Mare of Easttown begs the question: Does it take a murder to make an HBO show about women a hit?

Slate

"Mare of Easttown’s finale was a great hour of television, but it still left many of us wondering—did we just watch a detective show about a murder investigation, or a show about female relationships and the unwinding of loss, or a show about both?" says Anna Nordberg. "And if so, why has this framing device—using a murder mystery as a vehicle to explore stories about women and mothers—become so ubiquitous? Is it just the cold hard math that complex, layered stories about women need a murder to sell the plot, a sort of 'come for the crime and stay for the drama' approach? Or is that the conventions of the detective show allow a different kind of freedom, a subversive lens to tell women-centered stories? HBO has made a cottage industry out of this theme in recent years—starting with Sharp Objects followed by the monster hit Big Little Lies, and then with last year’s The Undoing and now Mare. Actors who can still legitimately be called movie stars flocked to the lead roles—Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman (twice), Kate Winslet. And how well these shows stuck the landing often had to do with how they delivered on the expectations set up by the murder mystery, even if the series’ interests lay elsewhere...While I want more stories about women that are considered high stakes on their own, even I have to admit that I’m more drawn to series like The Undoing than domestic dramas. Which means we have to ask the question: What stops us from just looking at our lives as they are?"

ALSO:

• HBO boss Casey Bloys on if Mare of Easttown will return for Season 2: “I think Mare got her claws into Kate – she has been open about that. But there’s a long way to go between that and ‘Let’s do it again.’ The story has to be there and the reason to do it has to be there.” 
• Stop being "weird" about Kate Winslet's body after she revealed that she demanded that her "bulging bit of belly" stay in the show
• Read Mare of Easttown's pilot script
• Mare of Easttown fans have learned that Sosie Bacon is the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick
• Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby signs an overall deal with HBO