Getting a clue: All of our Mare Of Easttown theories that didn’t pan out
TV Features Mare of Easttown
The case is closed on Mare Of Easttown (well, for now). The identity of Erin McMenamin’s (Cailee Spaeny) killer has been revealed, thanks to Mare Sheehan’s (Kate Winslet) unrelenting investigation. But from week to week, Brad Ingelsby’s limited series provided fodder for all manner of theories—not just the identity of the killer or the connection between the kidnappings and the murder, but figuring out was going on with Jess (Ruby Cruz), Dylan (Jack Mulhern), and the great journal bonfire. In the wake of the finale, “Sacrament,” The A.V. Club staff gathered to hash out the theories that didn’t pan out.
(To discuss the finer points of “Sacrament” and whether or not the mystery’s resolution was satisfying, we urge you to head over to Joshua Alston’s excellent recap.)
Danette Chavez
Despite the mounting evidence against the Ross brothers, Dylan remained a suspect in Erin’s murder (among viewers, anyway) because he was a shitty boyfriend, dad, and friend. And, unlike a lot of Easttown teens, Dylan had much more of a support network, thanks to his two loving parents. But, setting aside his temperament, Dylan just behaved like someone with something to hide. After recruiting Jess to help burn Erin’s journals, Dylan then threatened his little co-conspirator at gunpoint. Surely, I thought before watching the finale, if Dylan didn’t kill Erin, he engaged in all this clandestine activity to cover up something else, right? Was he somehow involved in Erin’s Sidedoor account? Maybe he and Jess knew something about the kidnapped girls? Well, as we see in “Sacrament,” Dylan did these additional shitty things to somehow hold on to sweet little baby D.J. It makes no sense, given that the paternity test results were already out in the world, so it was just another one of Ingelsby’s narrative feints. Teenagers often behave unaccountably—that’s one of the more accurate observations made by the story—but damn, if it didn’t feel like the show used this to justify a lot of its misdirection.
Gwen Ihnat
My dad’s side of the family is from Pittsburgh, so I was drawn to Mare just for the regional aspect (granted, on the other side of the state). I am here to tell you that all the Pennsylvania wood-paneling decor was spot-on, as were those long o’s in the dialect; whenever I spend enough time out there, I can’t help but call someone named John “Jawn” instead. But sucked in by the atmosphere, I still got caught up in Mare’s story—like our own Joshua Alston pointed out, less for the mystery than for the evolution of Mare herself. My red herring theory was that Lori was the culprit, who killed Erin in a fit of rage after finding out Jawn was cheating again—assuming that the ultimate culprit was going to be someone that Mare loved, but was still going to have to take in. The actual reveal turned out to be even more devastating than that, but, like everyone, I was blown away by Kate Winslet’s performance above all. The journey of Mare learning to face her grief—actually seeing her grow as a person, over only seven short episodes—was nothing short of astounding. Please give her all the awards, please. And just keep Mare as it is, in a perfect single-season package.
Alex McLevy
There’s one theory I kept returning to all season, regardless of how wrong my guesses were from week to week. (And trust me, my guesses involving mysteries are always extremely wrong.) I refer, of course, to “The Curious Case Of Frank Sheehan’s Lie.” When Mare confronts her ex-husband about the fact that he bought diapers and other baby supplies to help the young woman whose murder she’s investigating, it ends with her chastened by his appalled reaction—how dare she think he could possibly have anything to do with such a heinous crime?! Everyone acts like Mare was in the wrong, and the show goes overboard in treating her like the asshole for barging in on family game night. Hey, Frank, buddy: When you lie to a cop about your involvement with a murdered girl, you don’t get to be offended when she calls you out on it. The whole thing was glossed over so quickly, I assumed there must be more. Surely, Frank really was covering up something, or else we wouldn’t pass by this bizarre exchange so abruptly, right? Nope, not even a little. Serves me right for thinking anyone in Easttown would have a rational response to basic social norms.
