Shocking moment viewers thought Mare of Easttown went too far

This must-see show has viewers hooked - but one brutal moment in the latest episode had fans asking if it’s gone too far. WARNING: Spoilers.

WARNING: Spoilers.

The editors of Mare of Easttown deserve all the awards. The team, led by Amy E. Duddleston and Naomi Sunrise Filoramo, have managed to wring so much tension out of so many wonderful scenes that would otherwise have played like something out of a soap opera; thanks to the way they’re pieced together, though, they’re masterpieces of suspense that remind me of Hitchcock.

Like the moment in Episode 6, which just aired this week, when Mare Sheehan’s grandson Drew was floating face down in the bathtub after his exhausted mother fell asleep while she was supposed to be watching him. I audibly gasped, palms sweating against my tiny Apple TV remote. I noticed at that exact moment that the heartbeats per minute feature on my FitBit was registering the same heart rate as when I’m out for a brisk walk, so great job to me, I’m replacing all my workouts with emotionally fraught prestige dramas instead of moving my body ever again.

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Oh god no! Thankfully, this heart-stopping moment was a fakeout.

Mare of Easttown is a show on which no character is too precious to die, and while I did think killing a four-year-old would have been a bridge too far and I’m glad that Drew was just practising his free-diving skills, my mind was racing throughout that scene wondering if they would really make Mare (and all of us) endure still more tragedy. I wasn’t the only one:

Why is #MareOfEasttown trying to kill me? On top of the addiction, suicide, murder and kidnapping, they also made me think a four year old drown in the bath tub? Seriously?

— Danielle Curley (@curley_danielle) May 25, 2021

Y’all know that bath scene was unnecessary.

#MareOfEasttownpic.twitter.com/yqdLYwp1II

— B. (@brufff22) May 24, 2021

Whomever wrote that bath scene needs to be arrested immediately. #MareOfEasttown

— Oh, the fracking? (@Kevin_Says_That) May 24, 2021

That bath scene, gah! #MareOfEasttown still the best thing on telly.

— Clare Saxby 🇪🇺 (@SaxbyClare) May 24, 2021

Love love love #MareofEasttown but THAT BATH SCENE. Can’t stop thinking about it and riding that rollercoaster of utter panic all over again. Masterclass in tension! pic.twitter.com/dMElvqZPGP

— Alex Brown (@alexbrownbooks) May 25, 2021

OKAY that bath scene in #MareOfEasttown gave me a freaking heart attack. Like. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO US!? pic.twitter.com/CN6QNV1mP9

— L.B Smooth (@LauraMBaum) May 24, 2021

I wasn’t expecting Evan Peters’ Colin Zabel to die in episode five – So quickly! And just when he was starting to be an actually good detective! – but after we lost him, it felt like we went full Game of Thrones, where the show could do anything to anyone at any time.

Don’t worry folks, he’s OK.

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The moment in the bathtub, like so many others on the show, was not just memorable for the way that it was edited together, cut between another moment when Erin’s friend Jess was getting chased by Erin’s ex, Dylan, but also for its misdirection, the way it instilled a gut-wrenching dread that ultimately resolved itself so it was, well, nothing. (I mean, it’s not nothing, obviously, my Spidey senses clearly tell me that Drew’s mother Carrie, played by Sosie Bacon, is going to realise she’s not ready for the responsibility of motherhood and retract her bid for full custody of him, right? This is a show where we have to speculate how every detail will get resolved, and that’s just one of my many theories.)

Once Zabel was killed, we realised NOTHING was off-limits with this show.

Mare of Easttown is a mystery at its core, and is produced so deliberately, right down to the last detail, that it has inspired wild fan theories and deep analysis in Twitter threads and Reddit messageboards. Surely everything onscreen must mean something, right?

When Jess revealed a few episodes back that she thought Mare’s ex-husband, Frank Sheehan, was actually the father of Erin’s baby, it was another gasp-inducing moment where we thought the show was taking a big step in a crazy direction, only to determine later that he’s not the father.

And when Erin’s grief-stricken father Kenny kidnapped Dylan and shot him at the end of episode two because he thought Dylan killed Erin (Classic Jack Ruby fantasy, who doesn’t have one?) it felt like the story was going to pivot to them, except Dylan didn’t die, and unfortunately he only became even more evil after getting shot. Except for that one moment when you thought he was definitely going to smother his crying infant son-who’s-not-really-his-son with a hospital pillow, but instead picked him up to comfort him. This show loves to pretend to put kids in danger.

Kate Winslet’s picking up a truckload of awards for this, right?

RELATED: Mare of Easttown review: A confident, character-driven drama

Thanks to weeks of therapy, we’ve finally gotten Mare, played masterfully by Kate Winslet, to open up about her trauma and grief; she’s never properly addressed the suicide of her son Kevin, and the show takes great pains to depict the guilt and trauma family members feel after a loved one takes their own life.

Killing off Mare’s grandson, a mere child, would have been agonising in itself, especially after the loss of her partner Zabel. Even in a fictional world, compounding grief on grief on grief would be too cruel. But Drew also represents Mare’s renewal, a chance to revisit past missteps and the opportunity to love again. And Drew is her only true link to Kevin. I knew Drew wasn’t actually going to die in that tub, but my anxiety was still real as I attempted to figure out what, exactly, would happen. And while, six episodes in, the show is almost winking at us with the amount of red herrings and misdirects that it employs, this one stung. No one’s going to bat an eye when we lose exasperating old townie Betty Carroll, dead of a heart attack after buying some Cheerios. (Although the conspiracy theorist in me wonders how it ties in to the bigger picture and what it all means.)

But losing Drew? I’m not sure my heart – or Mare’s – could have taken that.

This story originally appeared on Decider and is republished here with permission