
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — It appears Kensington will get the “Mare of Easttown” treatment as the backdrop of a streaming TV series.
Peacock has released a trailer for “Long Bright River,” a new show based on the bestselling 2020 novel of the same name by Temple University professor Liz Moore.
Like “Mare of Easttown,” “Long Bright River” is a gritty crime drama with a Philly-area female cop investigating a brutal crime.
In this case, that female officer is Mickey, played by Allentown native and Emmy Award-winning actress Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout,” “Les Miserables”). Mickey, a beat cop in Kensington, gets drawn into a case involving a string of murders. What's more, she worries her sister Kacey (Ashleigh Cummings, “Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries”) may be a potential victim.
The show also features Nicholas Pinnock (“For Life”), Dash Mihok (“Ray Donovan”) and John Doman (“The Wire”), who has his own connection to the show.
“I grew up in Fishtown,” Doman told KYW Newsradio's Matt Leon, on the KYW Original Podcast “1-on-1 with Matt Leon.”
“Most Philadelphians know there's a real drug problem in Kensington these days, with that whole stretch from [Kensington and Allegheny] all the way to Lehigh Avenue.”
The opioid crisis is a major theme of the show, as the trailer indicates, with Mickey butting heads with her fellow cops over her interest in the case and compassion for her neighborhood.
Doman says his own neighborhood ties played a major part in his decision to play Mickey's grandfather.
“As soon as I read the script and realized it was set in Kensington, I knew I had to do it,” said Doman. “I'm looking forward to getting it out there, because I think it's going to be good.”
“Long Bright River” premieres March 13 on Peacock.