Author’s Note: The third and final season of Hightown is coming out on Friday, January 26th.
Guilt is something we all have to deal with.
We do something wrong and feel like we need to be punished for it. Although it would be nice if we didn't have to feel it, there's just no getting away from guilt. Feeling guilt is how we know that we have a conscience. How we know we aren't just a soulless monster willing to do whatever feels good in the moment. Even when we do something wrong, we know that we're going to feel guilty about it and that's part of what stops us from going too far. From choosing to ignore that guilt and being willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want. Yet even when we know that we haven't gone too far, there can be guilt. Largely because not going too far will sometimes get other people hurt. Which makes us feel guilty for holding back when we probably shouldn't have.
Once you feel guilt, you have to learn to live with it. You have to know that it's there and that it isn't going away. No matter what you do or how hard you try, the guilt will be there on the inside. It might feel like it's eating away at your insides. People do a lot of things to try and deal with that guilt. Probably the things they do most are drink and do drugs because it makes the pain go away. For however small a moment, getting drunk or high makes the guilt go away and feel some version of yourself. You can feel like what seems like a person who is happy. Of course, the problem is that when the alcohol or drug wears off, the guilt comes back. What's more you feel even worse because you used something to take away the pain instead of dealing with it. So you do it again and again to take away the pain, knowing that at some point it will come back.
Eventually, you don't feel that pain any more. Not because it isn't there but because you choose not to let it stop you. Despite it all, you do it anyway. More often than not, this is what criminals do when they do something wrong. They learn that guilt can't stop them. Or at the very least they can't let it stop them from doing what they need to do. A person who doesn't feel guilty for hurting someone else is incredibly dangerous. No matter how much pain and misery and guilt they inflict on other people, they just don't feel anything about it. Which is something that someone else has to deal with.
Hightown is very much about what it's like to live with guilt. Jackie Quinones, played fantastically by Monica Raymund, tends to have a lot of guilt about things. Being in law enforcement, even if it is just as a Marine Fisheries Agent, requires her to take on a lot of guilt. Especially when she comes across a body on the beach. Some part of her feels guilt that she isn't doing more to deal with finding out why this person is dead. As the bodies begin to pile up, she tries to do more and more because she thinks it will make her feel better. The problem is the more she does the more guilt she feels. She can't make the guilt go away.
So she does everything she can to make the guilt go away. She drinks and does drugs and even uses sex as a way to make her feel good. To get through the next moment without feeling guilty. Because it never feels like enough.
It's a fascinating process so do yourself a favour and explore the problem of living with guilt by checking out Hightown as soon as you can.
Hightown is available on Starz as well as Amazon and Hulu.