By: Michael Hogan
Did you murdur dat dorder? Yes, Mare of Easttown’s penultimate episode saw our embattled heroine closing in on Erin McMenamin’s killer, who appeared to confess his guilt. Yet something tells us there are still some dizzying twists to come in the riveting rustbelt whodunit.
OK, so there was nothing here to match last week’s nerve-shredding Silence Of The Lambs homage and shock shootout. However, this was still a tense and hypnotic hour of TV which left the story tantalisingly poised for next week’s can’t-come-soon-enough climax.
Here are all the major mysteries the finale needs to solve. And this is your final spoiler warning.
1. Did Billy really kill Erin?
Sunken-eyed Billy Ross (Robbie Tann, increasingly resembling a seedy James McAvoy) has looked haunted and agitated all series beneath that grubby trucker’s cap. Last week, the spidey-senses of Sergeant Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) tingled when Billy was so keen to avoid awkward questions about teen mom Erin (Cailee Spaeny) that he abandoned a full bottle of Rolling Rock – uncharacteristic and against the Easttown code. Get that beer down ya, Billy boy.
Now Billy’s “pop” Pat (NYPD Blue’s Gordon Clapp) – worried by his younger son’s strange behaviour and kamikaze boozing – confessed that on the night of Erin’s murder, Billy came home in the small hours covered in blood. Meanwhile, Mare worked out that the date engraved on Erin’s hidden heart-shaped pendant coincided with a 2017 Ross family reunion at Lake Harmony, where she shared a cabin with (you guessed it) cousin Billy.
It seems they’d started a sort-of-incestuous relationship that weekend and Billy illicitly fathered Erin’s son DJ. When Erin threatened to expose him, Billy freaked out and shot her. Case closed? Well, not quite. Several other characters were looking decidedly shifty too. Was silly Billy somehow being used as a convenient stooge? Is he so dim-witted and full of self-loathing that he’d convinced himself he killed Erin when he didn’t?
2. What’s big brother John’s role in all this?
It was Billy’s elder brother John (Joe Tippett) in whom Pat confided about the bloodied clothing. It was also John who looked seriously preoccupied when he heard that Mare was looking into the lakeside reunion. Just a protective sibling or was John somehow implicated?
When John confronted Billy, he insisted on his brother verbally confessing – “I need to hear you say it” – almost as if to convince them both. After swearing wife Lori (Julianne Nicholson) to secrecy and asking her to keep it from Mare (which didn’t last long), he persuaded Billy to delay handing himself in and instead head to their favourite fishing spot one last time.
When they packed up their rods, John stashed a gun in his tackle box. Was he planning to kill Billy before anyone could grill him in detail? Their grim-faced trip out of town was like a walk to the gallows. It even put me in mind of The Sopranos’ Silvio driving Adriana to her woodland whacking.
Also note that when Mare visited the jewellers to find out who bought the pendant, the name on the receipt was just “Ross”, no first name. It could have been either of the brothers – or, indeed, any other Ross family member.
We already know that John habitually cheats on Lori because he’s just been rumbled for “sleeping with Sandra again”. Was he the one who had an affair with Erin? If John is DJ’s father, could Lori have shot Erin in anger? Does her interest in adopting DJ hint at feelings of guilt?
Or were the thick-as-thieves siblings somehow in it together? Did John kill Erin but is now pinning it all on his black sheep brother? Billy’s bitter line about John never being “held accountable for his actions” hinted at simmering beef. More secrets will surely emerge during the looming riverside showdown.
3. Could the cop gun be the key?
The ballistics report on the bullet that killed Erin finally came through and could prove significant. Striations on the casing showed it came from a Colt Detective Special – a six-shot, snub-nosed revolver popular with police officers during the ’80s. “Your pop probably had one, Mare,” said the ballistics expert (Christopher Mann). Was this mere smalltalk or a crucial clue?
Mare’s deceased father is the only old cop we know of in Easttown – that is, apart from Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson). So who might have access to her father’s old gun?
