I watched the trailer, I saw Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce and the story line looked solid! All these three components immediately made me itch and root for this show. As a person who has loved shows like True Detective, MindHunter, Hannibal, Safe, Unsolved Mysteries, and The Keepers to name a few, I knew Mare of Easttown wouldn’t disappoint and I bet it didn’t.
With an IMDb rating of 8.5 and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, Academy Award winner Kate Winslet couldn’t have done more justice to her role. This is heavily implied on the viewer’s ratings as well. She essentially played the role of a Detective, a Daughter, a Mother, a Grandmother, a Mother-in-Law, an Ex-wife and a Person in a casual relationship! And on the top of that she had to solve missing person cases and a homicide.
Set in a small town called Easttown in Pennsylvania, where the creator of the show Brad Ingelsby was born, the story revolves around a closely knit community where an ongoing investigation about a missing girl Katie is going on without the police department knowing much about the case even after a year. Kate Winslet plays the lead investigator in this case. She is also shown as someone who hasn’t grieved her son’s suicide, who was apparently a drug addict and her ex-husband (David Denman) is getting remarried after their divorce. Kate stays with her mother played by Jean Smart, daughter Siobhan played by Angourie Rice and grandson (Kevin’s son), Drew.
The case starts evolving when another girl after Katie goes missing and simultaneously Erin Mcmenamin (Cailee Spaeny) who stays with her father, brash and alcoholic, after her mother’s demise is found dead inside the woods, shot and almost entirely naked.
The pressure of solving such sensitive cases specially in such communities where everyone knows everyone else is highlighted extremely well. Along with the parallel pressure Mare faces in fighting a possible law suit against Kevin’s wife regarding Drew’s custody and coping with her ex-husband’s 2nd marriage which is well taken by Mare’s mother as well her daughter adds different flavors to the main story-line.
The element of suspense is slowly built and the best part is how the arrow of suspicion starts moving from one person to the other. The story is extremely well plotted because if the obvious would have happened starting from the first suspect Mark Deacon (a priest), it would have been predictable. The best part of the show is how it manages to keep the story-line engaging till we enter the final phases of the show, and the final culprit will be the most difficult thing to predict given the involvement of so many characters.
Element of romance is bare minimum which brings in a very cold flavor of a rebound thing, the aspect of mental health that people involved heavily in solving homicides specially with their families falling apart and their management takes quite a precedence. The strength and weakness of family ties is clearly portrayed with the way Mare’s family is portrayed and her best friend’s Lorrie Ross’s (Julianne Nicholson) family is portrayed respectively! Drug abuse issues and teenage prostitution also adds key elements to solving the cases.
The show is a masterpiece and truly upholds HBO’s legacy of giving its audience the best crime thrillers. Rated as ‘A’, usage of foul language is just and is used only when absolutely necessary, no explicit shots, neither are any shots gruesome or blood filled. It is not gory per se, falling under the category of slow psychological burn, the show can be watched by anyone above 15 with or without parental supervision.
The story provides closure to all the elements portrayed right from the first episode and to all the suspects. Season 2 should not be faraway!
Just not the regular Guy! 