Katie Rife
I spent the first 10 minutes of the Mare Of Easttown finale feeling awfully smug. I even paused the episode to send out a couple of crowing “I knew it!!!!” texts to friends who either didn’t know that I was prematurely celebrating, or were too polite to correct me. But while I was correct that John Ross had something to do with Erin’s murder—in fact, it was the scene on the playground in episode five we briefly flash back to in the finale that tipped me off—I did not follow the breadcrumb trail all the way to its end. See, I thought this was a classic “fortysomething man with the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old” scenario, where John impulsively killed Erin because she, I don’t know, didn’t want to skip class to go make out one day. (He did say they “understood each other,” which is pathetic. Dude, you have a mortgage!) Where the show got me was by ultimately ascribing the fatal actions of that night to an actual child, and not just your typical man-child. Well played, show.
Matt Schimkowitz
I’m on the record as being pro-mystery when it comes to Mare Of Easttown and an advocate for keeping the mystery going. That said, I was pretty surprised by the show’s “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” ending, even if it makes more sense thematically than it does logistically. The ending is certainly better than what I expected: Guy Pearce’s Richard Ryan was not only the killer but also the ringleader of the Katie Bailey kidnapping. I wasn’t proud of this suspicion—it felt too stupid to take that seriously. But Pearce had the vibe of an amusement park owner that the mystery gang meets on an episode of Scooby-Doo, and I couldn’t shake it. As for the Bailey mystery, that story got short shrift, and I was holding out hope that it would intersect with Erin McMenamin’s murder in the finale. There was enough meat on that bone for Ingelsby to go in for another bite. The only way I could square both is that Pearce commits these crimes for writing ideas, which is a lot like a running joke in Steven Soderbergh’s HBO film Let Them All Talk. But, hey, a good idea is a good idea forever.
Saloni Gajjar
Mare Of Easttown successfully planted lots of red herrings, including a big one named Deacon Mark Burton (James McArdle). The suspicion was cast on him relatively early, so it’s not surprising to learn he wasn’t actually involved in Erin McMenamin death but the show did get me thinking he could be behind Katie Bailey and Missy Sager’s kidnappings. While he was arrested for evidence tampering for throwing Erin’s bike in the river, the finale glossed over the other details of his messy backstory, instead tying it up with a neat(ish) bow for the evasive deacon. Mark transferred to Easttown’s St. Michael’s church after an accusation of sexual misconduct at his former parish with an underage girl. The dude even gets beaten up by local kids after rumors about it spread, but the show never really addresses how real it was—or the extent of his relationship with Erin besides what he confesses to. He’s not central to the mystery so it’s not unusual that there was no development to his arc, but it’s too serious of an issue to just be left up to interpretation now that Deacon Mark ends the miniseries (or will it be a first season?) back at the altar. He’s guiding churchgoers to reach out to those who may have shunned them in the past, and his words encourage Mare to reach out to Lori in the shattering final scenes but unfortunately don’t provide a firm resolution for his own story.
74 Comments
Mare mare mare mare mare. Mare Mare mare.Mare.Mare mare mare? Mare mare mare! Mare mare mare mare mare.Malkovich.
Huh?!
I’m mocking the AVClub’s fawning over this show, and the growing suspicions that the coverage has been at least partly sponcon.
I love Winslet and really,really wanted to love this, but I want more procedural and less soap in my mysteries. I just can’t do family drama at this stage of my life.
You’ll usually get some of that in an serialized medium. Episodic series are more likely to only present you with what you need to know, though those are out of vogue (particularly on premium cable).
Congrats, there is a whole cable channel for you called Investigation Discovery. And like a hundred podcasts. And just oodles of true crime docs and shows on every streaming service. (Including HBOMax, so you don’t even have to subscribe to a new one!)
I assume all video segments involving anyone involved in the production are basically sponsored content, as I’ve noticed them continuing even after the official AVC review is a pan. Which speaks well to the integrity of AVC!
“…the coverage has been at least partly sponcon.”Thanks for saying that out loud.
Or maybe it was good and you’re a dick?
I loved the show but I suspect you’re right. My wife has watched literally EVERY police procedural/mystery drama (not true crime documentaries which she hates) on Netflix, Hulu, HBO and Amazon Prime and wasn’t all that impressed by this. For example, she thought I Know This Much Is True was better. Why, collectively, this one gets a lot of attention, I dunno. Probably because it’s an HBO miniseries which pulls a lot of attention.
