Julianne Nicholson is taking on a new challenge.
More than five years after Mares of Easttown ended, she will reprise her role as Lori Ross, a friend of Kate Winslet’s Mare, in the second season of the detective drama Tusk, a surprise crossover between Brad Ingelsby’s two dramas.
HBO announced the news in a post on Instagram on July 9th, calling it a “plot twist.” “Julian Nicholson joins #Task Season 2.”
While revealing Nicholson’s casting and, by extension, the crossover, the streamer shared a photo of Nicholson in the post, along with a split-screen photo of Nicholson looking through binoculars with Mark Ruffalo playing his character on the mission, FBI agent Tom Brandis, and a still of Nicholson from Mares of Easttown.
The post also featured a clip of Nicholson’s character Lori being introduced during a small-town basketball game, with the words “Julian Nicholson joining Tusk Season 2” above the footage.
Tusk, which just received six 2026 Emmy nominations, and Mare of Easttown are both created by Ingelsby and set in the Philadelphia suburbs, but it wasn’t revealed until now that they were set in the same world.
