But it's also her empathy as a character that I find really interesting. It's one of the things I admire about Mare most is her resilience in the face of incredible trauma and tragedy. This is a woman who's willing to do something like this, arrest Ryan, and Mare has the fortitude to suffer the consequences. And I was always worried that if Mare would suddenly, you know, just hide the truth or let Ryan off that it would be a betrayal of her commitment to Erin, her commitment to her job as detective. I'm not saying it's not possible that Mare would ever have done something like that, but I think more importantly, Mare made a vow to Erin to solve this case and to do justice by her.

One is, Mare crosses the line as a detective a few times. I think my hesitancy about that is, you know, a couple of things. And so once I landed on Ryan, we stayed with that. And it would speak to the themes of the show in a way that was honest and organic. And then it wasn't until I kind of landed on Ryan and I was convinced that was a really emotional way to end the show, but also it would speak to the show and the female relationships and the loss of a son.

It was about eight months of just having these characters in my head, but not knowing exactly where it was going to end. (A possible season 2?!)ĮT: Discovering it was Ryan who killed Erin was so tragic - was this always how it was going to end?īrad Ingelsby: I had the ending in my head even prior to writing the opening episode page one, but I hadn't had Mare in my head, had a lot of these characters in my head.

In an interview with ET, Ingelsby opened up about making Ryan Erin's killer, whether Mare could have ever just turned a blind eye to that reality and what's next for our favorite Easttown detective.

Mare of easttown finale