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.