Gender and Genre in "Made for Love" and "Mare of Easttown"

"Made for Love," which is now streaming on HBO Max, opens on a vast expanse of desert, empty save for a geometric building in the distance. A lid on the ground is unlatched, and out pops a woman in a sequinned dress, gasping for breath, her hair drenched with water and a little blood. The woman is Hazel Green, and she is portrayed by Cristin Milioti, a strongly expressive actor who has become known for deploying her feral intellect to outsmart male villains in science-fiction thrillers. If you have seen Milioti take down a video-game dictator in the "Black Mirror" episode "USS Callister," or hack a time-loop purgatory in the 2020 comedy "Palm Springs," then you might be able to guess the story of "Made for Love," even before Hazel raises her middle finger at the structure on the horizon. The place is clearly the source of some terror--one that is futuristic yet eerily familiar.