YMMV / Mare of Easttown

• Catharsis Factor:
  • It's incredibly satisfying to see Mare arrest Brianna in front of everyone and forcibility remove her from the restaurant. Additionally, when she's interrogating her and lays out her punishment, considering how awfully Brianna treated Erin, it's sweet victory.
  • Whenever someone yells at Tony, Brianna's equally-awful dad.
  • Given Wayne Potts is a monstrously despicable pedo, rapist, and murderer, Mare shooting the bastard dead counts, especially given he just killed Zabel and was going to do the same to her.
• Complete Monster: Wayne Potts finds teenage girls prostituting themselves online, whereupon he lures them to his van before kidnapping and imprisoning them as sex slaves for him to rape. His first victim was Katie Bailey, whom Potts kept prisoner for over a year; his second victim Hilary, whom Potts murdered while she was pregnant; his third was Missy Sager, whom Potts just recently kidnapped. When his fourth victim escapes and sends detectives Colin Zabel and Mare Sheehan to Potts's house, Potts would kill Zabel before attempting to kill Mare.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Helen, Mare's mother, due to her deadpan hilarity and Jean Smart's performance.
  • Colin is also extremely popular for being both very likable and played by Evan Peters.
  • Richard is also quite liked due to being a sincerely charming and likable person and being able to match Mare with snark and being played by a wonderfully against type Guy Pearce.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Mare Sheehan/Colin Zabel is the most popular ship in the fandom, due to their shared interests and circumstances. The effortless chemistry between its stars Kate Winslet and Evan Peters also helps. It is also easily more popular than Mare being paired with her other love interest Richard Ryan.
• Genius Bonus: Residents of Philadelphia and Delaware County will recognize the items the characters have and the vague references.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Zabel’s inadequacy with his detective skills compared to Mare is this when the actual truth about his previous case is revealed.
  • Just months after the show aired, the Ross family closing ranks to cover up each other's misdeeds including a murder bears an unnerving resemblance to the murder of Gabby Petito, with the family of her suspected killer Brian Laundrie stonewalling the authorities for weeks and allowing him to escape.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Three generations of Sheehans live together. When production resumed amid COVID, Kate Winslet, Jean Smart, Angourie Rice, and Guy Pearce had to live together.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Mare. She has quite a rough side and cannot avoid getting in arguments, even with people who are actively trying not to do so but her father and son both committed suicide, her ex-husband is living next door, she may lose custody of her grandson, and is facing public criticism regarding her competence in being a detective. You just want to give her a hug.
  • John had an affair with Erin, the young daughter of his cousin, who he later seems to have killed. Seemingly to save himself he tries to kill his brother and frame him for the crime before he's stopped and arrested. This latter action is framed in a new light when it's revealed that his son Ryan was the murderer. While John's affair and his attempts murder and framing are despicable, it's also clear that he's a parent who loves his son and was so terrified at the prospect of him being locked up that he'd do whatever it took to try and save him, which all wound up being for naught anyway.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people jumped onboard to the show thanks to Evan Peters' involvement in the show, specifically after his appearance on WandaVision months prior.
• Les Yay: The last scene between Mare and Lori arguably has more passion and chemistry than any of the scenes between Mare and any of her male love interests.
• Memetic Mutation: Mare's absolute unmannerly way of eating food.
  • Murder Durder
  • Audiences had a lot of fun predicting what the photo from Erin's diary would be.
• She Really Can Act: Reliable character actress Julianne Nicholson does strong work throughout the show but mostly sits on the sidelines. Then she's revealed to be a key player in the murder in the finale where she takes center stage and delivers a spellbindingly gut wrenching performance. The end result was an Emmy Award.
• Spoiled by the Format: In the final episode, the alleged killer is identified, arrested, and confesses his crimes… in the first ten minutes. It is obvious to the viewer that there has to be some twist coming. In the final half hour of the episode, it is revealed that the killer was another character.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The series had the tremendously bad luck of the real life high profile murder of Gabby Petito occurring just months after it aired, which suddenly made it feel quite surreal that we're expected to have sympathy for parents obstructing the police so that their son doesn't have to face any consequences for killing someone. And it really doesn't help that Lori's rant at Mare includes saying her "entire" family has been destroyed, as if her daughter with Down syndrome doesn't count.
  • Also a lot of people thought Deacon Mark got off easy when he very likely committed statutory rape on a 14-year-old girl.
• The Woobie:
  • Erin McMenamin. She lost her mother at a young age and was left in the care of her violent abusive father, she was impregnated at only fourteen and had to drop out of school and lost touch with most of her friends, she was cruelly manipulated and catfished by Brianna and her friends who proceed to violently beat her up and this is all before she's murdered. The poor girl never had a chance.
  • It's not clear at first, but Lori's story is quite tragic. Her husband John cheated on her with a young relative, who her son Ryan winds up killing. She then tries to help cover up Ryan's guilt only for both him and John to have their crimes found out, taking both away from her which causes her to break down in furious tears at Mare. Even sometime later when things have cooled between the two it's clear Lori is still in enormous pain over all this, being unable go long before falling to the floor weeping.