Over the last several years, and this has certainly been exacerbated in the last year due to the pandemic, television has changed, as has the entire delivery system of how we receive our video entertainment. Video Streaming services are now what one needs to fully enjoy all of the content that is being delivered to the public. So much so that it is almost impossible to see everything that is available to us. My friend Dan characterizes this era as the new Golden Age of Television, and who can argue? Shows like The Crown, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Jack Ryan, Perry Mason, The Undoing....all terrific series that we have enjoyed, and all available only through various video streaming services. At this point, there is not a single series on regular network television that we are regularly watching.
All this is a prelude to a write-up on what may well be the best of such series that we have watched so far, "Mare of Easttown."
In this gritty seven part series, Kate Winslet player Mare Sheehan, a divorced police detective in the small eastern Pennsylvania town of Easttown. An Academy Award winner, and the beautiful Rose from 1997's "Titanic", Winslet is anything but glamorous in this one. The outfits she wears always appear thrown together, her hair is always a mess, and she also appears to be a bit overweight (she has to be hip-padded under those jeans and sweatpants), she lives with her widowed mother (wonderfully played by Jean Smart), her high school senior daughter, and a four year old grandson, the son of Mare's deceased son. Her ex-husband lives in a house directly behind hers, and he is about to remarry. In short, Mare's personal life is pretty much a mess.
In the first episode, we learn that twenty-five years before, Mare made a winning shot in a state championship basketball game, an event that may have been the only good thing that ever happened in Easttown. We also learn that (a) Mare's social circle, such as it is, consists of her high school basketball teammates (no one leaves Easttown, apparently), (b) the town is still roiled up over the disappearance of a teenaged girl a year before - what have Mare and the cops been doing about that? - and, oh yeah, (c) another teenaged girl, Erin McMenamin, has been murdered, her body showing up in a creek in a park, dead from a bullet wound to her head.
It is the unraveling of the mystery of the death of Erin that throws the town into a complete turmoil. Who did it and why? There is no shortage of suspects, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, in Easttown seems to have secrets to hide, and everyone seems to be connected to each other in some way. As one critic I read put it, the murder of Erin is a thread that, once pulled upon, causes the entire fabric of the town to unravel (great metaphor, right?).
There are wonderful aspects to this series. There is the performance of Kate Winslet. She will undoubtedly be Emmy nominated for this one. There are the local details that the production gets just right. People wear Eagles, Flyers, and Phillies gear, they shop at Wawa, eat cheesesteak hoagies, drink Rolling Rocks and Yuenglings, and best of all, they have that Philly, or Delaware County (DelCo) accent, down perfectly. (Go to YouTube and check out the fabulous send-up that the Saturday Night Live people did a few weeks back.)
Like most people in the Philly area, the Sheehans
apparently spend summers at the Jersey Shore
Best of all, though, is the writing. Each week delivered a twist and a cliffhanger ending that made you completely PO'd that you had to wait a week to see how THAT was going to play out. Interestingly, HBO chose to release this one episode at a time over seven weeks, so you were unable to binge it all at once, which only heightened the anticipation to see the next episode. Even in the final episode, just when you thought....oops, forget it; I promised no spoilers. If you haven't watched, you can start now and will be able to see all seven episodes one right after another. And if you don't have HBO MAX, sign up for one month, watch this series, and then cancel after a month. It is one way that you can game the Video Streaming System and keep you costs down.
Both Marilyn and I are now just really bummed out that this show is over. I don't believe that there is any talk of bringing it back for a second season. Probably best to just leave it on the high note of television entertainment that it was.
Four Stars from The Grandstander.
Oh, I mentioned that Mare's mother, Helen, was played by Jean Smart.
Winslet and Smart
Daughter and Mom
Smart was fabulous in the part, and her role here drew us to another HBO series in which she is currently starring called "Hacks." She plays an older Las Vegas diva comedienne, whose star is waning and her agent teams her up with a young female comedy writer to help her out with her act, help which she doesn't feel she needs. Six of the ten episodes have already aired, two new episodes drop every Thursday, and it, too, is a terrific show. I'll be writing about that one at some point in the future as well.
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