Easttown, Pennsylvania, is an unforgiving place, but it has nothing on Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet). The fortysomething detective is no-nonsense and shoots from the hip, and she doesn’t have time for fools. When a teenage mother is found brutally murdered in a ravine, she has to figure out not only who did it and why, but also how it connects to a young woman’s disappearance in the recent past.
If it were just a mystery show, Mare of Easttown would merely be great. But the genius of the limited series is how it also functions as a character study of a woman barely holding on under the weight of overwhelming trauma. Mare is imperfect, and she’s frequently haunted by the mistakes she made in her past.
Winslet embodies Mare warts and all, and gives a performance that ranks as one of the best on television in the last decade. She’s as superb as the show she’s in, and the stellar cast (Jean Smart, Julianne Nicholson and Evan Peters) who support her. A second season has been talked about, but nothing has been confirmed yet. Cross your fingers that Mare returns to solve another case and battle more of her inner demons.
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