10 Best TV Episodes Of 2021
5. Mare Of Easttown - "Sore Must Be The Storm"
Brad Ingelsby’s Kate Winslet-starring miniseries was one of 2021’s classiest TV offerings, a pacy whodunnit that was immaculately acted, tackling serious themes while maintaining the entertainment levels.
It’s a show best consumed as a whole, a tight seven hours you can consume over a couple of nights, but its dramatic peak came in its penultimate instalment, “Sore Must Be The Storm”. In the prior episode, Winslet’s title character took down the man responsible for the disappearance of several young women, but the central case - the murder of Erin McMenamin - rumbles on.
It’s here that all the loose threats of the series really come together - the mysterious behaviour of Erin’s ex-boyfriend, a family retreat that might just hold the keys to the mystery, the possible involvement of Mare’s closest friends in town.
It all builds to a breathless finale with a cliffhanger - the discovery of a photo which we don’t get to see until the following episode (a slightly hoaky dramatic tool but forgivable here). The finale is dedicated to cleaning up the loose ends - with a few further twists along the way - but the sheer edge-of-seat excitement exhibited here hasn’t been bested by much in 2021.