Leave it to HBO to come through with another crackerjack, seemingly prestigious, yet actually enjoyably trashy murder mystery (see: The Undoing). At the start of Mare of Easttown, the titular Mare (Kate Winslet) must reopen an investigation into the disappearance of high-school teen Katie Bailey a year prior. In addition to her stressful job as a detective, Mare has a litany of home-life issues: her ex-husband Frank (David Denman) is about to get remarried, she’s taking care of her 4-year-old grandson in the wake of her son Kevin (Cody Kostro) committing suicide, and she seemingly has close ties to every crime victim and suspect in Easttown. Calling her life complicated would be a vast understatement—and then teen mother Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny) is found shot in the woods.
With its gritty Pennsylvania setting and Hollywood stars (Guy Pearce plays a down-on-his-luck celebrity author teaching at the local college) getting grungy, Mare of Easttown quickly turned into May’s most intriguing show, captivating viewers with hoagies, Rolling Rock, and fantastic Delco accents. If you watch great crime shows like Broadchurch, True Detective, and Top of the Lake, you’ll probably enjoy Mare. But the plot is more complicated and fast-moving than many of those shows, as new suspects appear and disappear as quickly as a fresh pot of Wawa coffee. So, ahead of the finale, here’s a reminder of all the evidence we’ve seen, with a view to figuring out who might have dunnit.
Kenny McMenamin. As the father of Erin, with rage and alcohol issues, Kenny was an early plausible suspect — until he tried to kill her ex-boyfriend, Dylan (Jack Mulhern), in an (apparently) misguided act of revenge. It’s likely he’s not involved in anything other than an attempted murder charge at this point.
Dylan Hinchey. Despite being a major asshole who at one point seriously considered killing Erin’s baby DJ when he learned he wasn’t the father, Dylan initially seemed to be in the clear after his girlfriend Brianna (Mackenzie Lansing) confirmed that he spent the night of Erin’s death with her. Then Dylan and his buddy Sean suspiciously teamed up with Erin’s best friend Jess to find and burn Erin’s journals, followed by Brianna’s conscience forcing her to confess that that Dylan was actually MIA the night Erin died. Is Dylan doing all this to ensure that the real identity of baby DJ never comes out, or is it something worse? It’s clear he’s trying to cover something up.
Jess. Jess (Ruby Cruz) is definitely in deep. As Erin’s best friend, she’s privy to many secrets about her life. Some of that information has turned out to be critical in helping Mare put together key pieces around the mystery of Erin’s death. Yet, there’s so much Jess has withheld—Erin’s secret journals, her profile on an escort site—or reluctantly turned over, like the mysterious photograph at the end of the sixth episode. And why does she show Dylan and Sean where Erin’s journals are so they can destroy them? Even if she’s not the killer, which seems likely, there are surely new things to learn about her involvement in the case.
Deacon Mark Burton. Easttown’s chief man of faith, played by James McArdle, has also obstructed Mare’s investigation by not revealing that he dropped Erin off at the park before she was killed, or that he dumped her bike in the river. Furthermore, Detective Zabel (Evan Peters) discovered the Deacon was shipped off to another parish for reasons we still don’t know but are led to suspect involved teenage girls in some way. Now that he’s been arrested, however, he doesn’t seem to be lying about anything else. Deacon Mark feels like a classic, early-series red herring, especially as other prime suspects have come into focus.
Richard Ryan. What is going on with this guy? As the show’s mysterious and charming outsider, he’s inherently suspicious, doubly so when played by an actor of Pearce’s caliber. But there’s been no evidence whatsoever to suggest Ryan did it. If Pearce took part in the show just to have Rolling Rocks with Winslet, who could blame him? The finale would need to do some significant lifting to show his involvement in the murder.
Billy Ross. Mare of Easttown certainly seems to want us to believe that Billy Ross (Robbie Tann), the brother of John Ross, the husband of Mare’s best friend Lori, is the killer. In the span of a few short minutes during the penultimate episode, Billy confesses (only to John— more on him in a second) that he killed Erin because the two had an incestuous affair during their family reunion in 2017, which resulted in Erin’s son. Erin presumably threatened to reveal this to everyone after Dylan was being difficult over child support payments. Combine this admission with the revelation that Pat Ross, the brother’s father, saw Billy return on the night of the murder covered in blood and Billy’s general twitchy weirdness, and it certainly appears we have an open and shut case. The signs were there prior to the admission of guilt, too, as Billy quickly left the house in the fifth episode after some slight questioning from Mare.
John Ross. But! Billy is likely Mare of Easttown’s last (?) head-fake, because the show threw one more twist our way in the final moments of the penultimate episode. As Billy and John Ross (Joe Tippett) headed out to go on a fishing trip, Billy was surprised to find a gun inside John’s tackle box. Why would John need a gun? Also, why would he decide to take Billy on one last fishing weekend in the woods before turning him in for, you know, murdering a teen girl?
John’s behavior throughout the entire series has been questionable. For starters, he’s an inveterate adulterer who tries to get his son to cover up his latest affair. Second, he’s a poor liar. In the show’s premiere, Mare confronted him over his knowledge of Frank’s engagement party, going so far as to tell him he was a bad liar. And Lori said that the last time John was cheating, she could feel it, but this time around, she was completely blindsided. Is this because John is using an affair as a cover-up for a far more nefarious deed?
One plausible theory goes like this: It was John, not Billy, who slept with Erin at the family reunion and got her pregnant. When Erin threatened to reveal this, John killed her, and when Mare started getting too close to the truth, he convinced Billy to confess to Erin’s murder under the guise of protecting the family. Critically, the audience only sees part of Billy’s confession, as if to indicate there’s more at play.
The final clue lies within the last moments of Episode 6. Remember, as Mare heads off to confront the Rosses, she calls Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson) to tell him she believes it’s Billy. However, something in the photograph Jess passes to the Chief makes Carter immediately demand to speak with Mare. Does the photo show Erin and John together, thus confirming he’s DJ’s father? Zoomed-in screengrabs from Reddit detectives suggest it might.
Ryan Ross. There’s no way that Ryan Ross, a child, was the father of Erin’s baby—but at this point, we have to treat the entire family as suspect. Ryan knows about his father’s affairs, and in episode five he suddenly beat a bully who was mocking his sister in the school cafeteria. What was the secret we saw John and Ryan talking about late one night? This heavy burden would certainly explain why Ryan looks so downtrodden throughout the series—and the complicated father-son dynamic between John and Ryan would parallel nicely with the show’s deep exploration into the relationship between Mare and her son.
Lori Ross. While Mare’s lifelong and loyal best friend, played by Julianne Nicholson, seems an unlikely suspect, there are a couple of scenarios for her involvement in Erin’s murder. She’s stated that she loves her husband John despite the fact he’s cheated on her multiple times—could she love him so much that she’s willing to cover up his crime in order to protect the family? She didn’t initially tell Mare about Billy coming home covered in blood the night of Erin’s murder, but she cracks pretty quickly under pressure. Are we sure we’re getting the whole truth from her? Or… could Lori have actually killed Erin herself, either to protect John or out of rage over Erin’s night with him?