There are some stories that are simply meant to end, and it’s tough to argue that Mare of Easttown isn’t one of them. The HBO detective drama aired its finale on Sunday, May 30, which ended not only with a shocking twist and a tidy end to a wild murder case, but with a singular image that will long be seared in viewers’s brains: Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet), finally confronting her grief by ascending a ladder into the attic where her son died.

The camera lingers, almost tenderly, on this ladder. We do not see Mare’s face upon reaching the top, nor do we need to. We can imagine the subsequent tears, the full-body heaving, and the eventual long breath of catharsis. And the same goes for the other characters writer Brad Inglesby has helped so many viewers get to know: We don’t need to see Siobhan Sheehan (Angourie Rice) drive across the country to know her time at Berkley will be essential to her own grief journey. We don’t need to see Ryan Ross (Cameron Mann) released from a juvenile detention center to know his life is forever changed by that stray gunshot. We don’t need to see what comes next. Mare of Easttown gives us just enough, and no more.

Still, it’s hard not to crave more of a series that spawned so many theories (plus an SNL sketch) and brought Kate Winslet’s inimitable talents back into Emmy consideration. So, is there a future for Mare of Easttown? We break down the chances below.

Mare of Easttown is billed as a limited series.

Like The Undoing before it, Mare of Easttown is billed as a one-season limited series, intended to tell the entirety of its tale in seven episodes. It would be a huge shift for the show to extend past the finale, though not an impossible one. If the reception to Mare is noteworthy enough, it’s possible HBO might push for another chapter (if only in the interest of riding the hype train). Other notable shows that started as limited series but came back for another crack at the bat include Big Little Lies, as well as Hulu’s The Great, which started as a one-season story but quickly grew in scale.

Neither director Craig Zobel nor writer Brad Inglesby have said much about continuing the story—but Inglesby is open to the idea.

None of the Mare creators seem particularly keen on the idea of forcing the detective back into the spotlight. Their chief concern, it seems, was making sure this one final scene was as powerful as it could be.

In an interview with ELLE.com, Inglesby admitted, “You have to kind of nail the ending because otherwise the audience goes, ‘Man, I wasted all these hours of my life.’ So, I was just convinced the ending had to be really good.” The use of the word “ending,” rather than “finale,” seems to imply this is the end of the road for Mare of Easttown.

But in an interview with Esquire, he revealed he could be convinced to return for another chapter: “We didn’t ever talk about returning…it’s very much a closed story. I think you’ve seen that now, the story ends. I think all the loose ends get tied up. I don’t have [a season 2] in my head right now, but I mean, listen, I love Mare. If we could ever give her a great season, I would certainly consider it. I would only do it if I was convinced we could make it great, though. I wouldn’t do it just because you have a chance to do it. I would want to make sure that it was as rich and compelling as I hope this season has been.”

The actors, too, believe the story is best left alone. But they’d be willing to come back for the right sequel.

ELLE.com asked Rice her thoughts in a recent interview. Would she be willing to come back?

“Someone asked me that yesterday, and my immediate response is, ‘Yeah!’” the actress said. “But then, the more I think about it, the more I think, actually, I’m so happy to leave those characters where they are. The more I think about it, the more I’m like, ‘No, no, no.’ I kind of love the power that this standalone story has.

“But, of course, if Brad wrote an incredible second season or an incredible spinoff, of course I’d be like, ‘Yeah!’ I don’t know how he feels about it. When it was pitched to me, it was always going to be just seven episodes.”

There’s apparently a conversation about a season 2.

After scoring an Emmy nomination for her performance in Mare, Winslet weighed in, saying there’s an “ongoing conversation” regarding a second season.

“I would love to play her again, I absolutely believe there’s more chapters to her story,” she told Deadline in July 2021. “However, just because the story has touched people that doesn’t necessarily mean creatively we can do it again. But it doesn’t mean closing doors; we’re opening doors, exploring what’s behind the doors.”

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