‘Mare of Easttown’s Director Takes Us Inside That Shocking Episode 5 Death

HBO’s Mare of Easttown Episode 5 “Illusions” Spoilers Ahead!

Mare of Easttown Episode 5 “Illusions” ends with a heart-pounding sequence that feels ripped from Silence of the Lambs. Mare (Kate Winslet) and her partner Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) finally have a lead on the Katie Bailey (Caitlin Houlahan) case, leading them right into the lion’s den. Almost as soon as Mare and Colin realize that they have successfully identified the man who kidnapped Katie Bailey and Missy Sager (Sasha Frolova), does violence erupts. Colin is shot point blank in the head and Mare has to square off against her foe in a twisted playground of his design. It’s violent, tragic, and absolutely shocking.

So is Evan Peters really dead on Mare of Easttown? Yes.

Sure, we were expecting Mare to eventually rescue the girls, but we did not expect Mare of Easttown to kill off one of its most charismatic characters — Evan Peters’s Detective Colin Zabel — in the middle of the season! (Especially after he had just declared his love for Mare and kissed her!) Colin Zabel’s death is one of the most upsetting TV deaths we’ve seen on HBO since the heyday of Game of Thrones. And Mare of Easttown director and executive producer Craig Zobel hopes you hate him for it.

“A bunch of hatred towards [Mare of Easttown‘s creators] because [fans are] sad that he’s gone would really be fulfilling because that was what I was hoping,” Zobel told Decider. “We were trying to make him as likable as possible to make that turn feel surprising.”

Zobel also confirmed to Decider that Evan Peters’ character’s death was planned from the start, with the actor fully on board. “It was kind of always in the story that that would happen. We were always conscious of it.” Zobel said that the goal of the whole production was “to make sure that you just leaned in further and further to Colin so that when that happens it is disappointing.”

However Colin Zabel’s death isn’t the only reason why the ending of Mare of Easttown Episode 5 gave us chills. Once Colin is shot down, Mare has to pursue his murderer all while attempting to find Katie Bailey and Missy Sage and survive. If the sequence feels like an homage to Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs, that was fully intentional. In fact, Zobel rewatched Silence of the Lambs for inspiration.

“When we were talking about shooting that sequence — and when we were location scouting the location — there was a lot of kind of back and forth about when the audience would know that he was the right guy,” Zobel said, noting that he, Mare writer Brad Inglesby, and cinematographer Ben Richardson debated when and how to clue the audience in.

“I rewatched that section of The Silence of the Lambs. So I was like, ‘Oh, this is how we do it,'” Zobel said. “So the actual sign that you see, that kind of tells you that you’re back in the same bar location was installed by us. I actually drew the little picture of the drunk guy on the side that’s drawing. We made up that bar sign in order to make sure that the audience recognizes that they were walking into a bad scenario.”

“Because that really is what is so cool in Silence of the Lambs is that you’re just so worried, because you do know something that they don’t know,” Zobel said.

Just as in The Silence of the Lambs, Mare of Easttown‘s viewers had every right to be worried. Mare and Colin were walking into an absolute gauntlet of danger — and Colin wouldn’t make it out alive. Much like Silence of the Lamb‘s Clarice Starling manages to take down Buffalo Bill, Mare somehow manages to take her opponent down. Miss Lady Hawk makes another desperate shot, saving herself, Katie Bailey, and Missy Sager.

One big question going into Mare of Easttown Episode 6 is how the loss of Colin Zobel will affect Mare going forward? Another one? The revelation that Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny)’s killer is still out there and it could be Dylan Hinchey (Jack Mulhern) after all.

Where to stream Mare of Easttown