Mare of Easttown Review: Poor Sisyphus (Season 1 Episode 4)

Supporting characters take center stage on Mare of Easttown Season 1 Episode 4, “Poor Sisyphus.”

On Mare of Easttown Season 1 Episode 3, “Enter Number Two,” Mare is suspended and forced to step away from the McMenamin murder investigation.

Mare ignores the order to leave the McMenamin case alone almost immediately but on “Poor Sisyphus,” Mare does steps back as the focus of the episode allowing viewers to spend more time with some of the supporting characters. 

Mare’s story is still the heart of Mare of Easttown and she is still the most compelling character, but it is nice to have the chance to get to know the people in Mare’s life a little more outside of their interactions with her.

The characters we spend the most time with on “Poor Sisyphus” are Dawn — Kaite Bailey’s mother and Mare’s high school teammate — and Mare’s daughter, Siobhan.

For as much as Mare of Easttown focuses on Siobhan not just on this episode but, over the last two, there is still a lot we don’t know about her. What is becoming clear, is that she has conflicted feeling about both her mother and her brother. 

Her feelings about Mare are easy to understand. She loves her mom — maybe even has more compassion for her than she lets on — but she’s also frustrated with her and blames her for what happened with Kevin. 

Still, it is surprising that she doesn’t react more strongly when Mare tells her what she did to Carrie. She is disappointed by her mom but she isn’t angry the way Helen is.

It could be that Siobhan’s expectations and estimation of her mother are too low at this point to trigger anger but the more likely answer is she doesn’t know what to think. 

It’s similar to her feelings about her brother. She has this idealized image of him, but what we learn on “Poor Sisyphus” is that she knows that her perception of the past and of who Kevin was are incomplete. 

Part of her reason for making a video about him is to try to understand and reconcile what she remembers with who he actually was. She wants to solve the mystery that is Kevin and by doing that gain some closure.

Whether intentional or not, trying to understand Kevin will almost certainly give her a new perspective on her mother as well. 

There haven’t been any clues yet about how Siobhan or her video will play into the larger story, but the focus on her especially beyond her relationship with Mare suggests that something important is coming. 

Like her father, Siobhan appears a little too well adjusted for Easttown or the Sheehan family. There is more to her that we have yet to learn, but unlike Frank, her mystery doesn’t seem suspicious. The most obvious prediction is that her video will reveal something about either Kevin or one of the cases Mare is working on.

Or, perhaps we should be worried that Siobhan will somehow end up in the path of whoever kidnapped Katie and Missy. 

Whatever it is, Siobhan’s story will continue to be one of the most interesting of the supporting characters. 

The storyline with Dawn is heartbreaking. Every new detail we learn about her makes her situation and what happened to Katie that much more tragic. 

All her scenes hurt, but none more so than the moment she looks out the window and sees it’s Beth’s brother trying to scam her. If any character gets a happy ending on Mare of Easttown, please let it be Dawn.

After everything she’s been through, it is almost too depressing to think she won’t be reunited with Katie now that we know Katie is alive. 

The revelation that Katie is alive further suggests that her disappearance and Erin’s murder are not related but it also means Dawn might get her daughter back and Mare may get a win she so desperately needs.

Even though “Poor Sisyphus” focuses on supporting characters it isn’t completely without important moments for Mare. 

The standout moment for Mare on this episode is the flashback to her fight with Kevin. Up until this point, Kevin has been framed as a lost, misunderstood soul but ultimately he is only remembered in positive terms.

The flashback of him yelling at his mom with such aggression complicates how we understand him. It shows viewers that the situation was well beyond a mother doing her best but ill-equipped to handle her son.

Mare is terrified during the flashback, so different from what we’ve seen of this tough, seemingly unflappable character all season. It’s shocking to see her cowering in the bathroom as her son berates her.

It doesn’t excuse Mare’s abuse of power on “Enter Number Two” when she tried to frame Carrie, but the flashback explains why she is so quick to take such extreme actions to keep Drew away from Carrie. 

Carrie may be trying to get her life together and may have a legitimate claim to Drew, but it is absolutely understandable that Mare would be scared enough to do something like frame Carrie to keep her from getting custody. 

The flashback also makes it harder to sympathize with Carrie. Not just because of what happened, but because she doesn’t seem to feel any remorse or responsibility for what she did. 

As far as we know, Carrie has never apologized or even acknowledged the emotional trauma she inflicted on Mare. From everything we see, Carrie doesn’t even think she and Kevin did anything wrong as it relates to her son’s grandmother.

She may not be yelling in Mare’s face anymore but she still treats her like a monster and shows no empathy whatsoever.

There is likely more to the situation than what we see in the flashback, but it’s difficult to trust Carrie’s claim that she’s trying to get her life together when she still blames Mare for everything and only sees her as the villain in her relationship with Kevin.

Without seeing some self-reflection and contrition for how she behaved, it’s hard to blame Mare for not trusting her.

Mare of Easttown continues to slowly build a web of intrigue. Perhaps apropos to Episode 4’s title, “Poor Sisyphus,” every episode offers important revelations both about the cases and Mare’s own life, and yet no one makes much progress personally or professionally.

Everyone just seems stuck in old patterns.

That doesn’t stop “Poor Sisyphus” from being compelling or pulling viewers further into the world of Easttown, but with only three episodes left, we are now in the home stretch. The pieces are going to start falling into place and the tension the series has been building has to break soon.

Stray Thoughts

• I like Mare’s relationship with Lori. I really hope Lori isn’t hiding any big dark secrets that will come out to betray Mare. I want their relationship to be exactly what it seems.
• It’s nice to see that ultimately Dylan doesn’t reject DJ, but he is such a terrible person otherwise it’s hard to root for him or the idea that he would raise DJ.
• Helen hiding the ice cream in the frozen vegetables is perfect. Jean Smart’s annoyance when Helen has to deal with Becca, is even better.
• I’m going to say it again, I don’t trust Richard. I need to know what his deal is and what he’s hiding. 
• I’m curious to know how many people outside of Mare know the real situation with Kevin and how much Mare kept private, maybe even from her own family.

What did you think of this episode of Mare of Easttown? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Critic Rating:

User Rating:

 

Mare of Easttown airs Sundays at 10/9c on HBO.

 Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!

Mary’s Top 10 TV Drama Characters of 2020