This post contains spoilers from Task season 1 episode 1 on HBO from this point forward.
Without question, Mare of Easttown fans immediately pressed play on the new HBO limited series Task from creator and writer Brad Ingelsby. The series stars Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey in a compelling and captivating cat-and-mouse chase that plays out effortlessly over a slow pace and a sudden commotion of action that raises the stakes to unexpected heights.
Taking place in Philadelphia, Task centers on troubled FBI Agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo), who's widowed and struggles with alcoholism. His daughter rarely wants much to do with him or the case surrounding her older brother, which still has yet to be fully revealed and unraveled. He drinks himself to sleep then wakes up and dunks his face into ice water before work.
On the other hand, there's fellow working man Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), a garbage man and father of two young children who lives with his 21-year-old niece Maeve (Emilia Jones). He grieves the loss of his brother and remains optimistic after his kids' mother walked out on them. But he keeps busy at night by robbing the Dark Hearts motorcycle gang. His moves have caught the FBI's attention.
Tom leads a task force to investigate the robberies
Once informed by Kathleen McGinty (Martha Plimpton), Tom begins working on cleaning up the rundown house the FBI has secured as the task forces headquarters. The team consists of the focused Aleah (Thuso Mbedu), the chaotic Lizzie (Alison Oliver), and the overachieving Anthony (Fabien Frankel). They're not immediately friends, but they will get the job done.
Before Robbie's robberies go sideways at the end of the episode (foreshadowing!), the task force is already trying to figure out what's going on and who's behind it. An average, working-class family man probably isn't high up on their radar, even though his friend Cliff (Raúl Castillo) alludes to the fact that they have both gotten into some trouble in the past. But Tom has enough problems.
It's hard to watch Tom fall so far into a bottle during this episode, and it's even harder to see that his daughter Emily (Silvia Dionicio) isn't fazed by helping him upstairs into bed and making sure that he sleeps on his side. Somehow, he's able to quickly rally in the morning and make it to the newest crime scene connected to the robberies. This time, the robbery went completely south and took lives.
Robbie's latest robbery turns into a triple murder
In the final act of the pilot episode, Robbie calls on Cliff and Peaches (Owen Teague) for an ambitious robbery. When they break into the house, the tie up the man and woman and cover their mouths with duct tape. The trio wears masks and demands that the couple hands over their money earned from recent drug deals. But while searching for the money, the couple gets loose.
And when they get loose, all hell breaks loose. They're able to get their hands on a gun, and Peaches is the first one to be shot and killed in the hallway. Over the chaos of the music that has been turned all the way up, struggles ensue between Robbie and Cliff and the couple. However, Robbie and Cliff survive the struggle, but both the man and the woman are killed.
This is not how Robbie wanted the robbery to go down, but he stays levelheaded. Before they can leave the house, a child comes out from the basement thinking he heard fireworks. When Tom and task force arrive to investigate the scene, they see the child's sleeping arrangements, but he's not at the house. That's because Robbie brought the young boy home with him.
Throughout the episode, the tension builds as Robbie's personal motive for raiding the Dark Hearts gang comes into view and his insistence on following this path becomes unsustainable. He's risking everything, including his children, and taking advantage of Maeve. But the personal journeys of Tom and Robbie leading toward their eventual collision is the real nail-biter.
New episodes of Task air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.