You will incur the wrath of the fanboys now. This was produced by a famous actress and was on HBO, it is therefore beyond reproach. Any criticism will be met with personal insults in 3,2….
Not just a “famous” actress. An extremely talented one. One who manages to stay real in every part she plays. There’s tremendous good-will for that kind of stuff. But no one is above criticism, of course.
Dylan’s shittyness is the direct converse of the parenting he’s received. I feel for his parents.
90 right? i mean, they spoiled that boy with a $45,000 bronco (maybe $30,00 there) and thats how he treats them? and everyone around him?
Dylan’s parents should have kept the baby and ditched Dylan.
It’s kind of a weird show with the kidnappings plot when I look back at it, but the actual character of Mare was great. I also felt like it got a little lost in what it wanted to say about communities ravaged by the drug crisis. Felt a little basic in its understanding.I’m happy the theory that it was Ryan Ross baby was false, but it’s weird Lor is raising the kid and also has to be like oh your brother killed your mother?
I kept thinking that poor kid is going to freak out when he finds out his half brother killed his teenaged mom. Thank God it’s a fictional show.
It’s a “fiction” in this telling. Baltimore is far from ‘small town’ but, believe me, people get up to some crazy weird shit in my smallish city.
Was it trying to say anything about those communities? You can set a show in NYC without saying anything about gentrification, even though that’s an important and ever-present issue.
I thoroughly enjoyed the series. I have zero problems with Frank not telling Mare about his altruism with Erin. Frank’s help arose from Kevin’s death and Mare made it very clear that she didn’t want to discuss it. He was just continuing the family fiction that no one had to grieve for their dead son. Dylan’s behavior doesn’t work for me. Dylan chasing Jess around with a gun(!) and burning the journals basically are, to me, unearned red herrings. Father Mark’s behavior/back story doesn’t quite work for me either, but I’m okay with it because I think his sermon at the end is truly lovely. The payoff was worth it.
I’m thoroughly convinced that, in the Easttownverse, Dylan will find himself doing ‘20 to life’ one way or another. Maybe he’ll just marry Brianna.
I don’t disagree. Though I want to if only because this article has attracted some real asshole haters. Dylan’s actions were a weakness of those couple of episodes.
I just have no earthly idea why Dylan would be so ridiculously invested in keeping the truth of DJ’s parentage a secret. He clearly doesn’t give a fuck about the kid. What shitty teen WOULDN’T want an instant way out of being saddled with a kid while in friggin’ high school.
The show clearly wants us to believe his moment in the hospital room with DJ (mirroring the snippet of him in the Episode 1 ending montage) was him making the call to be DJ’s dad regardless of paternity, even if partly for the sake of his parents. But it did very little to provide additional support for that or for the supposed depth of his relationship with his parents. Prior to watching the final two episodes, I figured the motivation with the journals would be to make it that much harder to find who the real father was, but only because it was clear Dylan’s douchiness was misdirection, not because there was much in the actual portrayal to support depth of feeling for the kid he thought was his so until recently.
Well, it seemed more to me like he acted like he didn’t give a crap about the kid but then had that revelation when he was in the hospital that he truly did. But either way, Dylan’s whole deal with the journals and Jess makes no friggin’ sense.
Of all the plotlines and red herrings, I’d give the boot to Professor Ideal Boyfriend. He felt the soapiest and most tacked-on. When he asked Mare “does anyone ever… take care of you?” (err, not verbatim), I cringed. Such a romance novel line, and character. The dreamy not-from-round-here guy who swoops in and finds all your faults attractive. I’d rather have spent that time with Mare shopping for groceries or shooting the sh*t with Jean Smart.
That relationship did nothing for the storyline or the series, imo. We didn’t need an ‘outsider’ to show us that Mare can be a woman with intense feelings. I don’t know many women who would actually have time for a strange new lover while taking care of a family and solving murders.
I liked it *because* it did nothing for the storyline or series. Turns out Mare is attractive and can pull a handsome dude. That he has more character depth than a booty call is nice. He’s good coloration to her characterization.
I liked it *because* it did nothing for the storyline or series.
