Mare of Easttown and Happy Valley: Crime dramas with complex female leads

The recent hit crime drama Mare Of Easttown has drawn comparison from one of Britain’s biggest crime drama hits of recent years – Happy Valley.

Both Mare Of Easttown and Happy Valley are exceptional series with fantastically complex female leads at the forefront.

And both women – played respectively by Kate Winslet and Sarah Lancashire – have walked a similarly difficult path in life.

What was Mare Of Easttown all about?

Mare Of Easttown wowed viewers when it began broadcasting on Sky Atlantic earlier this spring.

The seven-part series stars Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan, a police officer in the small Pennsylvania town of Easttown.

With the murder of a teenage girl – and the disappearance of another – to contend with, she also had a lot going on in her private life.

Read more: The Mare Of Easttown episode 5 review: 5 reasons why this is the best crime drama on telly

She with lives with her mum, her daughter and her young grandson at the family home.

Mare and the family are still coming to terms with the suicide of her son, Kevin.

With a no-nonsense personality, Mare does, however, begin to fall apart at the seams as the case and the unprocessed grief for her son threatens to bring her down.

What was Happy Valley all about?

Happy Valley was broadcast in 2014 on BBC One.

It starred iconic former Corrie actress Sarah Lancashire in award-winning form as formidable local police officer, Catherine Cawood.

Like Mare, she’s bringing up her grandson in her family home after her daughter Becky took her own life.

And also like Mare, she’s had trouble processing her grief – especially when Ryan’s father Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) shows up out of the blue.

There’s one big problem: Catherine believes that Tommy raped her daughter and pushed her over the edge.

Mare and Catherine – kindred spirits

Both Mare and Catherine are permanently exhausted, and both carrying with them a determination to rid their town of crime.

They both know everyone in their respective towns, and both have traumatic recent pasts linked to their offspring – in Mare’s case her son, and Catherine’s case, her daughter.

They also live with family members and are both brilliant police officers – they need to be because there are cases that need solving.

Was Mare Of Easttown based on Happy Valley?

Mare creator Brad Ingleby hasn’t mentioned the comparisons between the two series.

The US series is very definitely not a remake of Happy Valley.

In her review in the Hollywood Reporter, Inkoo Kang said: “HBO’s Mare of Easttown is as much a portrait of a town as it is a crime drama.

Read more: Happy Valley writer says series three is ‘not on the back burner’

“Starring Kate Winslet as detective Mare Sheehan, the seven-part limited series acutely recalls Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright’s (far superior) BBC/Netflix show about a middle-aged female cop who often seems to be the only person holding together her drug-ravaged working-class town, even as its dysfunctions follow her home.”

If you’ve not watch either Mare of Easttown or Happy Valley yet, shoot them both to the top of your must-watch list.

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