Mare of Easttown: Kate Winslet show is an examination of the love and loss embedded in motherhood

*Spoilers ahead* Motherhood is seldom a straight line but more often than not, mainstream entertainment simplifies it as a picture of selflessness and unconditional love. Detective Mare Sheehan, who is seen as, or rather expected to be, this matriarch protector of the town, is a single mother of two, and a grandmother to her dead son’s baby. In the quieter moments, however, the picture shifts – when Mare lies down next to her grandson Drew and watches him drift off to sleep, or a quiet acknowledgment when Siobhan tells her that she has broken up with her girlfriend, or when, in the middle of another argument, Helen tells Mare, “I’m always on your side, even when I act like I’m not." The funeral scene where Helen’s affair with the widowed neighbour is exposed, followed by Mare almost choking to keep a straight face and later cackling away in the car on the way back home, will probably go down in television history as among the funniest funeral moments. Mare may be a mother and a grandmother, but Helen still takes a gleeful interest in her daughter’s dating life – how she dresses, who she meets.