The year had long needed a boost in terms of television fiction and HBO is trying to do so with its new miniseries. ‘Mare of Easttown’ marks the return of Kate Winslet to the chain years after succeeding with ‘Mildred Pierce’ with a fiction that, seen the first episodes, is a thriller that dominates the narrative of the suspense genre.
Winslet plays Mare, a detective from a small Pennsylvania town (the typical one where everyone knows each other) struggling to keep his life afloat on family turf. As you investigate the death of a young woman, you will see her life collapse around her.
Among those things that happen to them will be the threat of losing custody of their grandson, which has reminded me perfectly of Carrie-Anne Moss’s recent statements on ageism. More grace makes me that the character of Winslet is a grandmother make Jean Smart a great-grandmother. But hey, things from history.
Along with Winslet and Smart, the miniseries features in the main cast with Evan Peters, Guy Pearce (in what is a mini-meeting), Cailee Spaeny, David Denman, John Douglas Thompson, Patrick Murney, James McArdle, Sosie Bacon, Joe Tippett and Neal Huff, among others in a miniseries written by Brad Ingelsby (‘The Way Back’) and directed by Craig Zobel (‘The Leftovers’).
A gray town
From minute one, ‘Mare of Easttown’ bet on a gloomy tone, from a depressed area that is not for many celebrations. Even when there are, they seem like mere obligations. For example, Mare has a tribute in high school (with the anniversary of her triumphant basketball team) but she is up to the worst of the circumstances with which she has to live day to day, including her ex-husband who lives next to her. home or that you have not gotten over the death of your child.
Here we have a fact to take into account and that is that the script has enough wisdom to not presenting your protagonist as someone on a path of self-destruction or especially sullen and lonely but as a mediocre person (in the correct sense of the word), without a special glamor and without anything that really stands out for better or for worse. A character as recognizable as it is difficult to nail, but Winslet masters it to perfection.
Perhaps it is that purpose of not highlighting what makes it difficult to enter. The first episode, in that sense, It is more traditional than we could expect in a series which in principle is presented as intrigue and suspense. Ingelsby’s script continuously worries that we know everything that surrounds Mare and the place where he lives until it is revealed to us which is the case that will bring the protagonist out of her boredom.
A series that handles suspense wonderfully
However, as the series progresses, ‘Mare of Easttown’ is taking better shape And, without ever leaving the gloomy halo, it becomes more interesting the more you dig into who the victim is and what happened. But, above all, the local context of the tragedy and the dynamics among the inhabitants make HBO’s proposal even more interesting.
In an age when everyone look for the great thriller that keeps us hooked without us forgetting about it a week, ‘Mare of Easttown’ manages to work perfectly. Although at times it deviates where it should not, the HBO series dominates the suspense and keeps us, episode by episode, wanting to know more about the case, its twists, and the circumstances of our protagonist.