Long Bright River

Long Bright River is a somber, deeply humane Peacock limited series adapted from Liz Moore's acclaimed 2020 novel, created for television by Nikki Toscano and Moore herself. Amanda Seyfried stars as Mickey Fitzpatrick, a veteran patrol officer working the streets of Kensington, a Philadelphia neighborhood ravaged by the opioid epidemic. When a string of women are found murdered along her beat at the same time that her estranged, addicted sister Kacey goes missing, Mickey's professional investigation and her most painful personal fear collapse into a single desperate search.

The series uses the framework of a murder mystery to tell a far more intimate story about family, addiction, and the ties that survive even after they have frayed almost to nothing. Told across two timelines, it traces the sisters' shared childhood and the slow fractures that pulled them apart, while in the present Mickey races to find Kacey before the killer does. Seyfried anchors the show with a restrained, wounded performance as a woman who has walled herself off from almost everyone, and the supporting cast, including Nicholas Pinnock and Ashleigh Cummings, fills out a community shaped by poverty and loss without ever reducing it to misery.

Praised by critics for its atmosphere, its refusal of easy answers, and Seyfried's award-nominated lead turn, Long Bright River stands as one of the more thoughtful entries in the recent wave of literary crime dramas. All eight episodes are streaming on Peacock.