Everything’s Blooming, but on TV, It’s Not So Rosy

“You don’t usually go for stuff like that,” my husband said the other evening in the kitchen. I’ve asked you to watch some dark shows with me before, like True Detective, and you left the room.”

He was surprised that I’d been recently taken in by the HBO seven-part series Mare of Easttown. That morning, I’d started jabbering about the end of the second episode, as he was barely waking up. My re-telling hadn’t gone over too well, making him wish he’d been able to leave early for the peacefulness of the river.

Since remnants of the show actually had disturbed my sleep, I was perplexed and a little ashamed of myself. It might sound counter-intuitive, but I actually think that the plethora of flowering plants outside — all the bright colors and tremendous variety of life forms — is giving me permission to take in what might feel too gloomy at other times of year.

You can’t easily walk past a lush rhododendron and say, “Perfection like this is my new standard.” No, you must fully appreciate it, revel in it even — and then acknowledge that human nature is as often deeply flawed as it is occasionally glorious, in a fuchsia kind of way.

Many of you probably know that Mare is the tale of a female detective who lives outside Philadelphia. Played by the British actress Kate Winslet, probably most famous for her role in The Titanic, Mare Sheehan is probably just in her forties but is already worn out by some terrible things that have happened in her life. In the series, she looks very different from this woman on Academy Awards night.

The woman she plays in this series has her hair pulled back, some strands escaping. But she can’t escape her tough circumstances. My sister-in-law, who grew up in Philly, was amazed by how well Winslet mastered what’s called the “Delco” accent of the region. Apparently she drove around listening to a tape of one particular woman’s voice for a long time, in training for the part. The screenwriter, Brad Ingelsby, grew up in a town very much like the one portrayed in the series.

Here’s the succinct description of the series given on the HBO website. https://www.hbo.com/mare-of-easttown.

As her life crumbles around her, a small-town Pennsylvania detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) investigates a local murder. The series explores the dark side of a close community and provides an authentic examination of how family and past tragedies can define our present.

We generally think of “close community” as being a good thing. Just today, as a matter of a fact, I joined an on-line group called “NextDoor” in order to be able to communicate with people right around where I live. Back in the time when my parents were raising the five of us, neighbors actually, well, saw each other regularly or rang each other’s phones at least once in a while. But now we generally go to our screens.

Anyway, this series reveals a kind of underbelly of life lived in close proximity to others, with at least one major family tragedy always hovering and many relationships in need of healing, not to mention — for the main character — the challenge of solving criminal cases.

Through it all, Mare also doesn’t have time or energy to make herself proper meals. She’s always opening beers and grabbing an occasional long sandwich still in its wrapper, never sitting long enough to savor. This photo of a “hoagie” or maybe a genuine Philly cheesesteak, held by a woman keeping her jacket on, gives a whiff of these moments — although it looks like this woman may be smiling.

Watching this kind of moment on the screen, I practically want to scream at her, “Would you PLEASE slow down, get a plate and a napkin while you’re at it, and then breathe and maybe, after you’ve eaten, even say something kind to your mother or your daughter in the same house?”

But since she probably won’t do these things anytime soon, and I partly understand because she’s under a whole lot of stress, by daylight I can go right outside my TV room and take some solace in the beauty of sweet dogwood blossoms, a riot of lilacs, and even a little pink surprise found on the side of a dirt road across the main road. They have a calming effect.

Spring must come around in this Pennsylvania town on TV, but there have been no scenes of flowers in people’s yards or by the side of any road. Searching for clues to a murder committed in the woods, Mare walks in a place more like this.

I have four more episodes to go in Mare of Easttown and I plan on making them last, because maybe there won’t be a next season. And surely, amidst the pervasive darkness, there are bound to be some moments when people are able to do some repairing of what’s been broken, perhaps even approach joy.

In the meantime, you can bet I won’t be taking those blossoms out there, glinting in the sunlight, for granted.