There’s no mayor of Easttown. So we talked to the guy who’s the next closest thing
There’s little crime writers love more than an absurdly violent small town where everybody’s got something to hide. Characters are denied the anonymity of the big city; here, everybody knows everybody, has history with everybody, is barely clinging to some little string of privacy they’ve sewn out of view. But when the killer tears out the thread of one life, everyone in the social fabric feels the garment’s tug and secrets come unbound.
Of course, in real life, small towns are usually not the setting of highly filmable crime sprees. A lot of people never really talk to their neighbors, and are happy to be oblivious to the problems of so-and-so’s daughter’s boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend — you remember her. Sometimes the drama is whether people are going to go for that tax hike to upgrade the sewer system. This brings us to HBO’s “Mare of Easttown” and the real Easttown township on the farthest outskirts of Philadelphia. In the hit crime show, Easttown is a grim killing ground where multiple young women have been kidnapped and held captive or brutally slain, vexing investigators.
“I can’t remember when the last homicide was here, if ever,” said Marc Heppe (pronounced “heppy”), chair of the Easttown Township board of supervisors, who agreed to be interviewed Friday about the real Easttown ahead of the “Mare of Easttown” finale. The big conflicts are over “a lot of NIMBY stuff” — new development and more traffic. But locals are proud of the show. “We have it posted as a banner on the township website. The director, Brad Ingelsby, hosted a special meeting at our library. I would say that folks here are equally happy for him and his production.”
The following Q&A has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Whether you’re a newcomer or a committed fan, our week-by-week guide to HBO’s crime drama will help you understand all things “Mare.”
How big is Easttown?
Easttown, population-wise, is about 10,500 people. It’s about eight square miles.
When was the last time you talked to a reporter? Do you remember?
Uh, no. Probably almost never.
So no one has called you to ask about this TV show?
No. I don’t know that they’ve called any of the supervisors. They have communicated with the chief of police; he was consulted on the filming ... Funny you should ask that, just last week a reporter came to town and she wanted to see what the real Easttown is like, and she says ‘Oh my God ... it doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot of crime here.’ Which is true.
Are you basically the mayor of Easttown?
No. A mayor would be boroughs. A township is a political subdivision in Pennsylvania ... a borough has a mayor, as opposed to supervisors.
Easttown does not have a mayor?
No — well, there are probably some M-A-R-E’s here, because one of the highlights of this area is the Devon Horse Show. Which is very well known in the horse circuit and apparently is unique in this country in that it is in sort of like a town-village kind of a setting, as opposed to out in the country somewhere, very similar somewhat to how I’ve heard happens in Europe.
You’re telling me there is no mayor of Easttown but there are lots of mares of Easttown.
There’s probably a number of mares at the horse show, which is an annual event. I don’t know if I’m confusing you.
No, I completely follow what’s going on. Around town, how often do people talk to you about the show, “Mare of Easttown”? Is it something people are talking about?
You’re probably aware of the social media site called Nextdoor. It’s a frequent topic of conversation on there, at least when it first started. The topic usually surrounded Kate Winslet’s, I guess, ability or lack thereof to replicate the Delaware County Pennsylvania accent. That seemed to be a big topic of conversation — if she did a good job or if she didn’t.
The “accent nerd” went to extraordinary lengths to sound like a Pennsylvania native for HBO’s “Mare of Easttown.” Here’s how she did it.
Have you seen the show “Mare of Easttown”?
I have not. I’m probably the only person living that doesn’t have HBO. I’m waiting for it to get on Netflix or Amazon Prime or something like that.
So you don’t have any theories about who killed Erin.
I don’t know anything. The chief of police apparently knows how this wraps up.
How would you describe Easttown?
I’ve lived here for 36 years. It’s a neighborhood community. It’s a residential community with a relatively small business district. Route 30 runs east to west through the northern part of the township and all of the businesses are located along that stretch, which I’ll say is about a mile and a half long. It’s a very friendly, low crime, great school district community. It’s funny, I was in the Easttown neighborhood watch before I became a supervisor. I did that for about 20 years, and I’ve been a supervisor for 12, and the crime statistics from 30 years ago are pretty much the same they are now. Not a whole lot happens. It’s probably why the show wasn’t filmed here.
The Easttown depicted in the TV show, there are multiple homicides, kidnappings, drug abuse problems. It features a lot of people whose families seem to be in tension and falling apart. It does not depict a very sunshiny Easttown.
We have a good real estate market, new home construction, resale. People want to live here, and what you hear most often about is a lack of crime, but probably more often than that is the quality of the schools. ... I know that the screenwriter-director lived here and went to school here and just bought a new home here. Maybe he was trying to relive something from his past.
To me it sort of seemed like a play on words, the mare, M-A-R-E, makes one think that this is about the Devon Horse Show. But it isn’t. To my knowledge.
In the TV show, one of the plot points of Kate Winslet’s character is that she hit a game-winning shot at a legendary basketball game 25 years ago, and that’s what people remember her for. Locally, is that something that you remember — sports accomplishments of local people 25 years ago? It’s a pretty common TV trope, and I wonder how realistic you think that is.
It’s pretty realistic. Some friends of mine that I grew up with, usually one of the topics of conversation is so-and-so running back from the local high school went on to the Eagles, so I would say that’s true.
Is there anything else you would want people out there to know about Easttown?
We feel honored that our name is being thrown out there. I think everybody is proud of that fact. ... It’s a very friendly, sort of low-key suburban Philadelphia township. I wouldn’t say that nothing happens here, but very little. ... I’m trying to figure out how to fund the fire department and those kinds of things.
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