‘Mare of Easttown’ Fans Debate Gun Plot Hole in Ending

While the Mare of Easttown series finale might have finally revealed who killed Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny), hardcore fans of the HBO series are still debating a few minor “plot holes” on Reddit. No, I’m not talking about what was the deal with Guy Pearce. (Guys, he was just a nice dude who was there to give Kate Winslet‘s Mare Sheehan some sweet, hot loving.) Apparently folks are a wee bit confused about the timeline of when Ryan Ross (Cameron Mann) stole the gun from old Glen Carroll (Patrick McDade). Is there a gun plot hole in the Mare of Easttown finale? Or did fans simply miss a line of dialogue or two?

HBO’s Mare of Easttown juggled the stories of Delco detective Mare Sheehan’s journey to finding peace in the wake of her son’s death by suicide and the harrowing murder mystery of Erin McMenamin. In the Mare of Easttown finale, it seems that Mare has finally figured out who killed the young teen mom: none other than John Ross (Joe Tippett), the husband of Mare’s best friend Lori Ross (Julianne Nicholson). John had been carrying on an illegal affair with the teen who happened to be his cousin’s only daughter. John explains to Mare that he was the real father of Erin’s baby and that she threatened to expose this truth, thereby destroying the whole family in the process. John claims that he went to meet Erin at Brandywine Park where she was unhinged and brandishing a gun. In wrestling it away from her, he accidentally killed her. All seems to be tied up but Mare notices a gun plot hole in John’s story. The gun that killed Erin was of a special make — a Colt Detective Special — and not just a normal gun as John recalled.

When Mare goes to check in on widower Glen Carroll, the man shows signs of grief-addled dementia. He tells Mare that things around the house have gone missing, including a Colt Detective Special that was gifted to him. The weird part was the gun went missing and seemed to be returned later. Hence Glen believes it’s just another symptom of his own senility. Mare’s ears prick up though when she realizes that Glen’s gun matches the one that killed Erin — and it disappeared on the night of the murder. When Mare plays back the security footage she suggested Glen set up in the very first episode of Mare of Easttown, she realizes that the suspect who stole the gun was Ryan Ross. John Ross was taking the fall for his son.

But is there another plot hole with regards to Ryan’s gun? After all, Glen says he noticed it was missing and later returned, but Ryan returns the gun a few hours after the murder. So is that a plot hole? Or what?

Well, no. There is no gun plot hole in Mare of Easttown. If you go back and listen to Glen’s story again, this is what he literally says to Mare: “Do you remember the morning you came over for my granddaughter and the prowler? Well I’d gone out to the shed and got the gun, so I know I had it then…But that night I heard a noise out in the shed, and I went out to get it and it was gone.”

Glen knew he had the gun the morning of Erin McMenamin’s death and when he checked the shed that night, the gun was gone. The noise Glen heard was likely Ryan leaving the shed behind. He didn’t check the shed again until a few days before his conversation with Mare in the finale. That means that Glen noticed the gun was gone in the few hours Ryan had it. He simply didn’t realize it had been returned until much later.

So, no, there is no gun plot hole in Mare of Easttown. At least that’s one thing Glen Carroll, revealed of affairs at funerals, got right.

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