The Riveting Sister-Thriller Adaptation You Don't Want to Miss: Long, Bright River

Set in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, a neighborhood that has suffered greatly as a result of the opioid epidemic, Long, Bright River follows the Fitzpatrick sisters. 

Michaela, better known as Mickey, is a beat cop in the district that oversees Kensington, and Kacey, her younger sister, struggles with addiction and lives on Kensington Avenue, a street named after the neighborhood that serves as an open-air market for drugs and women. 

The novel opens with Mickey and her new partner, Eddie Lafferty, responding to a call about a girl who possibly overdosed, which Mickey quickly realizes is a homicide by strangulation staged to look like an overdose.

This discovery makes Mickey realize it’s been some time since she’s last seen Kacey on her beat on the Avenue, the whole reason Mickey took the job. 

As more bodies roll in and Kacey’s friends begin to avoid Mickey when she asks about Kacey’s whereabouts, Mickey begins to fear that there’s a serial killer at large, that he might be a cop, and that her sister will be his next victim.

What follows is a then-and-now story that spans decades, investigating Kacey’s apparent disappearance in the present while flashing back to chronicle how Mickey and Kacey were raised by their grandmother, Gee, after the deaths of their parents due to drugs.

Mickey was preyed upon as a teenager by an older cop named Simon Cleare when she went for after-school care at the local Police Athletic League, and how that same cop drove a wedge between Mickey and Kacey to a point where it seems their relationship might never be repaired. 

Released by Peacock on March 13, 2025, the limited series adaptation of Long, Bright River was created and written by Moore with the help of Nikki Toscano (EP and Co-Showrunner on Amazon’s hit show Hunters), with Amanda Seyfried leading the bill as the cerebral Mickey Fitzpatrick and Ashley Cummings (NOS4A2, Citadel) as the mercurial and pink-haired Kacey. 

The premise remains mostly the same, though the adaptation has jumped forward, set in modern day, compared to the novel, which takes place in the late 2010s.

A smart choice by creator’s as doing so gave them the chance to highlight the obstacles Kensington is currently facing, including an adulterant in the drug supply called Xylazine (also known as Tranq) which causes dangerous flesh wounds as well as the frequency at which the unhoused population in Kensington are subject to street sweeps carried out by the Philadelphia Police Department.

From its onset, the adaptation does a fantastic job of showing the ways that law enforcement has become incredibly jaded in the face of the crisis playing out before them. 

Shortly after discovering the body of the first victim, Mickey requests solo duty to be free of her partner Eddie Lafferty played by Dash Mihok (Ray Donovan), but moreover, so that she can try to investigate her sister’s disappearance without getting caught for neglecting her official duties.

Mickey is assisted by her former partner Truman Dawes (Nicolas Pinnock), who’s out on medical leave due to a knee injury, and while they struggle to locate Kacey, they begin to suspect Mickey’s ex-husband Simon Cleare (Matthew Del Negro), the cop who groomed her while she was a participant at the Police Youth Club (as its renamed in the show), might be the killer. 

All the while, Mikey must balance being a single mom to her son Thomas (Callum Vinson), her guiding light and the sole force keeping her from losing all control. 

(The character of Thomas is also aged up a bit from the novel, which makes for a really special dynamic between Vinson and Seyfried on screen.

Rather than a preschooler, the change allows for Thomas to be impressively portrayed by Vinson as a precocious eight-year-old who is in tune with his mother’s traumas even if she won’t talk about them. 

Interestingly enough, the majority of the variations between the novel and its adaptation are small things, much like the ones listed above, though, they’re changes that pack a big punch.

The important things remain the same: the identity of the killer, the fact that Thomas is actually Kacey and Simon’s son rather than Simon and Mickey’s (Mickey having adopted him shortly after his birth), and that Kacey was never missing, but instead hiding from Mickey because she is pregnant again and fearful that Mickey might take this baby, too. 

However, in the adaptation, the killer’s motive and M.O. have been changed to instead reflect larger police corruption at play. And considering how this larger thread of corruption goes unpunished in the end, it doesn’t entirely seem like a necessary change.

Sure, it highlights the issue of systemic power abuse in law enforcement, but between Simon grooming Mickey and some of the attitudes we see among Mickey’s fellow officers towards people struggling with addiction, this point was already well made. 

The other biggest change comes at the end as well, when Mickey finally confronts the killer for what he’s done.

Instead of having the ending play out as it did in the book, Mickey has a little help in the form of a group of women, including Kacey, who were friends with the victims.

This very much felt like a choice made to give more agency to the women who are a huge part of this story, but more narrowly characterized in the novel.

Unfortunately, it comes off as a bit contrived, and for as much of a message as it succeeds in saying, it concludes it all feel a little messy.

That being said, there are other changes that, like the change made with Thomas, help the show get its hooks in. In the book, Mickey and her former partner Truman don’t develop a romance as they do in the show, which is especially compelling when you get to watch the subsequent relationship between Truman and Thomas unfold.

The show also changes the character of Gee from being Mickey’s grandmother to being Mickey’s grandfather, played by John Doman (The Wire), who is actually from Philadelphia.

The adaptation’s version of Gee, both a grumpy bartender and a Mummer, is a window into the soul of Philadelphia, and as a Philadelphian myself, proof of Moore’s ability to capture the spirit of this strange and gritty city regardless of format. 

As it almost always goes, the book is better, but Peacock’s Long, Bright River is still undoubtedly worth the watch. 

Featured still from “Long, Bright River” via Peacock