#Mare of easttown finale plus

It’s the anxiety and necessity of one generation making way for the next, the messy reality of children trying and failing to live up to their parents’ expectations. Family (or chosen-family) dramas - think Grey’s Anatomy or Shameless - are all about time and generations. It’s structural, a way of looping together two different storytelling drives that naturally pull against each other.

#Mare of easttown finale plus

Illegal acts and complicated family feelings: Name a more iconic duo!īut Mare of Easttown’s murder-and-moms storytelling goes deeper than the typical “crime plus sad families” thematics. Mob stories are famously about keepin’ it all in the family the recent rash of Munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy plots are yet another variant on twisted family dynamics turned criminal. Breaking Bad’s Walt initially turned to meth manufacturing because of his desire to support his family - and spent the next several seasons feeling burdened but also shielded by them, using them to justify his actions. Most crime fiction includes family themes. It’s what makes the finale so much more satisfying than the simple “Oh, it was him?!” reveal, and it’s what has made Mare of Easttown so much more memorable than the dozen similar dead-girl-in-a-sad-place TV shows of the past several years. The finale hinges on a shocking reveal-twist-reveal that pulls together all of the show’s mystery threads, but the core of Mare is all the messy, horrible, endlessly sad, funny family stuff.

Mare is just as much a family drama, though. It is a murder mystery, of course, and much of the show is built on beloved, age-old murder-mystery structures. Everything about it screamed, “I’m a murder mystery!” - the detective protagonist, the small town shocked by heinous crimes, the ever-shifting list of suspects, the grimy-bleak color palette.

In the end, the element of Mare of Easttown that was least obvious from its trailer or its beginning premise turned out to be the series’ greatest strength. Spoilers for all of Mare of Easttown, including the finale, lie ahead.