‘Mare of Easttown’ Episode 4: What Happened to Katie Bailey?

Mare of Easttown Episode 4 “Poor Sisyphus” ends on a shocking reveal: Katie Bailey (Caitlin Houlahan) is alive. Not only that, but she’s been living “Room“-style, locked away in an unidentified male’s home for the last year. The revelation that Katie is not dead, as believed, but being held hostage blows the plot of Mare of Easttown wide open. For over a year, Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) has been haunted by her inability to solve the mystery of what happened to Katie Bailey. Now that we know Katie’s alive, does that mean Mare’s close to solving the case? And what does this have to do with the death of Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny)? What does the Katie Bailey reveal at the end of Mare of Easttown Episode 4 mean for the rest of the series?

HBO’s Mare of Easttown tells the story of Mare Sheehan, a 40-something Delco detective struggling to juggle the demands of her family with the expectations of her whole hometown. When the series begins, Mare is particularly haunted by the case of Katie Bailey. The young woman was a drug addict who disappeared about a year before the start of Mare of Easttown. While Mare believes she has chased every lead available — and presumes Katie is dead — Katie’s mother, Dawn (Enid Graham), thinks the police haven’t done enough. Because Dawn and Mare were high school friends, Mare takes this criticism all too personally.

Mare is already feeling a renewed passion for the case when it’s revealed that local teenager Erin McMenamin has been found murdered. There is a natural inclination to connect the two cases, but as the ending of Mare of Easttown Episode 4 suggests, maybe they’re not related? It seems whoever murdered Erin was deeply intwined in the girl’s secret life. Katie Bailey, on the other hand, seems to have been kidnapped by a serial abuser who has just taken in another victim. In fact, we watch as this mystery man subdues his latest victim and see her find herself locked in a soundproof room with Katie.

The revelation that Katie Bailey is alive is even more shocking after we’ve just witnessed her mother, Dawn, fall victim to a con involving her daughter. Dawn is told by a mysterious caller that Katie’s alive and that she’ll have to come up with a ton of blackmail money for information. Dawn eventually discovers she’s been tricked by a desperate Freddie Hanlon (Dominique Johnson). Katie’s fate seems doomed…until that awful twist.

Mare of Easttown director and executive producer Craig Zobel said that although this is the first time audiences have met Katie, he hoped that viewers would feel connected to her through “Dawn’s story, the story of someone who had someone [they loved] go missing like that.”

“Enid, who plays Dawn, I just thought was so compelling and interesting to kind of watch,” Zobel said. “I felt like people would connect to Katie, just through the virtue of knowing like what her family is. That’s my hope anyway.”

The fact that we finally know Katie Bailey is alive is also a sign that we’re more than halfway through Mare of Easttown‘s seven-episode story. There are only three episodes left of Mare of Easttown on HBO (and next week is a doozy).

Where to stream Mare of Easttown