--- title: "Mare of Easttown" year: 2021 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/mare-of-easttown" fi1m_score: 78 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 11 published: "2026-09-17T03:53:41.715463+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T03:53:42.010091+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Mare of Easttown (2021) Created by Brad Ingelsby · MPA TV-MA · Drama, Crime, Mystery **Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 76 from 11 reviews *In a sentence:* The vape, the flannel and the accent are all more convincing than the whodunit > Kate Winslet’s tired, unglamorous detective and the town around her are the reasons to watch Brad Ingelsby’s seven-part mystery. The murder plot is the reason it needs seven parts, and it is the least persuasive thing here. ## Synopsis Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) is a detective in Easttown, a small Pennsylvania town where everyone knows her and half of them seem to be related to her. She is also a grandmother, sharing a cluttered house with her mother Helen Fahey (Jean Smart), her teenage daughter Siobhan Sheehan (Angourie Rice) and a small grandson, while her ex-husband Frank Sheehan (David Denman) is never quite out of the picture. Poverty and addiction sit on every street. Then a young woman, Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny), is found dead, and Mare, tired, blunt and not much liked for it, has to find out who did it while the whole town watches her try. ## Review Brad Ingelsby, who created and wrote it, has made a murder mystery in which the murder is almost the least of it. Easttown is a small Pennsylvania town of rowhouses, bare trees and one high school everybody went to, and Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) is its detective and, it sometimes seems, its cousin. Craig Zobel directs seven episodes that want to be two things: a whodunit with a body in the first hour, and a portrait of a woman and a place worn down to the same grey. The portrait is the one that works. Winslet plays her without a scrap of vanity. Mare vapes in the car, eats cheese from the bag at the open fridge in the small hours, and wears the same padded coat over the same flannel for most of seven episodes; Meghan Kasperlik has dressed a woman who stopped choosing clothes some years ago. The local accent, all flattened vowels, is done well enough that we stopped hearing it by the second episode. What got us was not the shouting. It was a scene in the first episode where Mare takes a report about a prowler in an old woman’s kitchen, and you can watch her decide not to care and then care anyway. We recognised that tiredness, and it did not look like acting. Around her Ingelsby has built a town rather than a cast. Jean Smart, as her mother Helen Fahey, gets most of the laughs and earns them: a woman who has moved into her daughter’s house and made it hers by volume. The two of them bickering across the kitchen table, the older woman with her wine and her games on the tablet, is the series at its most alive. Julianne Nicholson, as Mare’s oldest friend Lori Ross, does something harder and plays a woman who is fine until she is not, mostly by listening. Angourie Rice’s Siobhan Sheehan carries the family’s grief for a brother the series takes its time to explain. Evan Peters, as Colin Zabel, is the best surprise: eager, decent, slightly in love with his own reputation, and the one person Mare cannot bully. Their scenes together are funnier than anything else here. Ben Richardson shoots it all in winter light: low sun, wet tarmac, kitchens lit by the fridge door and the television. Keith P. Cunningham’s houses are the quiet achievement, cluttered with a generation of things nobody threw out, wood panelling, framed school photographs, a recliner that has taken somebody’s shape. Lele Marchitelli’s score is mostly piano and knows when to leave. The editors, Amy E. Duddleston and Naomi Sunrise Filoramo, cut the family scenes loose and the police scenes tight, so the house feels lived in and the station feels like work. They also build the episode endings, which land on a revelation every time, with a regularity we started to predict by the third. That predictability is the problem. As a mystery, *Mare of Easttown* does what television mysteries have done for twenty years: each man in town gets an episode as the likely suspect and is then quietly let go so the next can step up. James McArdle’s Mark Burton gets the fullest of these turns and is good in it, and the character is then more or less put back in the drawer. Guy Pearce, as the visiting Richard Ryan, is playing someone from a glossier series and seems to know it. In the middle episodes the investigation stalls and Ingelsby reaches for a subplot we will not describe, except to say that it is bigger, louder and less believable than anything around it, and that for an hour it turns a sad programme into a grim one. We were bored, and then annoyed at being bored by a series that had earned our patience. Set beside [*Happy Valley*](https://film.one/tv/happy-valley-2014), which is the comparison everyone will reach for, it is a shade less tough and a good deal tidier. The last episode explains everything, and the explaining relies on the things whodunits usually rely on. Most critics have been warmer about the plotting than we are. We do not think they are wrong about Winslet, or Smart, or Nicholson, or the town, and those are the reasons to watch. It is a 15 certificate and it runs to seven episodes. Watch it two at a time with the heating on; it is a cold programme and goes down easier warm. If by the fourth episode you find you do not much care who killed Erin McMenamin, do not worry. Neither, most of the time, does the series. *Fi1m score 78, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Mare of Easttown, and nearly all make the same case for it. Kate Winslet’s performance is the reason: unglamorous, watchful, prickly, a blunt grandmother detective carrying a dour series without appearing to try. The second cluster of praise goes to the town, a bleak Pennsylvania community drawn with enough regional detail that several reviews treat the show as a portrait of a place first and a murder mystery second. The reservations gather around the mystery itself. Empire finds it does not always grip as a thriller, Variety says it circles its story, and The Times sees familiar crime-drama tropes under the gloom. The Hollywood Reporter is the one mixed notice, calling the series uneven and occasionally close to tragedy porn. Otherwise the spread is narrow, from a five-star Radio Times rave down to a settled four. Several reviews use the word depressing, and mean it as a warning rather than a complaint. ### Reviews we read (11) - **Radio Times**, Brian McIver (5/5): Winslet is in stunning form as the put-upon detective and matriarch in this suspenseful drama. The pilot builds a richly detailed world and strong supporting cast around her flawed heroine. