Series »Long Bright River« – The Streets of Philadelphia

The policewoman Mickey Fitzpatrick is called to a supermarket with her partner to arrest a young drug -dependent woman. She sees the woman. Then she asks her colleagues to let them run: it was her sister.

The relationship between Mickey and her unequal sister Kacey is a dramaturgical linchpin of the “Long Bright River” series, an adaptation of the Liz Moore novel of the same name. But the actual main character of this crime thriller divider is Philadelphia’s problem-city part Kensington. History of films, Kensington is known from the Rocky films and stands for the East Coast Worker district with the usual disruptive changes in dein industrialization and the associated social descent. Nowadays it is one of the worst drug hotspots in the USA. Nowhere else is there such cheap heroin and the new synthetic drugs. Hundreds of homeless people live on the main Avenue and openly consume their drugs.

In “Long Bright River” a serial offender is dealing with this area who murdered young drug -dependent sex workers. When Mickey’s sister remains unobtrusive for a long time, the young policewoman is worried. As a single mother, whose parents died of drugs, with a family appendix from a mostly petty criminal milieu, she is not exactly easy anyway. In the male -dominated police station, she can hardly prevail. When she searches for her missing sister during her work and hunts the serial killer, she also violates her boss’s instructions, who threatens her with expulsion. In addition to this crime-polic story, the family life of the two sisters is rolled up in numerous flashbacks to early childhood, in which they became orphaned and her grandfather’s grandfather, who was now dry.

In numerous American feature letters, “Long Bright River” was compared with the much praised HBO series “Mare of Easttown” with four Emmys, since she also offers a complex socially critical story about a policewoman in the workers’ milieu pennsylvanias. “Long Bright River” was produced much cheaper and cannot really keep up. However, the series offers a look at a piece of America in which people are socially dependent. Regardless of whether it is the kiosk owner on the corner, whose children were shot by police officers, the drug -addict sex workers with whom the policewoman Mickey went to school, precarious people whose offspring dies on an overdose, or Mickey’s grandfather who fights with his alcoholism.

With ongoing action, the audience is becoming increasingly about the family history of the Fitzpatricks, which is far more complicated than it initially seems. “Long Bright River” comes up with various astonishing twists, the tension increases. Institutional abuse also plays an important role here. Mickey was a member of a police youth club with her sister. Her former mentor, a young police officer, finally becomes her husband, who later leaves her for a younger woman. Police officers are also involved in the drug trade in the district, and Mickey will soon investigate her own colleagues who use their entire power car to secure their business. Is the serial killer also a police officer of this section and what does that have to do with the police youth club? All women in this series are exposed to structural violence. But the women will come together at some point and defend themselves.

“Long Bright River” runs on Magenta TV.