This is how to make a crime-mystery mini-series. Despite starring world-class actress Kate Winslet, which is the reason I and assuredly others were attracted to it in the first place, It's surprising how well it works. Usually, this is the residence of TV schlock--simplistic, repetitive, over-long, filler-bloated, contrived trash. Maybe well acted sometimes, but that barely helps. "Mare of Easttown," however, is a solid use of the serial format, pulp included. Plus, Winslet is fantastic and supported by a solid cast including Guy Pearce, Evan Peters, Jean Smart, as well as some veteran TV talent and promising young actors. Reportedly, Winslet was largely responsible for insisting on her character appearing less glamorous, and that makes all the difference, as does the cast being able to pull off the accents.

It must not be easy to do so many cliffhangers and red herrings well given that it's such a tired genre already, and history is littered with its failures. In addition to this, too, there's the past trauma of a suicide that also works surprisingly well in conjunction with the detective work. A relatively good job is done to treat grief realistically as affecting people differently and usually not exploding into dramatic public displays unless someone is intoxicated. Central to both plotlines working are the reflexive elements folded into the narrative. First, there's the original pulp of a published book and its author, who in a lesser show would merely be an otherwise superfluous criminal suspect and culprit or red herring. I mean, why else introduce a character from out of town but to be the typical itinerant TV serial killer or rapist. Here, we may assume he's receiving, if not creating, material for a second book. Second, there's the character as filmmaker, as well playing music in a band, who, as in the ways of the art form nowadays, is using video-editing software to make her movie, which is about her brother's suicide. She may later leave for film school to learn to make another picture of her home town, like reportedly the creator of this series did. No guilty pleasure here; this is good writing and filmmaking.