We have now officially reached the midway point of HBO’s limited series Mare of Easttown, and the crime drama has started to open even more dark and depressing doors in the mystery at hand. The fourth episode of the Kate Winslet-starring vehicle, titled ‘Poor Sisyphus,’ threw some new wrinkles into the ongoing case of Erin McMenamin’s murder. However, the Pennsylvania community is also put on alert with another missing teenage girl, whose possible abductor may or may not be the killer. New information also came to light regarding a few of the suspects on Mare’s list, with some of it more incriminating than not. Unfortunately for Winslet’s relentless detective, her professional life forcibly took a backseat this week to having to address her own internal struggles. Once again, spoilers ahead to all you Easttown newbies.
Mare (Winslet) is indefinitely suspended from the police force for foolishly trying to plant drugs on Carrie (Sosie Bacon), the recovering addict mother of her grandson Drew, last episode. The desperate and unethical attempt to maintain the boy’s custody lands her on leave of duty, and puts her partner Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) at the lead of Erin’s case. Also, having taken pity on her and knowing her traumatic past, Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson) orders Mare to attend mandated sessions with a grief counselor before she can return. Temporarily giving up her work proves even more difficult when another local teenage girl, Missy Sayers (Sasha Frolova), goes missing. Was she taken by the same person who killed Erin, or is this linked to Dawn Bailey’s (Enid Graham) daughter Katie who’s been missing for close to a year?
This middle episode of Mare of Easttown certainly created a lot of new questions, yet it also answered some preexisting ones that we’ve had. Thanks to some DNA test results, neither Mare’s ex-husband Frank (David Denman) nor Erin’s ex-boyfriend Dylan Hinchey (Jack Mulhern) are the father of the latter’s baby. Before viewers can start quoting Maury Povich, fingers now point to the shady Deacon Mark Burton (James McArdle) and his involvement with Erin. Zabel confronts him on the sexual misconduct charges he faced at his last parish with an underage girl, which resulted in his transfer. Burton having discarded Erin’s missing bicycle off a bridge at the end of last week definitely makes him guilty of something. Combined with the news of Missy, the overwhelmed Zabel is all too eager to accept the suspended Mare’s help, even though it puts her career even further in jeopardy.
However, the Easttown detective duo’s investigation this week highlighted some of the tragic underbelly of the title town. Many of its residents, both young and old, have succumbed to drug addiction, and engage in prostitution and theft to feed their habit. Mare and Zabel discover that both Katie and Missy, both from the former group, set up online profiles to meet potential clients, and now surmise that the girls’ abductor was one of these predators. They also find out that the cash-strapped Erin reluctantly did the same to try to get money for her baby’s ear surgery, though her best friend Jess (Ruby Cruz) says she never went through with it. Trying to find the link between these three girls unearths some horrible memories for Mare, who still wrestles daily with the grief over her son Kevin’s suicide. This is clear in a heart wrenching flashback scene in which a crying Mare fights off an addicted Kevin while he tries to steal money from her for drugs.
Emotionally distraught as she is, we don’t have to be sleuths like Mare to figure out that she herself is the ‘Poor Sisyphus’ of the episode’s title. Like the Greek mythological legend, Winslet’s character is in her own hell constantly pushing a boulder up a hill. What makes Mare such a beautifully complicated protagonist is that she deserves, at least, part of the blame as she has ignored many pleas and offers in the past to get some much-needed therapy. There’s a sweetly realistic scene early on this week in which her loyal best friend Lori (Julianne Nicholson) tells her bluntly yet compassionately that self-treatment is long overdue. Even if the pessimistic Mare warns her appointed counselor not to expect a breakthrough from their sessions together, we viewers hope there is one. Mare’s new boyfriend Richard (Guy Pearce) even sums up our feelings of her pretty well before offering to take her out: “Do you ever give yourself a break?”
Forgive the lame play on words considering some of the subject matter this week, but HBO’s Mare of Easttown continues to be highly addictive television. Winslet’s phenomenal skills as an actress again make the highly damaged and sometimes unlikeable Mare someone we all still root for. ‘Poor Sisyphus’ also raised some new questions and plot points that our inquiring minds wanna know. Can she finally let her guard down enough and give her mandated therapy a legit chance to help her heal? Is the suspended Mare actually gonna go on a date with Zabel (who’s been crushing on her pretty hard) just to receive inside information on the cases? And is the person who killed Erin also the unseen man who has locked up Missy…and Katie?! Until next time…
Mare of Easttown Episode 4, ‘Poor Sisyphus’ is now streaming on HBO MAX. The series airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miQqyfO66uw&t=1s
