Once you get over how darkly Mare of Easttown begins, you start to accept her world and become amazed at how true Mare (Kate Winslet) is to her tiny Pennsylvania town. “Ladyhawk” as she was called as a young basketball player who stepped up and took the amazing game-winning shot that transformed her and put Easttown on the map, she has been trying to cope with the reality of this place and its crime, pain, opioid deaths, joblessness and infighting.
We learn she became a cop because her father was a cop. “If he had shoveled shit, I probably would have shoveled shit, you know?” She methodically deals with her problems by doing her job as police detective, tortured by unsolved cases all the while trying to protect her family and the families of her community. But her feeling of failure, as a mom, a detective who can’t solve the crimes that are dividing this small town, seeps into the heart of this powerful woman.
Mare of Easttown is a story about protecting loved ones without destroying yourself. We see her, warts and all, bouncing back and forth between work and home life. Besides criminals she must deal with life after the loss of a son to drugs and suicide, the divorce from her husband and raising of her grandson in the face of a custody battle with his mother.
Creator and writer Brad Ingelsby, a native of Pennsylvania writes from the heart. Mare’s character is unsentimental and real. She is the protector of Easttown and her family. Winslet must be strong or fail everybody else. Ever since her winning basket as a young athlete, she knows she can’t live up to people’s expectations. She just pushes on.
Besides all the personal tragedy, Mare of Easttown is an excellent, challenging crime drama with action, red herrings, shoot-outs, vengeance and murder. Add to that the best performance on a series show in decades by Kate Winslet, you are going to be deeply rewarded for watching and waiting for an ending you can’t and won’t expect. Watch on HBO.
by Neil Healy