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/mare-of-easttown-review/) - **The Times**, Carol Midgley (4/5): The show is deeply depressing in its focus on poverty, addiction and a murdered young woman, yet Kate Winslet's mesmeric, unglamorous turn as the blunt grandmother detective makes it compelling. Her performance elevates the dour intensity despite familiar crime-drama tropes. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/mare-of-easttown-review-dark-and-depressing-but-kate-winslet-wins-us-over-750mq3chc) - **Variety**, Daniel D'Addario (80/100, inferred): Winslet's subtle, watchful performance captures Mare's internal chaos and vulnerabilities, elevating the series. The show circles its story at times but benefits from her steady presence amid the town's sorrows. [Read](https://variety.com/2021/tv/reviews/kate-winslet-mare-of-easttown-1234942616/) - **Empire**, Ian Freer (70/100, inferred): Winslet delivers an egoless, committed performance that makes the ambitious mix of murder mystery, family drama and small-town ensemble watchable. The show doesn't always grip or satisfy as a thriller. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/mare-of-easttown/) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The series is a layered portrait of a bleak Pennsylvania community and its residents' overlapping sadnesses, with Mare of Easttown centering on a weary detective navigating professional and personal burdens. Kate Winslet's defining, unglamorous performance anchors the drama, which balances crime-solving with psychological depth and community endurance. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/apr/19/mare-of-easttown-review-kate-winslet-hbo-murder-mystery) - **The i Paper**, Emily Baker (70/100, inferred): Winslet gives a nuanced, naturalistic performance as the prickly detective Mare Sheehan. The series succeeds best as a slow, gloomy portrait of a troubled small town and its residents. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/mare-of-easttown-review-sky-atlantic-kate-winslet-963748) - **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (70/100, inferred): The series starts out looking like a familiar crime drama but distinguishes itself through strong characters who grow on viewers. It pivots from crime drama to character study and exploration of grief, making it more than a basic mystery. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/mare-of-easttown-review-hbo-kate-winslet-limited-series.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Inkoo Kang (60/100, inferred): The series is an uneven but masterfully suspenseful portrait of a small town and its detective, anchored by Winslet's sturdy performance. It occasionally veers into tragedy porn and lacks consistent focus. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/mare-of-easttown-tv-review-4158780/) - **Collider**, Jeff Sneider (A-): The review highlights Winslet's dynamite, Emmy-worthy performance in this realistic and melancholy murder mystery that captures the struggles of a blue-collar Pennsylvania community. [Read](https://collider.com/mare-of-easttown-review-kate-winslet-hbo/) - **NME**, Dan Seddon (4/5): The critic calls it a must-watch crime drama and praises Winslet's magnetic performance as the bleak, resilient detective at its center in this gripping yet depressing small-town mystery. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/tv-reviews/mare-of-easttown-review-kate-winslet-2923609) - **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the series a bleak, unsparing character study that marks a strong return to television for Kate Winslet, with a lived-in sense of place and ensemble work elevating it beyond standard crime drama. She singles out the regional specificity and Winslet’s unglamorous performance for praise while noting mixed results in handling some contemporary themes. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2021/04/19/tv/mare-of-eastown-review-hbo-kate-winslet) ## Details - **Created by:** Brad Ingelsby - **Creator:** Brad Ingelsby - **Director:** Craig Zobel - **Writer:** Brad Ingelsby - **Cinematography:** Ben Richardson - **Editor:** Amy E. Duddleston, Naomi Sunrise Filoramo - **Music:** Lele Marchitelli - **Production design:** Keith P. Cunningham - **Costume design:** Meghan Kasperlik - **Producer:** Karen Wacker - **Cast:** Kate Winslet as Marianne 'Mare' Sheehan; Jean Smart as Helen Fahey; Julianne Nicholson as Lori Ross; Angourie Rice as Siobhan Sheehan; Evan Peters as Colin Zabel; Sosie Bacon as Carrie Layden; David Denman as Frank Sheehan; Neal Huff as Dan Hastings - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 18 April 2021 - **Genres:** Drama, Crime, Mystery - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-RkBkz45gs ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Hulu: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd - Apple TV: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Happy Valley* (2014): Sarah Lancashire’s Yorkshire sergeant is Mare’s tougher cousin, and the plotting holds up better. - *Forbrydelsen* (2007): The Danish original of the slow, grey, one-case-per-series murder; Sofie Gråbøl barely smiles. - *Top of the Lake* (2013): Jane Campion sends a damaged detective home to a New Zealand town that resents her. - *Winter's Bone* (2010), Fi1m 85: Jennifer Lawrence hunts her father through the Ozarks; the same cold houses, less plot. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/winters-bone.md) - *Unbelievable* (2019): Two women detectives, no gimmicks, and a procedural that trusts paperwork to be dramatic. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/mare-of-easttown