild show filled with colorful characters contrasting with the bleak and drab, morally-conflicted protagonist, who struggles with addiction while working in law enforcement. Season 2 is dark and gritty, as Jackie Quiñones (Monica Raymund) dips her toes in to troubled waters time and time again, all while attempting to improve her life and put bad guy Frankie Cuevas Sr. (Amaury Nolasco) out of business.
While the first season was actually shot in Cape Cod, the production moved to Wilmington for the second season. As such, only the second season is covered on this website. Still, there were several scenes, especially in the first episode, which were filmed in Cape Cod. For the sake of completion, those scenes filmed for season 2 in Cape Cod are also included here.
From the posted shark warning sign, this appears to be Nauset Beach, and that might be the actual location given that the production filmed other scenes in Cape Cod. I’ve never seen a shark warning sign in the Wilmington beaches, not to say they couldn’t plop one down on Carolina Beach for the sake of filming.
Jackie (Monica Raymund) spends some time talking about deep things, and paid tribute to Junior (Shane Harper).
Sequentially, this is the first location within the Wilmington area to appear in Season 2. It is at the Carolina Beach town hall building, the same exterior location used for Ray’s reinstatement appeal later in the episode. The Recreation Center building is directly behind this, within and on the second floor, is where the AA meeting was held.
This was filmed on October 27th, 2020. I know this because it was the one day that I worked on this show, appearing as a silly head in the audience. I had been given an action from the director to pour a coffee (it was just water) and move across the room to sit down. I had to repeat this action and reset the coffee take with each take. I was to be the one that wasn’t already seated when Jackie started talking, so I naturally moved a bit quickly to my seat. The director asked me to slow it up a bit, and now that I’ve seen the finished product, perhaps the idea was that I would still be walking to sit down when they cut to the audience.
I was also visible as a blur wearing a blue shirt behind Vince (Phil McGlaston) when Jackie gets some coffee after her speech. Vince appears in 5 episodes of Hightown, with 3 in the first season.
During this shot, I was grouped with the woman in the knee-high boots (who went by a single name) and another person who isn’t visible in any shots, but he had me laughing between takes. It was his foray into background acting, and he was holding his coffee cup at really weird angles, on account that it was empty. It had me laughing as it reminded me of a scene from Bojack Horseman in which career-gal Melodie (Marcia Gay Harden) keeps moving her coffee cup in ways that it shouldn’t be. I had to pull up the clip for him when we were done for the day.
(© Starz)
Luke, Anna, and Matt take a selfie before attempting to jump the shark (© Starz)
(© Starz)
Jackie’s Jeep makes it’s way down Commercial Street in Ptown (© Starz)
Chief Shellenbach was in the pilot, and the season 2 opening, but never to be seen again… (© Starz)
