Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 23, 2025
We’re three episodes into HBO’s Brad Ingelsby’s (Mare of Easttown) series Task, and what I love about it — besides Tom Pelphrey’s kind eyes and soft beard (it just looks soft, OK?) — is how deeply it pulls at us emotionally. It’s not just about moral gray areas. Task often asks us to root for characters who make bad decisions for good reasons, pulling both them, and us, into impossible binds.
Take Tom Pelphrey’s character, Robbie Prendergrast. He’s introduced as part of a three-man crew robbing stash houses. Robbery isn’t great, sure, but he’s targeting drug dealers. He’s also a trash collector who’s clearly been screwed by the system. His wife left him, his brother was murdered, and he’s raising three kids alone. So what if he steals from fentanyl dealers?
But what if, during one of those robberies, people get killed — both in his crew and the dealers — and a boy gets kidnapped? That’s a problem. But the drug dealers are white supremacists, the boy’s parents are dealers themselves, and the only reason Robbie took the kid was because he couldn’t bring himself to kill him. Oh, and the reason he’s robbing those stash houses in the first place? The gang leader is the man who murdered Robbie’s brother for falling in love with his girlfriend. That same girlfriend is now Robbie’s mole on the inside.
I mean, I’m clearly rooting for Robbie here, and not just because of the soulful eyes and gentle features (it’s obvious what Kaley Cuoco sees in him). He’s had a raw deal, and it’s not like he’s stealing from — or accidentally killing — good people.
But then there’s the task force led by Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo). Tom’s a drunk, a lousy father, and, worst of all, an FBI Agent. ACAB! But he also once trained for the priesthood, and the reason he drinks and neglects his adopted daughter is because his adopted son killed his wife. Brutal. I’d be a drunk, too. And here’s the kicker: that same son — who Tom still loves — is being sentenced for his mother’s death, and Tom has to decide whether to speak for or against him. Surely, the son is just a monster, right? Well, no. He suffers from a mental disorder, one his mother — Tom’s wife — spent years trying to treat.
And then there’s Emily (Silvia Dionicio), Tom’s other adopted daughter and the killer’s biological sister. She loves her brother but knows his illness makes him dangerous. Tom both loves and hates his son. Tom’s older biological daughter despises her brother for killing their mother but still loves Emily, even as she struggles to understand why Emily would support the brother at sentencing.
It’s a lot. And Brad Ingelsby wants it that way. Task isn’t about who’s good or bad, though the white supremacist biker gang is clearly evil, no nuance there. It’s about what people do when they’re trapped between a rock and a hard place. Do you simply let the system dictate justice, or do you try to weigh morality and compassion? That question may sharpen again if Tom Brandis is forced to work with the white supremacist gang to take down Robbie, the stash house robber. Where’s the justice in that?
That’s the brilliance of Task. It doesn’t just blur the line between right and wrong, it erases it altogether. Every choice feels both indefensible and inevitable, forcing us to sit in the same uneasy tension as its characters. By the time the system steps in, we’re left asking not who deserves punishment, but whether justice, in any recognizable form, is even possible.
