Mare of Easttown may ultimately go down in history, for me anyway, as “the one where Kate Winslet did a Philly accent,” the same way that a previous prestige-procedural like the acclaimed The Night Of is “the one where John Turturro puts ointment on his feet.” Deliberately de-glamorizing character bits like those will do that sometimes. (Her work has been excellent throughout regardless.) There are some weird lacunae in this episode, too—like, couldn’t it have found the time to catch up with Kenny, the father of the slain girl, to see how he took the news about the identities of Erin’s abuser and killer? What kind of teenager has a physical hard copy of an incriminating photo in the year of our digital Lord 2021? Did Mare really “need” to arrest Ryan, or was this grim bit of symmetry—having lost her son, she now takes away her best friend’s—unnecessary and cruel, just as Lori said, with the show counting on our faith in the institution of policing to carry the weight? And the final shot of Mare going up the attic stairs to confront her grief over her late son Kevin looked a bit more Hereditary-style spooky than it was probably supposed to; one last not-quite-right move from a show that made plenty of them.
That’s a lot of caveats, I know. But in this episode, at least, the series left me feeling moved, rather than ripped off. Folks, I’ll take it.
I reviewed the finale of Mare of Easttown for Decider.
Tags: decider, mare of easttown, reviews, TV, TV reviews