I disagree. He was an important part of Mare’s process in facing herself and opening up. And with Mare surrounded by (smothered by?) family/friends who’ve locked her into her place in the scheme of things, it needed an outsider to see Mare as a real person and remind her of that.
No, you’re right! I worded my response poorly. It did nothing for the A story/mystery.
Well at least you didn’t miss the whole point of their relationship by a mile like some other commenters.
“Turns out?” Anyone with eyes can see that Mare is hella hot & attractive, and we know that her younger partner was smitten with her from the get-go. We don’t need the failed royal from The King’s Speech (with freakish orange pancake make-up) winding up in her bed to prove that she is a passionate woman with working parts.The Richard Ryan hook-up is just a dog-eared page from the Manly-Man Detective narrative whereby a sympathetic female f*cks the detective to prove that he has … wait for it: Real Human Emotions (RHE).
Hey bud. You okay? This is some needlessly antagonistic response right here. Do you have an issue with Guy Pearce? And “turns out” was just a turn of phrase. Nothing was meant by it. Totally disagree about Colin, whose initial enthusiasm was appropriate for an outsider knowing he’s interfering and trying to appear conciliatory.
Antagonistic? That’s…. interesting. It’s always possible for any kind of discourse to become passionate. “Passionate” is the word I’d use to describe my reply; and I’m trying hard to read it as a disinterested 3rd party (I forgot I had written it). Sorry you feel so offended. If you look at my Post History there aren’t many instances where I “go after” another commenter. I don’t make it personal. I don’t make it about me. My reply was not about you.
Antagonism doesn’t have to be personal. Yeah, I felt a little attacked by the bolded quote of “turns out” but I also thought you had a pretty weirdly aggro attitude towards Pearce. And I have a hard time reading as simply ”passionate” such an angrily dismissive take overall. That last paragraph in particular… You’re not just pointing out a trope (which is fair play), you’re pissed and snarky about it. I’m not innocent of that sort of take, mind you, I just don’t think Mare deserves it.
“Coloration?” You might want to re-think that.
A month and a half late to a conversation that was essentially over anyway in response to a word choice you find worth questioning because…. reasons? You might want to rethink that.
I really thought it was going to be Lori or Siobhan. Lori made a lot of sense considering the context but it was so out of character for Siobhan not to tell her mother about seeing Erin assaulted at the party no matter how fraught her relationship was with Mare. Nothing else they showed about Siobhan makes that make sense. So that’s why I thought there was going to be a big reveal that Siobhan was involved with Erin (really glad this wasn’t the case, I would have hated that). I wish writers would use red herrings better you don’t actually have to suspect every character to write a good show.
I excused that due to some selfish behavior on Siobhan’s part. She’s a little lost in her own world. I think about how she treated her girlfriend in the band or how mad she is (even justifiably) at Mare or how clingy she gets with the DJ chick… I think there’s reason to believe she just wouldn’t have thought about it at the time. Not out of antagonism, just slight thoughtlessness.
I still don’t believe that Siobhan is so self-centered that it wouldn’t have occurred to her to tell her mom about Erin’s assault after a murder, makes total sense if Erin hadn’t been killed because kids always hide that sort of stuff. But considering how attentive she is to her nephew, the trauma her brother’s suicide caused, her mom being a police officer etc. It just doesn’t make sense, the rest of it is just teenage stuff. Figuring out how to break up with someone is hard when you are young especially if they are integral part of your life, developing intense crushes when you are also young is also normal. I mean at least I went through stuff like and acted like Siobhan at times. The only thing that could make sense is if Siobhan felt guilty for not insisting on driving Erin home so that’s why she didn’t tell her mom. They kinda touched on that but didn’t really take it anywhere.
Fair. I’m inclined to give the show a break given how good it was and how vehemently antagonistic some people are being towards it.
I get some people’s point. I personally am a bit over overly convoluted murder cases that have a surprise perpetrator at the end. I didn’t appreciate them throwing out Mare’s husband as suspect early on, I knew it wasn’t going to be him and they didn’t even really use it to delve into their relationship so why do it? The same with Mare planting the drugs, it would have been more interesting if Mare never got caught and just had to live with the guilt with her daughters-in-law going to jail for something she didn’t do or just drop the custody plot altogether because they didn’t seem to really want to do much with it. And lastly, WHY have Zabel any kind of romantic interest? Sorry for the rant, I really did love this show and if they make another season I would totally watch it. But I definitely watched this show to see how a small town reacts to a murder and how it affects a community not necessarily to see twists and turns. Because in real life like 95% of the time it’s the boyfriend or the ex-boyfriend so just go with the obvious. It is actually more interesting.
