Mare of Easttown finale: 'TV writing like this doesn’t come along very often'
Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown
Mare of Easttown finished on Sky Atlantic last night.
What started with a murder of a teen mother in the woods outside a small town in Pennsylvania and a high-profile TV spin for a famous actress quickly became what many are now calling the drama of the year.
TV writing like this doesn’t come along very often. Some found the realism of smalltown, oft-forgotten, commuter belt America too grim to handle with its relentless poverty, opioid crisis, and monotony but Kate Winslet’s portrayal of Detective Mare Sheehan was perfect. This is a woman who has just lost a son to suicide, her husband to divorce, and is raising her grandson amidst a custody battle with his mother, the superbly cast Sosie Bacon.
The final episode, Sacrament, was set up to wrap things up neatly. Would Erin’s killer be revealed as Billy Ross? He had confessed to his brother John after all but there was something about John wasn’t there? Or could Mare’s best friend and John’s wife Lori have something to hide? Unlikely, she’d been there with Mare every step of the way.
And what about mysterious professor Richard Ryan, played by Guy Pearce? He had conveniently appeared to win Mare’s affections. You’d hardly hire an actor the calibre of Pearce only to use him so sparingly. But like James Nesbitt in Line of Duty, he was in fact a red herring.
Unpredictable to almost the last moment things unravelled fast and viewers instead got one of the most harrowing TV endings I can remember. I won’t ruin the ending if you’ve yet to watch it, but within moments of posting on Instagram, my DMs were lit up with people on two sides of Mare’s actions - those who thought she was right to do what she did and those who were completely appalled.
Kate Winslet will no doubt win countless awards for her starring role but so too should Julianne Nicholson who played Lori Ross so powerfully. This was a series made around the lives of women and the pain and burden they so often shoulder as they just get on with life and the women who portrayed them were faultless.
It was a heart-breaking ending but one that felt right for a series that was a study in women’s relationships, grief and the American life we don’t often see on screen. I’ll be thinking about Mare, Lori and Easttown for quite some time.
