Murder? Only in Kate Winslet’s Easttown. Round here a deer hit by a car is big news

Gritty cop show transporting millions of viewers to grim Pennsylvania town teeming with murderers is a far cry from real life, where locals fret more about school rankings.

Kate Winslet in a scene from Mare Of Easttown. Picture: Supplied

The television series Mare of Easttown has transported millions of viewers to a grim Pennsylvania town teeming with murderers, addicts, adulterers, prowlers and prostitutes, where Kate Winslet investigates “the burglaries, the overdoses and all the other really bad crap”.

Tomorrow (Monday) night we should find out who killed teenage mother Erin McMenamin. Though her cousin, Billy Ross, has confessed to the killing, bookies have installed his elder brother, the shifty John, as the favourite.

Seeking clues, I arrived in the real Easttown prepared for unremitting bleakness. What a shock. No murders, aggravated assaults or robberies were reported here last year at all. There is so little crime that the police station has only two cells - and one is used for storage.

While Winslet’s Detective, Mare Sheehan, is dishevelled, disillusioned and divorced, I was met by Officer Hannah Thomas, 24: fresh-faced, enthusiastic and in love.

The real Easttown is a leafy township in the up-market suburbs west of Philadelphia. It has a population of about 10,000 and a median household income of more than $200,000 - twice the national figure.

Thomas, the solitary female officer in the real Easttown police department, where Winslet spent time researching her role, let me join her on patrol.

Under blue skies, we drove around Devon and Berwyn, the district where Brad Ingelsby, the creator of drama, grew up. It teems with million-dollar mansions, golf clubs, luxury car dealerships and manicured front lawns.

Devon in Easttown, teems with million-dollar mansions, golf clubs, luxury car dealerships and manicured front lawns. Picture: Logan & Foster

Ingelsby said that he stuck with the name Easttown because it sounded “generic”. But his fictional version is based on an amalgamation of grittier, left-behind places beyond the town limits.

Thomas has been watching the show with her boyfriend, also a police officer, who works in Coatesville, a rust belt town 40 kilometres west that makes Easttowners shudder. “There are random shootings there all the time,” she said. “That’s much more like the show than Easttown.”

Our patrol was uneventful - a deer hit by a car was outside Thomas’s patch - so we headed back to the station to meet Dave Obzud, Easttown’s police chief, who was an adviser on the set.

A local high school in Easttown, Pennsylvania. Picture: Wikipedia

“This place is the exact opposite of what you see on the show,” he said. “I grew up in an old steel-mill town called Phoenixville. One of the scenes was shot there, and it reminded me a lot more of the show. Areas round here are struggling.”

Like everywhere in America, the opioid epidemic continues to wreck local lives - though “it’s just not as rampant as shown on the fake Easttown”, said Obzud.

Mike Sessher, one of the real Easttown’s three detectives - all men - who work in a trailer overlooking rolling fields beyond the police station, said: “We could do one or two arrests a week if we really tried.”

Winslet in Mare of Easttown. One of the real Easttown’s three detectives said “We could do one or two arrests a week if we really tried.” Picture: HBO

The oldest, John Fallon, who describes himself as “grizzled”, is confident he has solved the Winslet whodunit - which they are all watching - but he will not let on.

Unlike Winslet, the real detectives typically tackle identification theft, financial crime and burglaries. “Different kinds of crimes than you have in an area with low education and low income,” Fallon said.

Down the road, children and mothers, all with far glossier hair than Winslet, who in the series has 6in dark roots, were eating ice cream outside the local parlour. “That show has nothing to do with the real Easttown - it’s about places like Chester,” said one woman, referring to a city near Philadelphia with high rates of violent crime.

“Easttown is an excellent school district, a good place to live. You can’t even get a house here, it’s too popular.”

Guy Pearce playing Richard, in a scene from Mare Of Easttown. Picture: Supplied

But Trish Lauria, a born-and-bred Pennsylvanian who helped Winslet master the tricky local accent, is impressed. Delaware County - “Delco” - which borders the real Easttown township, comes across as the cultural home of the fictional town.

“A lot of the Delco attitude is in Mare of Easttown,” she said. “People who are very blunt, very low-key with their appearance. We don’t worry about going to Wawa [a local coffee chain] in our pyjamas.”

One thing troubled her, however: a scene featuring the local delicacy, a steak and cheese sandwich. “In the show they take a basket of cheesesteaks to somebody,” said Lauria. “That was wrong. You eat your cheesesteaks right off the grill.”

The Times