‘Long Bright River’ Review: Amanda Seyfried Stars in A Philly-Set Peacock Mystery That Treads Water For Too Long

Everything is not Sunny in Philadelphia on the Small Screen This Week.

Both Apple TV+’s Dope Thief – Review Coming Thursday – and Peacock’s Long Bright River Set Stories of Blue-Collar Murder and Misery Against the Relative Hopefulness of the Complicated Relationships Between their Two Main Characters.

One of the Shows Starts Extremely Well, with Its Focus on that Central Relationship, But Strugggles in ITS Second Half. The Other struggles thROUGH ITS FIRST HALF, But RECOLVES REASONANAONBLY WELL ONCE IT MAKES ITS WAY TO WHAT WAS ALWAYS SUPPED TO BE A HEART OF THE STORY.

The Second Series is Long Bright RiverWHICH CLOSES WITH Two Emotionally Effective Episodes that MOSTLY HIT Their Target, Despite Some Over-Obvious Plot Twists; a climax that’s a lesser version of the ending of a Better Prestige Drama from Last Year; and a laughable moment in a kindybody Finally Gets AROUND TO SAYING THE SERIES ‘TITLE. I Got A Little Teary at the Resolution of the Storyerhood, Addiction and Choices, if not at the end of the Murder Mystery.

And if that sounds like is your Damning with faint praise? Sure! Nikki Toscano and Liz Moore’s Adptation of Moore’s Novel Is Well-Meaning, But Bloated. You could Cut the first Six episodes of Long Bright River Down to four with Ease and Down to Two With The Sort of Ruthless Efficiency that A Story Like This Truly DesERves in this Format.

For the first episode or two, Long Bright River Feels Oddly Like A spin-off of abc’s The Rokiewith Amanda Seyfried Playing Mickey, A Philly-Raized Beat Cop Patrolling Her Old Kensington Neighborhood with Eddie (Dash Mihok) Social Niceties of the Job. For Her Part, Mickey Knows The Name of Eve Addict and Sex Worker, Understanding that Empathy is Important to the Job, or at Least It Can Be.

As is Always the Case in Stories Like this, Mickey’s Empathy isn’t Naturally Occurring. She have a personal connection to the Drug USERS and PROSTITUTES, Because of Years Watching Her Sister Kacey (Ashleigh Cumms) Fall Defeper and Deeper Into this World.

Mickey, Who Loves the English Horn to Distraction (the Distraction of the Show’s Writers, Not Her Distraction), Has A Precocious Son (Callum Vinson’s Thomas) WHY HAS NO FAMILY Other than His Jovial, Yuengling-Loving Great-Grandfather Gee (John Doman). It Turns Out that “the opioid crisis” is a complicated topic to spell Out for a seven-year-ed.

Anyway, Things Turn Upside Down for Mickey WHEN GIRLS FROM The Avenue Start Turning Up Dead at the Same Time Kacey Goes Missing. Nobody Else Is Going to Take The Death of A FEW JUNKIES SERIOUSLY, But MICKEY IS FILLED with EMPATHY AND PERSONAL MOTIVATION. Looking for Somebody She Can Trust, She Turns to Truman (Nicholas Pinnock), A Former Partner Who Was Hurt in Someome Incident That Might Have NECITIER PARTERY MICKEY FAULT The Nor the Thing WHERE MICKEY FREEZES IN HIGH-STAKES MOMENTS IS EVER MENIFAED AGAIN AFTER The FIRST EPISODE.

You Know What Is Mentioned Repeatedly? “CHOICES.”

Long Bright River Loves A Good Literary Conceit with Little Consideration as to Who’s Such Conceits Play As Well in Television Storytelling. The first episode feetures Mickey Teaching Thomas about faust (easier than “the opioid crisis”) and deals with the devil (she’s a strnge, But very engaged MOTHER). In a Flashback to 2017, Truman Gives Mickey a lesson on Choice-Making Systems. THEN Characters Spend of the Next Seven Episodes Debating Which Behavioures Are Chosen, WHICH Are Ingrained Into Our Psychology or Physiology, and Mosstly Just Saying “Choice”.

