A runaway teenager escapes his powerful father and joins his estranged uncle in New Hampshire’s criminal underworld, colliding with a fractured family tied to a declining mob empire and setting off a chain of violence that reshapes their lives across generations.
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Bad New England follows the intertwined lives of the McFarland, Kade, Lonnkvist, Garrett, and Bianchi families across southern New Hampshire, where poverty, addiction, political power, family damage, and organized crime collide across generations.
In 2006, Darcie Moore moves in with her boyfriend, Andrei Lonnkvist, after becoming pregnant. Their relationship collapses after Darcie cheats with Leo Kade, leaving Andrei devastated and beginning a chain of family fractures that will affect everyone connected to them. Darcie eventually marries Leo and gives birth to Maddox Kade, while her first son, Richard “Lonnie” Lonnkvist, remains caught between two broken households.
In 2009, Darcie relapses, cheats again, and is thrown out by Leo, leaving her homeless and unstable. Andrei later gains custody of Lonnie, raising him with resentment toward Darcie and creating the foundation for Lonnie’s anger, insecurity, and need for control. Maddox and Zoe remain primarily in Leo’s custody, growing up around absence, instability, and emotional neglect.
At the same time, Manchester’s criminal underworld shifts. Francesco “Don Frankie” Bianchi is killed by Jimmy Garrett, causing Enzo Bianchi to inherit leadership of the Bianchi Family at a young age. Enzo’s rule is defined less by strategy than by revenge, pride, and a desperate need to prove he can maintain control. Harper Garrett, Jimmy’s daughter and the mother of Zoe Kade, becomes a target because of her father’s role in Don Frankie’s death. She disappears from her daughter’s life, long believed to have abandoned her family, but the truth is far darker: she has been held captive by the Bianchi Family for years, raising her son Marshall in isolation.
Meanwhile, Brian McFarland and his brother Vincent take opposite paths. Vincent rises through Manchester politics and eventually becomes Governor of New Hampshire, projecting discipline, authority, and public respectability. Brian falls into addiction, crime, and homelessness, eventually becoming indebted to the Bianchi Family after losing money and product while working as a runner. Their brotherhood breaks when Vincent distances himself from Brian, choosing image and control over family. Vincent’s son, Callum “Cal” Voss, grows up emotionally neglected, especially after the death of his mother, Lynne Voss. Cal eventually rejects his father so deeply that he adopts his mother’s surname.
By 2025, all of these fractured lives collide. Cal, now seventeen, runs away from Vincent after discovering that Brian had tried to remain in contact with him. He leaves Manchester and finds Brian in Derry, where Brian is living out of his car and trying to survive through theft while slowly paying back his old debt. Around the same time, Brian meets Darcie outside an NA meeting and takes her in, beginning a chaotic relationship built more on shared damage than stability.
Maddox Kade, now nineteen, is trying to distance himself from the instability of his parents, but Leo has disappeared and Darcie remains unreliable. Maddox, his sister Zoe, and their half-brother Lonnie cross paths with Cal, Brian, and Darcie through a series of increasingly tense encounters. What begins as coincidence becomes a loose, unstable alliance. Cal’s nihilistic worldview affects Zoe, Lonnie’s need to prove himself worsens, Brian’s desperation grows, and Maddox becomes the only person who sees the situation clearly enough to understand that it is moving toward disaster.
Small crimes escalate. A robbery meant to solve immediate problems only draws more attention. Brian’s connection to the Bianchi Family resurfaces, and the group realizes they are no longer dealing with petty crime but with a criminal structure that has been watching Brian for years. Vincent, seeing Brian as both a threat to Cal and a threat to his public image, issues a warrant for Brian’s arrest. What Vincent treats as a legal matter is, for Brian, the final proof that his brother has abandoned him again.
As pressure builds, Harper and Marshall finally escape captivity, revealing that Harper never abandoned Zoe. This truth fractures Zoe’s understanding of her own life and gives the younger characters a reason to strike back against the Bianchi Family. The group decides to break into Bianchi property, partly out of anger, partly out of desperation, and partly because Cal’s influence has pushed them into believing consequence is something that happens later, not now.
The break-in fails. Enzo confronts them, and in the chaos, Lonnie is shot and killed. His death becomes the emotional collapse point of the series. It destroys Andrei, forces Maddox into responsibility, traumatizes Zoe, and proves that the group had mistaken movement for control. From this point forward, the story stops escalating and begins falling apart.
Darcie, spiraling from guilt, instability, and old resentment, sets fire to Andrei’s house and dies in the blaze. Brian confronts Vincent, not as a criminal confronting a politician, but as a brother confronting the man he believes left him behind. Their confrontation ends with Brian killing Vincent, collapsing the McFarland family and creating a political power vacuum in New Hampshire. Andrei, broken by Lonnie’s death and the loss of his home, takes revenge by killing Enzo, beginning the collapse of the Bianchi Family’s organized structure.
In 2026, the surviving younger characters are left to live inside the damage. Maddox moves into Lonnie’s apartment and becomes the reluctant provider for Zoe, Cal, Jackie, and Lonnie’s infant son, Richie. Jackie struggles with motherhood, Zoe works through the return of Harper and Marshall, and Cal’s psychological state deteriorates until he nearly kills himself. Brian is incarcerated. The Bianchi Family fractures under Riccardo Bianchi, whose leadership is less organized and more volatile than Enzo’s. Leo, lost in addiction and avoidance, crosses paths with Andrei in the woods, unknowingly leading the remnants of the Bianchi world back to him. The final confrontation leaves Leo dead and Andrei fatally wounded.
The story ultimately ends in 2050, when Brian is released from prison at seventy-one years old. Cal, older and changed but not fully healed, waits for him outside. Their reunion is quiet, unresolved, and emotionally restrained. There is no dramatic forgiveness, no clean redemption, and no promise that the past has been repaired.
Bad New England is not a story about escape. It is a story about what happens when people inherit damage, mistake survival for freedom, and spend the rest of their lives living with choices made in moments they could not take back.
