The level of nuance in the storytelling on “Hightown,” a new hour-long drug thriller from Starz, can be easily illustrated by a fake internet comment shown under a news item about the show’s inciting murder: “Drug addicts are ruining the Cape!” Imagine someone barking that in a Massachusetts accent with all the subtlety of a cocaine-covered rainbow flag, and you’ve got the basic gist of “Hightown.” The gritty crime drama swirls around an eclectic mix of an unusual setting, hackneyed plot tropes, and some of television’s most insidious stereotypes.
That’s perhaps not surprising given the hook of the show, which is predicated on the juxtaposition of setting a hard-nosed drug thriller in Provincetown, the utopian gay vacation town at the very tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.Created by newcomer Rebecca Cutter (“Gotham”) and executive-produced by procedural drama maven Jerry Bruckheimer, “Hightown” is an uneven mash-up of incongruous themes,
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