Hightown Episode 2 recap: Jackie digs deeper into Krista’s past

In Hightown Episode 2, Jackie leaves rehab and tries to find Krista.

In Hightown Episode 2, Jackie gets further involved in the investigation surrounding Sherry’s murder as she fixates on finding Krista instead of on her ongoing struggle with sobriety. While she manages to stay sober for eight days, she also leaves the rehab facility early after learning new information about Krista and her potential whereabouts.

Hightown Episode 2: Jackie plays fast and loose with her sobriety.

At rehab, Jackie proves that old habits die hard as she starts up a romance with another patient named Tina. This puts her at odds with another woman named Brenda, who had “dibs” on Tina. The two come to blows during a group meeting, although it is hard to blame Brenda for throwing a punch when Jackie was acting arrogant about her “easy” road to sobriety.

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The group therapist remarked that while Jackie might feel great new on her “pink cloud,” the reality is that staying sober is challenging, and she’ll soon realize that when the initial clarity wears off.

But Jackie doesn’t have time to wait. She notices the photo of Krista on the corkboard and realizes she was a former patient.

From there, Jackie begins to put pieces together, connecting her to Sherry. For starters, she’s seen wearing the same “LYLAS” necklace. After distracting a nurse, Jackie manages to peek at the patient database and sees that Sherry was Krista’s emergency contact.

She takes her newfound information to her therapist, who points out the obvious: Jackie is trying to find a new obsession to distract her from her urge to drink and do drugs. It isn’t what Jackie wants to hear right now, so she leaves the rehab facility against her therapist’s advisement. Ed also thinks she might have gone too early when he picks her up and warns Jackie that she is likely now out of a job.

Instead of worrying about the important things in her own life, Jackie goes out and hooks up with another woman who she then uses to drive her to Sherry’s old home — which she finds after scouring the internet for a bit.

What she finds is pretty disturbing. A young woman answers the door with a crying infant, and she’s seen wearing Krista’s earrings. She tries to deny knowing Krista, but then reveals that she was at the house the other night — the night Sherry was murdered.

Before the two women can talk much more, two creepy, intimidating men emerge from the hallway, demanding to know who Jackie is and berating the other girl for letting the baby cry.

Spooked, Jackie decides to bail on her mission.

Junior’s involvement with Frankie

At the end of the first episode of Hightown, we learned that Junior might have been involved with Sherry’s murder in some way after he found one of her fingernails on his boat and threw it overboard. Well, Hightown Episode 2 confirms that Junior is working for Frankie.

He visits the prison to give a speech meant to empower the inmates to stay sober, and Frankie corners him afterward for a chat, which reveals Junior was responsible for disposing of Sherry’s body, and he messed up. She wasn’t supposed to be found, at least not so quick.

He tries to say it was the “supermoon” throwing off the tides, but Frankie isn’t happy. Then Junior attempts to quit the business since he’s sober now. Frankie isn’t inclined to let that happen either.

“You’re done when I tell you you’re done.”

Jackie tries to take the information she learns on Krista to Junior, unaware of his ties to the person who would try to kill her if he knew what she witnessed. The end of the episode sees Junior acting sketchy as he guides Jackie onto his boat in the middle of the night. It seems to imply that he might do something to keep Jackie quiet, although I don’t think it will come to that.

Still, if he takes whatever Jackie tells him to Frankie in exchange for his freedom, it could mean death for Krista.

Ray gets scorned by the women in his life

Ray’s obsession with Renee becomes downright creepy in Hightown Episode 2. While digging through recorded phone conversations between her and Frankie from prison, he finds one of them having phone sex and proceeds to masturbate while listening to it.

It turns out, Ray has a thing for “saving” damaged woman, something we learn from another cop named Leslie, who used to be that very same person to Ray. She tells him that his “Captain Save-A-Ho” routine is going to mess up the case they’re making against Osito if he winds up sleeping with Renee.

But before we get to that, let’s back up to Leslie’s introduction. Taking her intel from before about a “big, black man” working for Frankie, they realize that Renee was likely talking about Osito, who is indeed the guy that pulled the trigger, killing Sherry.

But the mystery isn’t so much about who killed Sherry as to what her murder means for everyone in Frankie’s gang and Krista, who witnessed the event. Now that the cops have fingered Osito as their man, they need to bring him in for questioning.

As an attempt to arrest him, Ray and his partner Alan set up a sting operation with help from Leslie, who appears to be a pro at undercover work. They use Renee to get them into a meeting with Osito as she tries to buy drugs from him, with Leslie pretending to be an old work friend.

It doesn’t work, Osito is too smart for games like that, and he is not happy with Renee for bringing a random girl into his car. He pays her a visit at Xavier’s later, forcing her to give him a lap dance and then low-key threatening her to keep herself together lest he tells Frankie she’s getting high again.

We know that Renee isn’t using again, but as it was part of her cover in the car, she has to keep up the lie. She pretends that she only uses it once in a while to help her get in the mood for “girl-on-girl,” saying she has a client that pays to see it. She appears to sell her lie pretty well, at least Osito leaves her alone after that, for now.

Ray also visits Renee at her place of work again to ask her why Osito was at Xavier’s the night before. How does he know that? He stalked her there because he’s a weirdo! He was even going to go in to see her for a personal call but ultimately stopped when he saw Osito’s car in the parking lot.

During their meeting, Renee gets pissed at Ray for A. being a creep, and B. being stupid enough to think she would let Osito know she was working with a cop.

However, it might not be all bad for Ray, as Jackie does dig out his business card and leave him a message to call her back for the information she may have discovered on Sherry’s murder.

Odds & Ends

• We do not know where Krista is at the moment. She has a brief scene in the episode where she tries to go home, but her mom refuses to let her in the house. Krista says she has nowhere else to go, so it is left a mystery as to where she goes next.
• Osito throws a fast food bag out the window when he leaves the parking lot after the failed sting operation. Ray picks it up and uses it to get a DNA sample that identifies Osito, hence how they get his name and match him to the murder scene.

What did you think of Hightown Episode 2? Do you think Junior is going to hurt Jackie? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. 

New episodes of Hightown air Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.