I see what Mare of Easttown is going for; with creator Brad Ingelsby’s workmanlike script, it’s impossible not to. Teenage mothers, dead-end jobs, opiate addicts, cancer patients, necessary but unaffordable medical procedures, chronic illness, the constant flow of cheap booze, old high-school glories substituting for any new real-world ones: This, the show argues, and not without reason, is small-town America in the year of our Lord 2021, or at least it would be if we weren’t still in the grips of the pandemic that shuttered the show’s production for a time. For what it’s worth, I don’t detect a ton of condescension in the portrayal. Ingelsby is a native of the area, and although the gap between Hollywood screenwriter and, say, exurban teenage mother is a big one, he does his best to paint everyone in a sympathetic, even noble, light.
Is it possible this is its own form of condescension? Yeah, I suppose it is. There’s something a little Barton Fink-y, a little “theater of and about and for The Common Man,” in Mare‘s portrayal of Easttown and its denizens. You can get as granular and gritty as you want with the talk of deductibles and diapers, but in the end, you’re still air-dropping one of the most famous movie stars in the world into this thing, and having her play a cop to boot. The very idea of a downtrodden but fundamentally good-hearted police officer, at this point in time…I mean, if you find it hard to swallow, I find it hard to blame you.
I’ll be covering Mare of Easttown for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere.
Tags: decider, mare of easttown, reviews, TV, TV reviews