With 24 hours before the final episode answers all the riddles (we hope) on Monday, thriller queen CL TAYLOR explains why the ending is all-important — and looks at other shows that got the finale right, wrong and somewhere in between. Warning: Spoilers.At first glance Mare of Easttown is a sleepy provincial crime story — but this gripping and suspenseful drama has turned out to be anything but. With compelling mysteries at the heart of the show, and slowly building tension, Mare of Easttown has lured viewers in and kept them hooked. The first shock comes in the first episode when Pennsylvanian detective Mare, superbly played by Kate Winslet, realises that a year-old missing person case involving a young woman isn’t the only crime she has to solve when another body is found splayed across some rocks. That discovery, like many of the gasp-inducing moments in the show, occurs at the end of the episode. They keep the viewer desperate for more. There’s a shocking revelation about the dead young woman’s child, a professional blow for Mare as a result of her actions and a jaw-dropping disclosure about the fate of the missing woman. With each climactic cliffhanger and exposure the suspense builds as the viewer is drip-fed enough information to keep them guessing — but not enough to solve the cases before Mare does. The scene has been set for an explosive finale but will the series deliver? When you create a crime drama that thrums with suspense you need an ending that merits the build-up and leaves the viewer feeling satisfied. Some of these shows succeeded more than others: THE UNDOINGThe Undoing caused quite a stir, and not just because it starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. Viewers were gripped by this tale about a murdered woman, the paediatric oncologist who was suspected of killing her and his baffled psychotherapist wife. As the story progressed armchair detectives flooded the internet with their theories about who the murderer was and why the crime had been committed, plus some superb memes. But when the last episode aired, reactions were mixed. Psychological thrillers are known for their twists — but was this a predictable ending or a clever subversion of a trope? The jury is out. Try it and decide for yourself.THE MISSINGPossibly the only thing more disappointing than a predictable ending is an inconclusive one. In series one of crime drama The Missing, Tony and Emily Hughes are trying to discover what happened to their eight-year-old son Oliver who disappeared during a family holiday in France. Viewers were hooked as the suspense built around a child’s drawings, a bloodied shirt and a missing coin. The explanation for the child’s disappearance, when it was revealed, was disappointingly pedestrian and, even more frustrating, the last scene generated a lot of new questions that it failed to answer, forcing viewers to invent an ending for themselves.HAPPY VALLEYLike Kate Winslet’s Mare, Sarah Lancashire’s Catherine Cawood — the cop investigating the crime in Happy Valley — is a browbeaten, outspoken and relatable woman carrying around a huge amount of pain as a result of her child’s suicide. Eight years before the story starts her daughter Becky was raped, and subsequently killed herself. When Tommy Lee Royce, the man who raped Becky, is released from prison after serving time for drugs charges, Catherine becomes obsessed with finding him. But there’s a kidnapping case that also demands her attention. What made Happy Valley such compulsive viewing wasn’t just the tension, mystery and suspense but the character of Catherine Cawood and her gritty determination to see justice done. The ending was superb. Not only was it high-octane and explosive, but Catherine vanquishes her demons in a satisfyingly violent way. LINE OF DUTYThe driving mystery across twelve years, and seven series, of Line of Duty was ‘Who is H?’, the unknown police officer who was colluding with a criminal gang and causing all manner of problems for AC12, the police corruption unit. Over the course of the show an additional mystery ran through each series concerning a police officer who may or may not be corrupt. As stand-alones the series worked well, with satisfying endings that served the tension and suspense of the episodes (series 1 and 2 were particularly good) but when the overarching ‘Who is H?’ mystery was answered at the end of series seven, Twitter was awash in a sea of ‘Meh’. THE CRYAnother trope of the psychological thriller is the unreliable narrator and what an unreliable character we have in Joanna Lyndsey, the schoolteacher whose four-year-old son disappeared while Joanna and her husband Alistair were visiting family in Australia. Mired in what the viewer suspects is sleep exhaustion and post-natal depression, Joanna’s memory of what happened on that trip is cloudy. Initially blamed for baby Noah’s death, Joanna’s reaction when she discovers what really happened is hugely satisfying — not only for the heart-in-mouth way in which she elicits a confession from the real villain, then punishes him, but also for the disturbing twist at the end. Mare of Easttown is streaming now on BINGE. New customers get a two-week free trial.CL Taylor is a Sunday Times bestselling author. Her psychological thrillers have been translated into over 20 languages, and optioned for television. Taylor’s new thriller, Her Last Holiday, is available now in all good book stores.
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