Picture Credit: Starz
If you’ve been meaning to start the gritty crime drama Hightown, you need to act fast. We have learned that the series is scheduled to depart Netflix US in late January, wrapping up a surprisingly short six-month residency on the platform.
The series, which originally aired on Starz, was part of a wave of licensed titles that landed on Netflix earlier this year. It arrived on July 23rd, finding a new audience and even cracking the US Netflix Top 10 for 8 days in a row. The show was also later licensed to Netflix in some other smaller regions.
However, as is becoming common with these third-party licensing deals, the window was incredibly short. We can confirm that all three seasons (25 episodes) of Hightown will leave Netflix US on January 23rd, 2026.
That’s just six months after it was added. The same fate awaits Mr. Robot, which was similarly added in July and will be removed in January alongside other TV series favorites.
What is Hightown about?
Set in the beautiful but bleak landscape of Cape Cod, Hightown follows Jackie Quiñones (played by Chicago Fire alum Monica Raymund), a hard-partying National Marine Fisheries Service agent. Her life is upended when she discovers a body on the beach, plunging her into the center of a horrific opioid epidemic and a murder investigation.
The series was critically acclaimed for its raw portrayal of addiction and its authentic look at the “off-season” version of Provincetown.
The cast also includes:
- James Badge Dale as Detective Ray Abruzzo.
- Amaury Nolasco (Prison Break) as Frankie Cuevas.
- Riley Voelkel (The Originals) as Renee Segna.
- Atkins Estimond as the fan-favorite enforcer Osito.
The departure is notable because Hightown comes from creator Rebecca Cutter, who was behind one of the most unlikely hits for Netflix in 2025. Cutter, for those unfamiliar, is the showrunner and creator behind The Hunting Wives, the soapy thriller originally bound for Starz starring Malin Åkerman and Brittany Snow that dominated the Netflix charts when it premiered and promptly got a season 2 renewal at Netflix alongside a global rollout, which is mostly complete.
While The Hunting Wives is a “Netflix Original” (after being rescued from Starz during development) and isn’t going anywhere, her previous project, Hightown, was only ever a “rental.” Fans of The Hunting Wives who went back to check out Cutter’s earlier, grittier work will soon lose that option on the platform.
Why the show is leaving so soon is unclear. We’ve seen a range of shows licensed from all different kinds of distributors throughout Netflix’s lifetime with many being for multiple years. Although there was a stint throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s when Netflix was cut off from licensing from distributors, the economics of the streaming business have opened the taps back up again. That said, shows being licensed on short six-month windows does seem to be a new phenomenon.
You have until January 23rd to finish your binge of Hightown. Are you sad to see it go? Let us know in the comments.
