Previously on our Mare of Easttown coverage, we laid out an exhaustive theory of the case that positioned Joe Tippett’s John Ross as the real villain behind poor Erin McMenamin’s death. You can read up on that theory here. Despite an outright confession from his brother Billy Ross (Robbie Tann) in the show’s penultimate episode, our money is still very much on John Ross himself as the killer of Erin and likely father of Erin’s baby. Don’t believe it? Here are just three examples of John acting guilty and squirrelly in this week’s episode alone.
Sure, we’re meant to interpret John’s evasiveness as either shame over an affair or as lies designed to protect his brother. But that’s precisely the trick Mare of Easttown has been playing all along: showing you scene after scene of dodgy behavior that can be interpreted a few different ways. (See: Mark, Deacon.) While carefully avoiding spoiling the end of the show, Billy Ross himself, Robbie Tann, spoke to Vanity Fair’s “Still Watching” podcast about how director Craig Zobel and series creator/writer Brad Ingelsby meticulously crafted scenes that can be read in quite a few ways. He also hinted that something even darker is lurking in the Billy/John relationship. You can listen to the full interview here or dive into some excerpts and more evidence from episode six below.
Before we get to the final dark twist possibly awaiting viewers in the Mare of Easttown finale, let’s take a closer look at the careful balancing act Zobel and Ingelsby constructed throughout the season. In a previous interview with Still Watching, Zobel himself explained that he liked to get many different takes on a scene in order to draw out different flavors from his actors. Jean Smart, who plays Mare’s mother Helen, was always asking for at least one take where she got to be “funny the whole time.” (Mission accomplished.)
Multiple takes on any given scene are common practice, obviously, but according to Robbie Tann, Zobel’s process was also connected to preserving the mystery: “Craig likes to shoot several takes in different ways. How people play scenes can tip the hand one way or the other about what things mean. For Craig, he was always like, ‘Let’s shoot it a bunch of different ways so we don’t back ourselves into a corner — so we can go back into the edit and find the balance that way.”
A good example would be Tann’s big moment in episode 5 where, after Mare starts innocently asking about the time his young cousin Erin came to live with him, Billy nearly has a meltdown.
“Kate [Winslet] said something like, ‘Oh my God, it looks like you’ve just shit yourself,’” Tann recalls after one particularly anxious take. “And I was like, ‘Well, they’re not going to use that one.’ And then I think that’s the one that ended up getting put in the show.” In other takes, Tann says, Billy was much cooler under pressure here.
So knowing that Zobel and Ingelsby were actively trying to present evidence that might be misinterpreted by the viewer (which is the point of a mystery!), let’s take a closer look at this week’s episode and what Tann himself has to say about the brothers Ross.
First of all, let’s assume the story about John having an affair (again) with some woman named Sandra isn’t true. Remember that this was an assumption Lori Ross (Julianne Nicholson) made based on her son, Ryan (Cameron Mann), acting out. Ryan just nodded along to her guess.
In this week’s episode, as John’s dad is hassling him while he’s moving in his mattress, John says Lori “thinks” he had an affair. And Lori herself tells Mare that while she could sense John was having an affair before, this time there were no hints at all. Maybe John is just getting better at sneaking around. Or maybe an affair with Sandra was the last thing on his mind. If Ryan really did confess everything he knew about John and Sandra to Lori in the last episode, why does the poor kid still look so guilty and distraught this week?
Let’s assume John wasn’t having an affair but that something else was going on. Why would he pretend he was cheating on Lori again? He might if it would help shield an uglier truth: that he had an affair with his teenaged cousin Erin that started at the Ross family reunion and killed her to cover it up. If I had to guess, I’d say Billy helped John dispose of Erin’s clothing and move the body. That’s how he wound up covered in blood. But I don’t think Billy helped kill her.
So if Billy didn’t do it, what’s going on in that big “confession” scene this week where Robbie Tann gets the chance to show off the depth of his talent? Well, watch it again and you may notice that the scene starts in the middle of a conversation—and after many beers—with John saying: “You understand? Dad saw you. What the fuck am I going to do?” He then tells Billy he needs to hear him “say it.” My guess is that John has asked his brother to take the fall for him in order to protect Lori and the kids from the awful truth. My guess is that John has asked a lot of his younger brother their entire life. (More on that in a bit.)
If that’s the case and Billy is only taking responsibility for Erin and the murder in order to protect John, that adds an extra layer of menacing manipulation to this moment when John asks Billy if he’s sure he’s ready to confess.
When Billy proves to be a little unsteady in his answer, John proposes the two of them go up to the family cabin for one last fishing trip. There’s a moment when we see a gun (likely Erin’s murder weapon) in a tackle box. The surface read of this moment is that Billy has secretly packed the gun, but I think John packed it and Billy discovered it by accident.
If you presume John packed the gun and never expected Billy to find it, this next scene reads a little differently.
John wants the box because he plans to either shoot Billy and/or make it look as if Billy took his own life. An alive Billy is a little too shaky to take the fall for his brother in all this, but his corpse might prove a convincing answer to Mare’s big case. Billy, it seems, is aware that his life is in danger and so is keeping the gun close to him. I mean, really, which of these two men looks afraid for his life? It’s Billy.
If there were any lingering doubts about which Ross brother we should have our eye on, here’s one final piece of evidence. Mare tells Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson) over the phone that Billy Ross is the killer and ignores his warning to wait for backup. Meanwhile, Jess (Ruby Cruz) walks into the police station and hands over the photo she stole from Erin’s journal. That photo is enough to make the chief demand to speak to Mare on the phone immediately. In other words, that’s not Billy Ross and Erin in that photo. My guess would be it’s John.
The means Mare is walking towards a Ross family showdown with the wrong guilty brother in mind. Will Billy pull the gun on John in order to defend himself? Will Mare shoot Billy thinking he’s the guilty party? I’m worried that’s the fate waiting for poor Billy after a lifetime of misery. (More on that in a second.) But no matter what, the fallout from all of this is going to be disastrous for Mare given that the one source of friction we’ve seen between her and her best friend Lori is John.
Lori may learn the ugly truth about John and still have trouble forgiving Mare for her role in uncovering it all.
Let’s return now to poor Billy Ross and his long complicated relationship with his brother. If we believe John Ross is guilty of sleeping with and killing Erin, then we know he has no boundaries when it comes to taking advantage of vulnerable young relatives. We also witnessed this creepy moment between John and his son Ryan.
John is probably at the very least guilt of emotionally abusing and manipulating both Ryan and Billy from a very young age, but could he have been even more transgressive than that? Speaking about Billy’s past, Robbie Tann said: “Billy’s had some tragedy happen in his life as well. Particularly with family members in his life. He’s been wearing that underneath all of what’s been going on. He’s been wearing that for quite some time.”
What tragedy did Billy’s family visit on him from a young age? How abusive was John to his younger brother that’s left Billy nervous and emotional and prone to drink?
And that’s how Mare of Easttown’s biggest murder suspect headed into the finale might wind up being the show’s most tragic victim instead.
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