Yes, HBOs Easttown Mare seems like another murder mystery in the small town – but the premiere of Sunday makes sure we get to know the small town very well before the murder even takes place.
When we meet Kate Winslet, police detective, Mare Sheehan, she wakes up with another call from her neighbor Mrs. Carroll, who complains about a lurking Tom. Mare dutifully takes the old lady’s report (‘He looked like a ferret’) while reminding her that she can call the police station next time. The principal told Mare at the station that they were bringing in a detective from the country to help her with the search for local girl Katie Bailey, who has been missing for a year now. Mare brushes over this, but the chief orders her to ‘go back to the file. We start here. ”
We are also introduced to teenage mother Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny), who has a controversial relationship with her baby’s father, Dylan. During a surveillance, they argue over the payment for the child’s ear surgery, and Erin gets a nasty spit on Dylan’s new friend Brianna, who promises to return to Erin ‘when you least expect it.’ On top of that, we learn that Erin has an angry, short-headed father … and a potential boyfriend named Brendan with whom she exchanges intimate texts.
While Mare buys a cheap habitat to keep her grandson’s baby turtle (she just had to flush a lizard in the toilet so she does not want to spend too much), she is called in to investigate a burglary at her friend Beth Hanlon . . Beth knows it was her drug-addicted brother Freddie, and on the way home, Mare sees Freddie on the street. She screams to a halt and rushes, twisting her ankle in the process. She locates Freddie to his house and lures him to hide, while also helping a novice policeman through his nausea when he sees blood. Actually, she’s a one-woman police department.
Back home, we meet Mare’s mother Helen (Jean Smart) and her teenage daughter Siobhan (Angourie Rice) as she soothes her swollen ankle with a bag of frozen fries. There, Mare learns that her ex-husband Frank (David Denman) has just become engaged to his new girlfriend; in fact, everyone in the family knew before she did. Tonight is their engagement party, and everyone is planning to go there instead of to an event celebrating the anniversary of Mare’s big match as a high school basketball player. Mare drinks a slice of pizza and a beer with her friend and former teammate Lori (Julianne Nicholson) while Siobhan and her band prepare to play a set during the engagement party. (It’s quite a dense tapestry!)
Erin hangs out with a friend and storms out over Brendan, whom she wants to meet in the woods that evening … and this is where Brianna and her friends also hang out. At the basketball meeting, we find out that Katie Bailey’s mother Dawn – who was only on TV and complains about the sloppy work of the police on her daughter’s case – was also on Mare’s basketball team. She and Mare exchange a few short words, while Mare defends her tireless efforts to find Katie, before going to wild applause from the crowd. Later, Mare drowns her grief at a local bar and meets a writer named Richard Ryan (Guy Pearce), who has just moved to the city. (“I’m sorry, it’s a pity,” Mare offers.) They exchange a little sarcastic chatter, and eventually she goes home with him, but she then tries to blow him off: “My life is complicated.” It’s also going to get more complicated.
At the party in the woods, Erin arrives ready to meet Brendan and has an awkward reunion with old friends before heading to the meeting place. But there she finds Brianna and her friends and taunts her. ‘Brendan’ was just a babysitter who made up Brianna to come back to Erin for text messages to Dylan, and Brianna beats her up while her friends capture it all on video. Siobhan breaks up the fight and tries to help Erin, but she just wanders deep into the forest, alone.
Mare fends off Helen’s questions about going home late and puts her grandson in before she goes to bed, and she wakes up the next morning with a phone call – but it’s not Mrs Carroll. Back in the forest we see that Erin’s body lies in a riverbed.
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