It isn’t that Long Bright River Isn’t Aware of the Differentnce Between Literary Devices and Televisual Devices. Director Hagar Ben-asher, Who ALSO HELMS The FIFTH EPISODE, INTRODUCES The Avenue with Haunting Shots of Unhoused Encampments and Their Denizens Before Showing User Taking the Camera Over Literal Railroad Tracks. Ok. That was a little Silly, But I Actually Loved that One of the Firmst Shots of Mickey and Kacey Together Features Them on Opposit Sides of a Connerience Store Fridge Door, Sug Separating the Directions their Lives have a taken.

The Series Is About Two Sisters, But For The First Half of the Season, Even by SPLITTING The Narrative Into a Bunch of Flashbacks, Long Bright River Can’s Find A Way to make that Relationship Rise to the Surface. The Flashbacks are too Clumsy, Too Obvious and, Unfortunately, A Bit Poorly Cast. I KNOW that amanda seyfried’s distinctive appearance isn’t easy to mirror, but some there are younger Versions of Characters who have zero resemblance to the older Versions. Makes The Flashbacks Worthwhile. AT No Point Did I Ever Feel Like The Mickey and Kacey in the Flashbacks Had Anything to do with the Present-Day Mickey and Kacey. And you need to!

SO MUCH OF THE FIRST FORT EPISODES IS SPENT ON Establishing the Largely Uninteresting Relationship Between Mickey and Truman, Who Is Apparently on Administrative Lend and Has Noting Toe Tote To. Engages in an Off-the-books investigation. I can’t say if truman has a party on the page, but onscreen is liked’ebody was already “Well, his Name is Truman, Because He’s The only True Man…” and Called It A day. WHEN IT WITH FLAWS, HE’S A GAMBLING Addite and You Think This Will Pay Off In Some Metful Way, and It Does Not.

THEN THERE’S A WHOLE EPISODE-The Fourth-in WHICH TRUMAN, A black philadelphian, and mickey, a resident of a broken-down neighborhood in philadelphia of Police Corruption, As if It’s Something New and Previoously Unconidered for Them Both. This is not a way to get me to respect Two Characters and their abbility to Understand the World Armund atm.

I Love Prickly, Complicated, Unlikable Characters. I’m less enamored with prickly, complicated, unlikable Characters Whom Writers Require to Be Constantly Apologizing for Themselves, Wich Feels Like ITS. In the episode Titled “Atonement”? I get it! But Live in the messess a Little. Sometimes people just make mistakes.

None of this is Seyfried’s Fault. Mickey Isn’t Supped to Be Natural Police, But Seyfried Conveys Almost Effortlessly What Might Still Make Her Good at this Job Within Her Discomfort. She’s Got A Sweet Rapport With Vinson and Her Scenes with Doman Are Top-Totch.

Doman, Philadelphia Born-Aeraized, Lifts The Overall Level of Philly Authenticity A Lot, Especialy for a Show That Was MOSTLY SHOT IN NEW YORK AND FEELS MORE “URBAN NORTHEAST”. I LIKED A SUBPLOT INVOLVING MUMMERS. And I THINK IS INTENTIONALLY HILARIUS THAT IN One SCENE, MICKEY – SEYFRIED NOT DOING Any Accent at all all Delco’d Out, Talking About the Iggles and Wooter and Whatnot. I was less amused in one Scene in a WHICH MICKEY VISITS Somebody and They Ask, “Want A Tastykake or Something?” What kind of tastykake? Sure I Want A Peanut Butter Kandy Kake, But If All You Have Is A Jelly Krimpet? Nah.

IT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE WHEN CUMMINGS BECOMES A More Active Part of the Series. She retroActvely Guns of the Flashbacks in Her Wounded Sadnedness and Gives the Entire Story Anneircurrent that the Misery-Poorn Treatment of the Girls on the Aveneu Point. She doesn’t lift the show; she balances it.

It Takes Too Long to Get There. Too Long to Weed Through Red Herries and Convolutions in the Mystery that Eventual Border on Irrelevant. Too Long SPENT Circling Characters The Show Never Bothers to Develop, Like Mickey’s Best-Friends-When-The-Narrative-Requires-But-But-Ocher. The Generally Detctive (Joe Daru’s Danjarat), Whom You Keep Expecting to Serve A Purpos Beyond “General Decain Two “TRUE MEN” in the story).

That seyfried and cumms are able to take audiences to any sort of satisfying destination is admirable and even rewarding. But not Even they can make you forget Much Better This Too-Long, Insuficient Bright Journy Cold Have Been.