I personally am a bit over overly convoluted murder cases that have a surprise perpetrator at the end.My partner’s a huge fan of British and Scandinavian murder mysteries, and I cannot tell you how sick I am of this trope and the hours of red herrings we’ll sit through to get to the final reveal. I prefer TV mysteries more in the vein of the Perry Mason remake or The Investigation where the mystery is more about why the crime happened and unearthing any conspiracy to keep all of the connections hidden rather than knowing who pulled the trigger, which is usually revealed pretty early on. Or more like Happy Valley where they show the crime as it’s committed and it’s more of a suspense show to see if the detective can find the necessary evidence to apprehend the suspect. That approach tends to keep the writing much more narratively and thematically focused rather than trying the very difficult act of introducing red herrings and then dismissing these same red herrings while still keeping the people and events involved with these red herrings relevant for the story as a whole. Mare managed to do some of it well but a bunch of it poorly (briefly making her husband a suspect, a subplot with the deacon that kind of went nowhere, Dylan’s increasingly threatening behavior toward the end of the story, etc.).
I liked the Zabel love interest aspect. Zabel was a bad cop/detective. Mare was a great detective. I completely accept him finding that attractive. And being a bad detective, he completely misses how messed up her personal life is, even after she tells him. I think it makes him sweet and gives his death more poignancy. It also shows us how bad Mare is at her personal life. Accusing Frank of being DJ’s father isn’t a one-off. She skips out on Richard (on his birthday) to go out on a fake date with Zabel where she’s just using him for the case. Mare could use some therapy. Luckily she gets it.
Honestly, the finale was one twist too many. The twist brought nothing to the show that wasn’t already there, and requires a lot of contrivance and suspension of disbelief while bringing nothing to the show that wasn’t already there and satisfactorily dealt with in the episode before.
Then you have the really bad Dylan/Jess stuff and I honestly can’t tell what the show was trying to be. A thorough examination of grief and forgiveness, or a fun red-herring laden murder mystery. It all just felt a bit incongruious.
Don’t get me wrong I loved the show, but the ending just didn’t quite land for me in some ways and would have been better without the final twist and just focusing on Mare coming to terms with her grief and forgiving herself.
My theory was the baby belonged to Mare’s son who committed suicide and Siobhan killed Erin.
This was fakery in the bakery. Ultimately about nothing, no interesting theories panned out, Mare could have been a good character but didn’t do enough. Another overhyped show that was basically a soap opera except shot like an indie film. Game Over.
“Game Over”…Mm hm.
I thought it was Colonel Mustard, in the Library, with the candlestick. Oh, wait. I’M Colonel Mustard….
Last time I played a game of Clue it was Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the wrench. Why do I remember that? It’s been like a year.
I never remember games of Clue, but I can remember my last game of Risk. Things got so heated my brother’s friend almost broke our screen door.
Risk is a serious game (that I haven’t played since high school, early ‘90s).
You know how you set up your guesses in Clue by guessing with some of your own cards in your proposed solution? Well 39 years ago I was playing with my now-wife and her then-kid siblings and I made the first guess WITHOUT including any of my own cards. I just threw out a guess. Technically I did not call it out as a solve attempt, but after everyone went around and swore they didn’t have any cards we had to open the packet and look. Turns out I solved it on the very first guess by random chance. I don’t know what the odds are to that, but it was pretty crazy. The whole family still remembers it all these years later.
I loved your work in “Minority Report”!
Same thing happened to my nephew.
You know how you set up your guesses in Clue by guessing with some of your own cards in your proposed solution? Well 39 years ago I was playing with my now-wife and her then-kid siblings and I made the first guess WITHOUT including any of my own cards. I just threw out a guess. Technically I did not call it out as a solve attempt, but after everyone went around and swore they didn’t have any cards we had to open the packet and look. Turns out I solved it on the very first guess by random chance. I don’t know what the odds are to that, but it was pretty crazy. The whole family still remembers it all these years later.
