Irish Gang Drama ‘The Westies’ Sets Summer Release Date
The 1980s-set period drama about the construction of New York City's Javits Center is full of gangs and grit.
When we think of period dramas, we tend to visualize the same settings: Tudor England, the Regency period, or key points in World War II. While most period projects (The Other Bennet Sister, Pressure) do still tend to fall into those familiar buckets, one of the more... let’s just call it (personally) disturbing revelations of the prestige TV era has been the rise of more modern-set period dramas. Nowadays, anything set in the 1980s can pretty much be considered a period piece, and it’s a fact that takes some serious getting used to.
Shows like Rivals, A Woman of Substance, Say Nothing, or even FX’s Love Story, which technically takes place in the 1990s (gasp!), are all turning history that a lot of us remember living through into high-end drama.
Now it’s MGM+’s turn, with their gritty new series The Westies, which centers on the titular Irish gang who ruled Hell’s Kitchen during the construction of the Jacob Javits Convention Center in 1980s New York. Conflicts abound: Between the Westies and the Five Families of the Italian mafia, between older and younger generations of the group’s leadership, and even between a pair of former childhood friends.
Here’s the series synopsis.
The Westies is a gritty and kinetic crime drama centering on New York City’s infamously violent Irish gang of the same name. The series is set in the early 1980s when the construction of the Jacob Javits Convention Center on the Westies’ home turf in Hell’s Kitchen promises a financial windfall. Despite being outnumbered fifty-to-one by the Five Families of the Italian Mafia, the Westies’ legendary brutality and cunning have given them the leverage necessary to share the spoils through a fragile détente. But internal conflict between the brash younger generation and the old-school leadership threatens to set a match to this powder keg, which will sweep the Westies into the FBI’s ever-deepening investigation into the Italian mafia.
The series ensemble includes Allen Leech (Downton Abbey), Tom Brittney (Grantchester), Stanley Morgan (The Serpent Queen), Sarah Bolger (The Tudors), Jessica Frances Dukes (The Gilded Age), Vincent Walsh (Irish Blood), Hilary McCormack (Murdoch Mysteries), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Titus Welliver (Bosch), and Hamish Allan-Headly (Mayor of Kingstown).
The eight-part drama is co-created by Chris Brancato and Michael Panes, who also serve as executive producers.
The Westies premieres Sunday, July 12, 2o26, on MGM+ with two episodes, followed by one a week through the end of August.
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