Starz's Hightown is a crime drama set in Cape Cod that also grapples with the complexities of the drug trade and those who fall victim to it. While the murder investigation drives a great deal of the plot, the individual characters' harrowing stories elevate the series while tackling the ravages of the opioid epidemic. It's a world creator and executive producer Rebecca Cutter knows well, and that sense of place is palpable throughout the show, making the series compellingly specific and recognizably universal at the same time.

In an interview with CBR, Cutter discussed the inspirations behind Hightown, developing its nuanced characters and the meaning behind the show's explicit sex scenes.

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CBR: How did you come up with the idea for Hightown?

Rebecca Cutter: Yeah, I wish I had a quicker answer for that. But so many different elements of it are from my life. You know, I grew up going to Provincetown in summers, I married a man from the Cape whose father was a Fisheries Service Agent and elements of addiction and recovery are part of my story so that stuff was also the backdrop. But the real spark of creativity was I was literally just driving and I kind of got the image of this queer female Fisheries Service Agent who's kind of like Don Draper as a woman with these real appetites and unapologetic and really tough. And I just kind of knew that her and a crime story and a sobriety story would be a good TV show, and I went from there.

Was there a reason you set it in Cape Cod specifically?

I think, mostly because I think it's the most beautiful place in the world. It's like sort of my happy place. And I also, because I have family there who live there year round, I [was] sort of, I think, slightly ahead of the national conversation about the opioid epidemic. I was hearing specifically that stuff was changing on the Cape. Like, my family they were saying something's happening here, like, all these kids from the high school are dying and culture was changing, and it was before we had all, as a country, named it. And so I was hearing it and I know that it hit very hard there. So, I think that was the other reason why I set it there.

Was there something about the opioid epidemic specifically that interested you and made you feel like it was worth delving into in a TV show?

Well, first of all, I've lost people to that drug, specifically, so I think it's something that I'm versed in, I guess. But it just feels like if you're going to tell a crime story about drug dealing right now that is a story to tell, you know, at this time. Like Breaking Bad at its time, it was crystal meth, and now it's this. So that was sort of… obvious, that is the drug they are grappling with on Cape Cod right now. And these things are [cyclical] and everything changes, but that is what it is when I was writing this story.

What sort of research did you do to create the world?

I just did a lot of Googling about arrests and drug arrests and drug cases on the Cape, and that led me to the Cape Cod Drug Task Force, which is the real task force there of the state police, and I started talking to those guys and they actually ended up becoming technical advisors on the show. My father-in-law who was the Fisheries Service Agent advised me about Fisheries Service aspect of it and then the rest I kind of made up.

What about the different characters because there's an incredible array of characters that are all very, very different. Was there one that you started with and then others grew organically from there?

Well like I said, Jackie was really the pillar, that was the first idea. And then I sort of, when I started actually breaking the story out, I realized, well she can't be in every scene, so like, who else is it? And so then I had the idea of Ray, and then as I got to talking to the police in Cape Cod more, that character fleshed out more. But I liked that those two are the sort of columns that are holding it up and they're running on parallel tracks, coming at the same pace from two sides. And they're very similar, they sort of use people in the same way and they're both pretty sort of ambitious and sort of selfish, I guess. But they feel like very different characters… Those guys were the first two. And then I needed a bad guy, Frankie. And then, Junior and Renee. I love them all. I can't remember the process, how I came up with each of them.

You wrote the first and last episodes of the series. Why was it important to you to take those bookends on?

I also wrote the second one…. Well, I wrote the first one on my own, so that’s how it existed. And then I wanted to write the finale because I wanted to kind of take it home. Although I've learned that it's incredibly hard to write. It was harder to write the finale than it was to write the pilot. So, I don't know if I would do that again. But, you know, you want to put your stamp on it, I guess.

The show is often very explicit but not especially romantic about sex. Why did you choose to make the sex scenes that way?

…We really talked about the sex scenes, and we always like moving the story forward, even within the sex scenes. Obviously, a lot of the show is about power dynamics and who's on top and who's on bottom metaphorically, but then how does that translate into the sex scenes, who's f*cking who or f*cking someone over, you know, all these power dynamics. So it was really important to show that.... So everything was very deliberately written in the sex scenes.

But I thought there was a lot of romance, you know.... So, I think we tried to be very gritty and real with the sex and have it actually be sexy. But I would argue there was some romance as well.

The cast is really diverse and the characters are incredibly multifaceted and nuanced. No one's completely good or bad. The good characters do the wrong thing and the bad characters do the right thing. Was that baked into the show's DNA from the very beginning?

Totally, and thank you for noticing that. Well, first of all, I'm allergic to earnestness -- and that might actually be what you're reacting to with the romance. Because I do have a sort of innate sense of like, "ehhh" if things get too cheesy or hyper-sentimental. So, I've never wanted to be black and white about there's a good guy or bad guy.

I think we're all both. Real people are flawed, every person is flawed, we're all anti-heroes, to an extent, when we do selfish, sh*tty things. So I wanted to be real about that. And I always say nothing is "either/or" everything is "and." So, like, Ray and Renee can [care about] each other and be using each other or Junior can be a good father and he's still messing around with the drug trade. So trying to keep everybody living in both sides.

One of the things you did before this was Gotham. How did that feed into Hightown?

I would say my whole career, all my other shows, actually I did Gotham, then I did Code Black and then this, so I've only ever worked on network TV shows, so The Mentalist, Gotham, Code Black. And I would say this is very different in that it's a much shorter order [of episodes] and it's much more serialized than those shows.

But I would say I got really great training from being in network television because when you're breaking a story, you're always thinking about the act break and getting people back after the commercial break. And I think that's a really valuable skill set, because even though you have people's eyeballs, in theory, for an hour with no interruptions on cable, people can change the channel, so… I never wanted to have a slow, gloomy, depressing story. I wanted to keep it going. And I think I learned that in a lot of ways, actually, from Bruno Heller, who created The Mentalist and Gotham. Sort of my mentor.

And also humor, just because the story is a dark story doesn't mean there can't be funny parts. You know, life is funny sometimes, so.

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What was the process like working with the various actors in terms of developing their characters and giving them the insight they needed in order to bring the characters to life?

You know I feel like I can't take credit for anything because they all just really came -- I mean, obviously there was questions and there was working together -- but I really felt like they all came with a really strong sense of what their character was and then delivered on that. And I never really had to adjust….

And I'm not just saying this -- I mean probably I would say this on any show because you have to say it, but I really mean it -- they're the nicest group of people. We got along so well, there's no assholes in this show and everybody loved the material and wanted it to be great, and really brought their A game. So, I hope I helped them develop their characters, but to me, they just all arrived on day one knowing what it was and nailing it.

The show in a lot of ways is very female-centric and gives a lot of the female perspective. But, on the other hand, there's a through line of exploitation with Renee, although she's also a full character. How did you balance those competing elements?

Right. I mean, [we] certainly tried to portray the way in which law enforcement gets to f*ck with people, like [Ray] has power over [Renee], it is not an equal relationship. And yet, people can still all have feelings, even in unequal dynamics. But I think what keeps her from feeling like just a victim is that she's also playing, they're both playing roles and they're both playing each other and there's sort of a noir thematic going there of who's the femme fatale, who's the victim, who's the aggressor, who's playing who. Certainly, [Renee] has agency. And I think, ultimately, she's looking out for number one.

Starring Monica Raymund, James Badge Dale, Shane Harper, Riley Voelkel, Amaury Nolasco, Atkins Estimond and Dohn Norwood, Hightown airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.

NEXT: Hightown's James Badge Dale On NOT Wanting to Bring His Character to Life