Did I miss the explanation for where Dylan was when his girlfriend said he was wasn’t at home later that night when she woke up? I knew it wasn’t him but that was a loose end for me. Or do we just assume that he was actually driving around or whatever his alibi was?
Yeah, what he told the cops (couldn’t sleep, drove around, smoked weed) was true.
Which is bonkers, from a writing and logic POV. You can’t make the utterly implausible, totally fake-sounding bullshit excuse actually, you know, be real, especially after making SO much dramatic hay out of it.
I mean… it happens.
I thought there’d be a scene where Mare starts reading the Guy Pearce character’s book, and discovers..! But of course Mare of Easttown is a much better show than that, and I’m glad for it.
Are all the people that work at Gawker stupid?Dylan burned the notebooks, BECAUSE HE DID NOT WANT THERE TO BE ANY EVIDENCE WHO THE REAL FATHER WAS BECAUSE HIM AN HIS PARENTS WANTED TO KEEP THE BABY AFTER THEY FOUND OUT IT WAS NOT HIS.
Early on, I was working under the theory that Mare’s daughter was a werewolf. It didn’t pan out.
We can’t know that for sure, it’s impossible to prove a negative
I found the sudden revelation of Mare planting drugs in Carrie’s car to be kind of a hiccup in the plot. Sure, she was desperate to keep her from getting custody, but from their conversation, she had no need to be that desperate, at least at that point. And even if she was, it seems unlikely she would be that careless in her position.
As for it being expositional to her being kicked off the case, her suspension doesn’t really amount to much, plot-wise. After she violates her suspension multiple times, one of which results in the death of her colleague, her police chief just reinstates her, in the sort of way that he may as well have said, “But dammit, you get results.”
I realize that the strongest plot element this sets up is probably the grief counseling, as well as the bond with her partner (and also, this is friendly nitpicking of a show I thought was great), but these are both elements that could have been explored without the cliched ‘You’re off the case/You’re on the case’ arc, imo.
Oh ffs. No, the show doesn’t give Mare shit for “busting in on game night”. Mare took a hearsay RUMOR about her ex-husband, whose engagement to another woman she just found out about has obviously upset her (which everyone has noticed), and confronted him about it IN HIS HOME, IN FRONT OF HIS FIANCEE. She should have brought him to the station and questioned him there. Like a fucking professional.I love that she didn’t. It makes her an interesting character. But she rightly ate shit for being a jerk.
I kept trying to figure out what thing introduced in the first or second episode would end up being Chekhov’s gun. My theory was that it would end up being the book Richard gives her because she takes it nonchalantly and it’s promptly forgotten about for a few episodes. I actually thought it was more satisfying that it ended up being the security camera because we see Mare check the camera and blatantly delete evidence of a minor crime. So it’s totally within the realm of plausibility to go back to the camera since we as the audience already know it points at the shed.
But we also know that it wasn’t working yet when the gun was taken from the shed.
about the only thing I did get right is that the kidnapped girls and Erin were completely unrelated. I was so sure Guy Pearce was involved in one or the other (the kidnapped girls most likely), with no other reason than “Guy Pearce is too big a name to have this meaningless role”.
I spent the entire series going, “That’s ______, right? From Band of Brothers, first scene of The Hurt Locker? The fuck is his name? Mark Stone? No, that’s not it.”
I spent the entire series going
This is why I have IMDB one fast click away. I am always going, now where the hell have I seen that actor before?
I think I’m just enough of a luddite that I prefer figuring it out on my own. Until it drives me nuts, that is.
So a 12 year-old concocts a murder plan around 10:00 PM after copping his dad’s cell phone. He makes a 13 mi round trip by bicycle with a side stop to retrieve a gun somewhere past midnight. He waits, argues with the girl, shoots and kills her there. Rides 13 + miles back to replace the gun and go home – and no one notices. Yeah, right. They made such a point about the 13-point- whatever mile distance, and SHE even needed a ride to get there. Lame.
Huh. Yup, that’s a good point.