![]() ![]() Although we can see that she’s a talented and dedicated cop, her town sees her as incompetent because she hasn’t found a local girl who went missing. She’s a walking damage report: loved ones lost to suicide, a son who hated her, a heroin-addicted daughter-in-law fighting her for custody of her grandson. Mare’s fortunes have fallen since then, in a truly Job-like fashion. She was once a local hero, her glory day having come in a high school basketball championship game. ![]() Winslet plays Mare Sheehan, who lives with four generations of her family and works as a police detective in the Pennsylvania town where she grew up. The latest, following the languorous curio “Mildred Pierce” from 2011 (her only previous American series), is the seven-episode “ Mare of Easttown,” which premieres Sunday night. It would be nicer if those series were worth her time and talent. Recommended.It’s nice that HBO has turned out another handsomely produced, manifestly serious mini-series for the wonderful actress Kate Winslet. ![]() Involving and suspenseful mystery/crime drama. Mare is investigating the deaths of several young women there and in the process unravels the mysteries and tragedies of her own life. The town is full of sad people living tragic lives interwoven in an incestuous, parasitic culture there full of victims and criminals. Winslet plays "Lady Hawk" Mare Sheehan, a middle-aged policewoman stuck in the dead-end industrial trade city of Eaton, Pennsylvania her home town. But in spite of it's occasional unoriginality the grittiness of the story and Kate Winslet's spot-on performance as a tough-as-nails detective still put this over. (They even steal the tragic ending of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men). Gillian Flynn's Dark Places and Sharp Objects Todd Field's In The Bedroom Jonathon Demme's Silence of the Lambs, the Cohen Brother's Fargo, Bill Dubuque's Ozark, and other procedurals and mysteries are liberally sampled. Gritty detective series borrows liberally from other sources. But it lands so well that its cockiness is forgiven. Perhaps you're like me and thought that the final twist was a little like a gymnastics team who already attained a perfect score going up for one more round on the balancing beam. Really one can't have too many complaints with a story as well realized and as well wrapped as this. Jean Smart and Evan Peters shine even with Kate Winslet's titular role as a disenchanted former High School basketball star turned lead detective stealing most of the scenes in which she is involved. Outside of its excellent pacing exist its handful of excellent performances that further sell the premise and Easttown as a whole. Mare is a breath of fresh air in that regard, using all seven episodes to their full potential without sacrificing quality in the form of torrents of red herrings and tone-deaf investigations. ![]() Too often have season-long cop dramas mismanaged their time and required their characters to be myopic, stupid or plain bad police as a means to fill out a full ten-episode order. ![]()
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