The Mare of Easttown Is Returning After 6 Years
HBO’s 95% Crime-Thriller Masterpiece Is Returning After 6 Years
Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy.
Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones).
HBO's Mare of Easttown isn't off the table after all, and we can expect the return of this world and at least one of its characters to merge with the upcoming season of Task. These are both TV crime dramas created by Brand Ingelsby, and were both originally billed as limited series. For that reason, when Mare of Easttown came to a close in 2021, we all lamented over the conclusion and swallowed our hopes that there could be more. At the very least, we had Task to look forward to, and, once again, this miniseries left us wanting more.
It's not that Ingelsby's shows don't leave us satisfied. Both Mare of Easttown and Task received more than 90% critical approval (via Rotten Tomatoes) and remained among the most-watched series on HBO. Rather, there is just so clearly a lot of room for these extremely organic characters to further develop. Kate Winslet's Mare and Mark Ruffalo's Tom are among them, but they are only the beginning.
Thankfully, it seems that Ingelsby and HBO agreed with us after all. There won't be new episodes under the title Mare of Easttown, that we know of, but Task has been officially renewed for a second season. Among the cast appearing in the coming episodes is Julianne Nicholson, who plays Lori Ross, Mare's best friend from Mare of Easttown. Ingelsby has established a shared universe, and where there is one crossover, there are bound to be more.
The Future For Mare Of Easttown Is Officially Limitless
Currently, Nicholson's Lori is the only Mare of Easttown character expected to appear in Task season 2. However, it's very unlikely that Ingelsby is tossing in this single Easter egg just for giggles. These are fantastically constructed shows that centralize character depth, motivation, and trauma. This all comes down to how these figures interact with the world and people around them—the connections they make. Even if Lori's appearance is short, it will absolutely have a beautifully nuanced impact on Task season 2's central story and characters.
Task season 2 is expected to premiere near the end of 2027, six years after Mare of Easttown.
Without a doubt, Ingelsby is using this crossover to make poetry. The fictional version of reality he is working with in these series just got more expansive, and whether audiences can see the bigger picture yet or not, we officially know it's there. So, after Task season 2, it should feel completely natural to get a brand-new spinoff series that follows a different Mare of Easttown character, and who knows who else from either previous show could turn up in that one. Essentially, now that Ingelsby has made his two miniature worlds into one bigger one, we should expect it to happen again.
Task Season 2 Is Giving Us Several Other New Stars To Look Forward To
The neat thing about the way Ingelsby is approaching the Mare of Easttown and Task crossover is that, even after just two limited-series structured seasons, there is already a massive list of characters who could come in and out of play. This list will grow exponentially with every installment, since Task appears to function something like an anthology. The majority of season 1's characters will have moved on, and Ruffalo's will be joined instead by Harry Melling, Mahershala Ali, Adam Nagaitis, Aminah Nieves, and many more.
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Any of these exciting names, the memorable names from season 1, or those from Mare of Easttown could then pop up in future seasons of Task, or any other potential show that Ingelsby adds to his Mare of Easttown universe. It's a thrilling prospect in any shared universe, but the specific themes that Ingelsby tends to explore in his shows, and the poetry used to explore them, make it that much more compelling. One thing is for certain as this project continues—we really can't know what to expect anymore.
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Task is a crime drama set in the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia. It follows an FBI agent leading a task force to stop a series of violent robberies orchestrated by a seemingly ordinary family man, unraveling the complexities behind his dual life.
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Mare of Easttown
8/10
- Release Date
- 2021 - 2021-00-00
- Network
- HBO
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Marianne 'Mare' Sheehan
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Jean Smart
Helen Fahey
Mare of Easttown is a 2021 HBO crime drama series starring Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan, a detective in a small Pennsylvania town. The series follows her investigation of a local murder while she contends with personal challenges threatening to unravel her life and career.
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