HBO Max’s new show Mare of Easttown is set in a Pennsylvania town with an overcast of sadness. Kate Winslet plays Detective Mare Sheehan and is mourning the loss of her son. The series follows Mare as she tries to juggle her demanding career, the expectations of the town and the disappointment of her family. Mare is haunted by what she deems as a professional failure: her inability to close the case on Katie Bailey, a drug-addicted young woman that disappeared a year earlier. The first episode featured a 17-year-old girl, Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny), a sweet teen mom that argued with her ex over money for their son and struggled to get past her father’s hard exterior. A day in the life of Erin is followed in the first episode. She’s introduced lying in bed, telling her son how much she’ll miss him when he’s with his dad for the weekend. “Who’s gonna sleep next to me? And hold me and kiss me and snuggle me? Hmm?” Erin said to her baby boy. Her day unfolds in such a foreshadowing cruel way. Her father, Kenny, was extremely rude to her, and the date she thought she had was the result of a nasty trick. She was beaten and mocked in front of her peers before she made her way into the woods. And then, in the last second of the episode, Erin’s dead body appeared naked in the icy creek sparking a dark mystery. Now that we’re almost at the series finale, we know who kidnapped Katie, and she’s been safely returned to her mother. But it seems like that has no connection to Erin’s murder.
So, who killed Erin in Mare of Easttown?
Billy Ross just confessed to killing Erin McMenamin
In episode 5, the Ross brothers started looking really suspicious. Kenny, Erin’s father, has two cousins: Billy and John Ross, brothers. Just by the look on Billy’s face when they talked about Erin, it was clear he and Erin had a unique relationship. Oh, and side note, we also learn that John is cheating on his wife. So both Ross brothers are untrustworthy. Then, in episode 6, it was revealed that the night Erin was murdered, Billy had come home covered in blood. He admitted to his brother John that he shot Erin. John’s wife, and Mare’s best friend, Lori, later explains that Billy is also the father to Erin’s baby, DJ. Lori says Billy freaked out because she was a minor and because it was incest.
We’re still not convinced
Of course, the episode ends before Mare can confront Billy, and it seems Erin’s best friend Jess may have revealed another key detail about Erin right before the episode ended. We don’t know what that is yet.
What about Erin’s ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend?
Dylan (Jack Mulhern) was another prime suspect. He and Erin bickered during the custody hand-off about money, and in the same scene, Dylan’s girlfriend Brianna (Mackenzie Lansing) aggressively threatened her. “You’re gonna get it when you least expect it, you dumb b****,” she warned Erin. It’s not a coincidence that before we saw Erin’s dead body, Dylan and Brianna lured her to a trail in Sharp’s Woods. Brianna had beef with Erin because Erin flirtatiously texted Dylan. Brianna took things too far with a nasty prank, confronting and beating Erin until she was bleeding in front of a crowd. And Brianna only stopped beating her when someone jumped in to end it. But would it have kept going? How far would it have gone? Was the plan to kill Erin, to rid Dylan and Brianna of the difficulties she causes in their lives? The altercation was broken up by Mare’s own daughter Siobhan and her friends, but Erin retreated to the woods alone.
Is it an Easttown outsider, like Richard Ryan or the Deacon?
Mare’s dating college professor Richard Ryan (Guy Pearce), who’s new to town, but could he be involved? When did he arrive in town? There are so many questions and alibis that still need to be established. But, one of the show’s cast members thinks the professor could be guilty. “From episode one, I was pretty suspicious of Richard Ryan and my whole family is suspicious!” Rice, who plays Siobhan, told Glamour UK. “Guy Pearce just has a guilty look about him, I guess! Plus he’s the new guy in town, what’s his story? Nobody knows!” And let’s not forget creepy deacon Mark Burton (JamesMcArdle), who had an oddly close relationship with Erin and admitted to being with her the night of her murder. While there’s certainly something shady about him, he swears he didn’t do it. And it seems he’s believed. With reporting from Rose Maura Lorre. Looking for some bingeable shows? Check out this list of the best HBO series streaming
