finally gets his ear surgery in her care). The episode has barely started and it seems the mystery is already wrapped up, along with several other major plot threads.

He also says he enlisted Billy to help him move the body to Sharp's Woods, hoping to incriminate one of the teens at the party, which explains Billy's bloody clothes the night of the murder. He says Erin brought the gun to their meeting, and after it accidentally discharged and hit her hand, he grabbed it and shot her. Mare intervenes and arrests John.īack at the police station, John confesses everything – sleeping with (and killing) Erin and being D.J.'s father. Carter can't get in touch with Mare, who finds John holding his brother at gunpoint. John was having sex with the teen daughter of his cousin. The episode picks up right where last week's left off, as Mare pursues John and Billy at their fishing cabin while Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson) desperately tries to reach her after seeing a revealing photograph of Erin in bed with John. But Winslet and creator Brad Inglesby pull it off. In a lesser series or with a lesser actress, the sentimental ending could have been hokey and trite. More than that, it serves the greater story about Mare, her late son and her relationships with family and friends in Easttown. It explains why Billy (Robbie Tann) and John made false confessions why Ryan had a violent outburst at school and what secret John wanted him to keep from Lori. Ryan as the killer is a surprising twist that also makes sense and satisfies. What 'Mare' does so well in the finale – which HBO's 'The Undoing,' last year's similarly star-studded crime drama, completely failed to do – is subvert expectations without exploitative shocks. So Mare, still reeling from the death of her own son by suicide, takes another boy away from his mother. Ryan also happens to be the son of Mare's best friend Lori (Julianne Nicholson). Instead, the culprit was John's angry son Ryan (Cameron Mann), who didn't want Erin breaking up his family. Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan in the season finale of 'Mare of Easttown.'Īs Mare eventually discovers, Erin was killed not by John Ross (Joe Tippett) – the father of her son D.J.

Mare of easttown finale