Mare Of Easttown “Miss Lady Hawk Herself”

While I didn’t check out Mare of Easttown when it started, it was on my mental watchlist.  Kate Winslet is a talented actress, even if there were some comments on how she pronounces “water” in this mini-series.  Well, I got an opening, Tuesdays is apparently for acclaimed HBO mini-series right about now, and that “water” thing is accurate.  Why not check it out?

Winslet stars as Mare Sheehan, detective for a small town police force in a Philadelphia suburb.

Huh.  I used to live in a town like that.  That was during grad school.  Granted, where I was living was a bit more of a college town, but the point stands.  And no one says “water” that way.

OK, back to this:  Mare, despite her rank, is a popular figure in her community, getting calls for things that, well, she shouldn’t, but she knows a lot of the members of her community well enough to take care of things mostly by talking and occasionally leaping badly over a fence.  She’s divorced with one daughter, her cousin is the town’s Catholic priest, she has a grandson she seems to take care of, her ex-husband is remarrying, and Mare may be the only member of her family not happy for the guy.

Her ex, Frank, seems like a good dude, all told.  Mare just seems annoyed by, oh, everything.  It doesn’t help that she’s still remembered for being the star player on a winning girls high school basketball team.  Or that one of her old teammates has a missing teenage daughter that she’s trying to 3 Billboards some closure out of.

If anything, the best thing Mare has going for her is what is possibly a love interest in published author Richard Ryan, new in town and played by Guy Pearce.  Because if you put Kate Winslet in an HBO mini-series, you better include Guy Pearce.

But then off to the side is Erin McMenamin.  She’s a teenage mother.  Her ex’s girlfriend hates her.  Her father is a bit abusive.  She’s catfished into a beating, rescued only by Mare’s daughter Siobhan from worse.  We spent a lot of time getting to know her and all her problems.

And she’s dead in the woods the next day.

Yeah, this is gonna be good.