Yes, Winslet is good. She is always good. She is one of my favorite actors. The other actors are really good too.

I have just watched the second episode, and somehow it creeped on me as I was watching that there is so much that comes from Happy Valley, the crime drama set in Yorkshire and written by the incredible Sally Wainwright and with Sarah Lancashire playing the main character ( Catherine Cawood, on which to me, Mare is based -- Catherine's daughter has killed herself. Catherine is raising her grand son. The grandson's biological father is a criminal. Catherine's husband has left her and is remarried or about to get remarried. Catherine is a police officer in a terrible run down working class town in Yorkshire, with a lot of crime etc etc. ).

Then there are also some wiffs of Broadchurch too (the husband of the woman police officer being the main culprit, and another male detective arriving from somewhere else to help with the investigation, hence the conflict between the two.) , so I was not surprised at all when Erin's friend told the other police woman that Erin's baby was probably Mare's ex's baby. It was so obvious already when he (Frank) called her back and asked her about Erin and sneaked in a comment about how he sensed that things were not alright at home. He was her maths teacher. I could feel already that something was going on. So, if things are already getting so obvious from episode 2, I wonder how boring it is soon going to become.

Now, the character of the writer and professor of creative writing at some college nearby, another borrowing from Sally Wainwright, but this time from Last Tango in Halifax. This time the ex-husband of the character played by Sarah Lancashire again. All this is so obvious, it just can't be a coincidence.

What I would like is for the creators of Mare of Easttown to at least acknowledge their dues to the authors they are ripping off. It happens so often in American movies and series and never any acknowledgement is written, and thanks given, and copyrights paid, because the American audience don't even know where the ideas come from, what the original movie or series was. It is pathetic!

I bet the American average viewer here only accepts Winslet in the main role here because they know her from Titanic, don't they. They always have to have an actor they can recognize, otherwise they are lost. I bet few would know who Sarah Lancashire is.

Just saying.