Well, daughter Siobhan (Angourie Rice) was definitely troubled by something this week, hence her tequila-and-edibles bender. It was sparked by an old video of deceased brother Kevin (Cody Kastro) dedicating a song to “the first girl that ever broke my heart”. Could he have meant Erin? Could Siobhan have used her grandfather’s gun in vengeance? Might the big twist even be that Mare did it and has blocked out the memory?
Other candidates include “Gramma” Helen (Jean Smart – surely not!), Mare’s ex-husband Frank (David Denman) and possibly Father Dan, who’s always around the house. Don’t overlook young Ryan Ross (Cameron Mann), either. He’s still skulking around with a face like thunder and might have wielded something more lethal than a lunch tray for once.
4. What’s the deal with dodgy Dylan?
He’s plaid-clad but is he mad, bad and dangerous to know? Erin’s stoner ex-boyfriend Dylan Hinchey (Jack Mulhern) has re-entered the frame as a serious suspect.
When ex-girlfriend Brianna Delrasso (Mackenzie Lansing) told police that Dylan snuck off somewhere on the night of Erin’s murder, the truculent teen was hauled back in for questioning. “Call a lawyer,” said Mare. “Tell them your alibi’s falling apart and you’re the prime suspect in a murder investigation.”
Short-fused Dylan soon hunted down Erin’s best pal Jessie (Ruby Cruz), furious that she’d told police about him stealing and burning Erin’s journals. Dylan chased Jessie, violently dragged her from out her hiding place under a car and waved a gun in her face, threatening: “Don’t open your mouth again or you’ll end up with your face blown off, just like Erin.”
Sure, he didn’t specify that he’d done the face-blowing-off. But Dylan is definitely hiding something and desperately trying to cover it up. We’ll wager it’s something more serious than stomping around like a cross between Kevin the Teenager and Ted from Bill & Ted.
5. Is there an Easttown sex abuse ring?
It’s a bleak thought, admittedly, but it’s still niggling at us that something even darker is afoot in Easttown. After all, the sex worker who fought off her abductor described “a white man with a beard” but bar owner Wayne Potts (Jeb Kreager) was clean-shaven.
Did Potts have a hirsute partner-in–crime down at Bennie’s Tavern? Was it the luxuriantly bearded John? That might help explain Lori’s complaints about his late-night absences and furtive phone calls, which she put down to infidelity.
Also remember that police are yet to find the remains of “gone girl number three” Hillary Cassel, previous resident of Potts’ attic prison, who “disappeared” when she fell pregnant by her captor. Her corpse could yet yield vital evidence.
6. Were the two cases really unconnected?
According to Chief Carter when he reinstated Mare, Erin’s murder and the abductions of Katie Bailey and Missy Sager were unrelated. Why so sure? Simply because Potts was out of town on the weekend of Erin’s death. However, that might not necessarily be a dealbreaker if Potts did have an accomplice.
Besides, it’s quite a coincidence for one small town to see so many crimes involving pretty young women. And all from the same escorting website, too. Don’t rule out a link just yet.
7. Are we looking at the wrong priest?
When Erin’s pink bike was dredged up from the river, Deacon Mark Burton (James McArdle) was arrested for tampering with evidence by dumping it. It transpired that fellow clergyman Father Dan Hastings (Neal Huff) had come into the cop shop “distraught” after discovering that Deacon Mark had been with Erin on the night of her death. Could the Deacon be the baby-daddy?
Yes, he has a dodgy past, having been transferred to Easttown after accusations of sexual impropriety with a 14-year-old girl in his previous parish. But Mare’s cousin Father Dan didn’t look remotely distraught last time we saw him. Was he deliberately dobbing in his colleague to divert attention away from himself?
Online speculation remains rife that Father Dan might have sexually abused his nephew Kevin Sheehan and killed Erin when he realised that she knew. The Manhattan-mixing man of the cloth has barely featured in recent episodes. Acclaimed stage actor Neal Huff is currently being criminally under-utilised. Is he being held back for a last hurrah?
