After spending six seasons as part of NBC's Chicago Fire ensemble, actress Monica Raymund exited the popular drama to move onto other roles beyond paramedic Gabby Dawson. Just six months later, her next major TV role has been acquired and solidified, with Starz announcing a series order for Raymund's new opioid-driven crime drama, now titled Hightown, along with an order for the strip club drama P-Valley.
Monica Raymund will get to show off more of her acting talents as Hightown's irreverent and currently unnamed National Marine Fisheries Service officer in Cape Cod. Her life gets thrown for a loop when she discovers a corpse that washed up ashore, and she makes it her goal to figure out the murder, which has ties to the drug trade crimes in the area.
Of course, it won't be easy for her, since the state cops are not impressed with the efforts of Monica Raymund's officer, and they would prefer for her to stay out of it. But do they want her gone because of her personality and behavior? Or is it because the state cops all have their hands dirty in the drug trade and beyond? Given that this show is on Starz, I'm betting on it being a bit more intense than Raymund's broadcast fare.
Of course, Hightown hails from Jerry Bruckheimer TV, which was the studio behind other crime procedurals like the CSI franchise's hits, Without a Trace, and Cold Case. So it might not be too far away from the primetime drama she's used to.
Hightown was created by Rebecca Cutter, a former writer and producer on Gotham, which could be a semi-inspiration for the irreverent nature of Monica Raymund's character. Cutter has also written for The Mentalist and Code Black, and wrote and directed the 2012 feature thriller Besties. Cutter will be executive producing along with Power and Justified's Gary Lennon, and JBTV's blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Littman and KristieAnne Reed.
Starz also ordered to series the new project P-Valley, based on playwright Katori Hall's play Pussy Valley. That show will place its censor-lite focus on the lives of strip club dancers sweating it out at the Dirty Delta. Interestingly, Hightown was originally called P-Town whenever it went into development, but its name was changed at some point along the way, presumably because P-Valley also existed and had a better excuse for using the "P."
It's unclear when we'll get to see Monica Raymund appearing on Hightown, but expect its Starz debut at some point in 2019. (Starz own all TV and SVOD rights to the show, too, so don't expect it to pop up anywhere else.) Meanwhile, Chicago Fire, which wrapped up Gabby Dawson's storyline in the early days of Season 7, airs Wednesdays on NBC.
To see what other primetime hits will be taking your attention span away soon, head to our fall TV schedule and our midseason premiere guide.