8. Was that the last we’ll see of Guy Pearce?
When Mare was discharged from hospital and resting her wounded wrist at home, she was paid a visit by womanising author Richard Ryan (Guy Pearce). Ever the smoothie, he arrived with a gift basket of local delicacies – including ice-cold Rolling Rocks, naturally.
In their sofa tête-à -tête, Mare confessed that she’d cancelled on Richard to go out for dinner with puppyish partner Detective Colin Zebel (Evan Peters). She then told him she “couldn’t do this” and ended their short-lived relationship. Richard took it gallantly enough, telling her to give him a call if she ever felt ready.
There’s a possibility that Richard might still have a role to play. Do you really cast Guy Pearce just to play the spurned love interest?
9. Will Mare’s family tragedy be a factor?
Her mandated sessions might have finished but new convert Mare continues to attend counselling. Her therapist suggested that she still hadn’t confronted her grief for Kevin and asked Mare to describe in heart-rending detail the day he died.
We learnt that Siobhan had discovered her brother hanging in their loft (“It should’ve been you,” she later sobbed to Mare. “I hate you for that.”). Mare had tried to lift Kevin down but he was “heavy, so heavy”. Another nod to Silence Of The Lambs, since this was precisely how Claire Starling described the spring lamb she’d tried to save from slaughter.
The Sheehan family still lived in the house but nobody had been up to the attic since. Could there be some crucial evidence up there? Did Kevin father Erin’s baby, which would also explain Frank supporting them? Will Siobhan’s endless watching of home videos throw up a clue? Making the case even more devastatingly personal for Mare might make for a dramatically satisfying catharsis.
10. Could the Easttown community be healing?
There were tentative signs this week that the traumatised Philadelphia satellite town is on the road to recovery. Having been missing for a year, Katie Bailey (Caitlin Houlahan) was reunited with her family. (Was anyone else reminded of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s title sequence when cable news reported on her homecoming? “They alive, dammit!”)
Her mother Dawn (Enid Graham) thanked Mare for finding her daughter. Angry restaurateur Tony Delrasso (Eric T Miller), father of one-time suspect Brianna, apologised to Mare for lobbing a brick through her window while she was mid-sandwich. Were the tight-knit town’s residents about to live happily ever after?
Um, not quite. Not only did accident-waiting-to-happen Freddie Hanlon (Dominique Johnson) poignantly die from an opioid overdose but Judy Zabel (Deborah Hedwall) double-slapped Mare in the face when she went to pay her respects to poor Colin. It’s no Pennsylvanian paradise yet.
11. What was depicted in the secret snap?
Last week, Jessie slyly pocketed a photograph which was tucked inside Erin’s journal. Spooked by Dylan’s threats, she now took it to the police. Chief Carter took one look, blanched and immediately tried to call Mare – except she’d turned her phone off as she went rogue to find the Ross brothers.
Did the pic reveal the real identity of Erin’s mystery lover? It surely wasn’t Billy, because the Chief wouldn’t have looked so aghast. So who, dammit, who?
12. How about the Peeping Tom?
The neighbourhood creeper who “looks like a ferret” still hasn’t been caught. Another piece of the puzzle that might still slot into place. Unless it’s an actual ferret, of course, which would be stoat-ally annoying.
13. Was it a fart or a squeaky shoe?
In the absence of smell-o-vision, we’ll give grandma Helen the benefit of the doubt this time.
14. Are we in for a last-gasp twist?
We left Easttown with the deadly tackle-box placed midway between the brothers on the riverbank, while Mare marched towards them to bring Billy in, stubbornly refusing to wait for back-up.
It was a maddeningly suspenseful cliffhanger and we’ll wager that writer Brad Ingelsby has surprises up his sleeve. As Kate Winslet herself says: “The reveal of who has really committed that murder is absolutely shattering.” Billy surely doesn’t fit the bill.
The final “Mare Monday” beckons. Join us back here to suck on a vape pen and slurp thoughtfully on one last Rolling Rock.
Find out where Mare of Easttown is based with our location guide.
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