'Task' Recap: Confession Is for Humans

Major spoilers for Task

For Robbie, it was never about revenge. It wasn’t even about settling scores, though that isn’t entirely clear until well after Robbie has died. For him, it was about bettering, if not his own life, then Maeve’s and his children’s. And what better way to do that than to take from the people who took from him and from Maeve?

Jayson killed his brother, so stealing from Jayson and the Dark Hearts made karmic sense. He couldn’t make Maeve whole, but he could compensate her, and in doing so, he could also endanger Jayson’s life, thereby protecting Eryn, who’d also had Billy Prendergrast taken from her. Robbie never meant to kill anyone, Jayson included, because the Dark Hearts would’ve handled that for him.

And it might have worked, too, if everyone had stayed on their side of the fence. But Grasso was working both sides. He got Cliff killed by steering the Task Force to the wrong park, and he got Lizzie killed because he wouldn’t take out Jayson and Perry. Eryn died protecting Robbie from the Dark Hearts, and Robbie died trying to give Maeve and his kids back the life they’d lost when Billy died.

F**king Grasso.

Robbie wanted to take the money he and Cliff stole from the Dark Hearts and start a new life for his family elsewhere. But at a certain point — probably after Cliff was taken and he realized Ray had double-crossed him — he knew the plan wouldn’t work. Still, he could do some good. He gave the drugs to Shelley, who sold them, kept part of the money to escape Ray, and left the rest with Maeve. If he couldn’t protect Eryn from Jayson, he could at least protect Shelley from Ray.

The plan was to use a decoy bag that Jayson and Perry thought contained drugs, lure them to the river, and toss it, letting them believe the drugs were gone. But Tom showed up at the wrong time, and Robbie had to bring him along. The Task Force and the Dark Hearts converged on Robbie simultaneously, and Jayson just couldn’t help himself — he took a shot at Robbie, sparking a shootout. Kathleen was shot in the shoulder. Lizzie was run over and killed by Jayson and Perry. Robbie killed a random Dark Heart to save Tom’s life and, after tossing the decoy bag in the river, was stabbed to death by Jayson. He died in Tom’s arms as Tom tried to get him to the hospital in time.

Robbie was a good man who made bad decisions for the right reasons. But that money made it to Maeve, by God. Hopefully, she can use it to start a better life for herself and Robbie’s kids.

But it won’t be easy. Jayson and Perry found the decoy bag and know that someone still has either the money or the drugs, and Maeve is the only logical suspect. But they’ll have to get past Tom, who’s also onto Grasso, who’s now under investigation since it’s not the first time he’s tipped off the Dark Hearts.

It also leads to one of the series’ best exchanges, when Grasso — knowing Tom is onto him and wracked with guilt over Lizzie’s death — asks Tom about confessions: “Do all those sins [one admits during confession] just disappear like they never existed? ‘Cause God don’t seem like someone who forgets, right?” he asks sitting across his dining room table from Tom while smoking a cigarette. “So is it like, when you finally stand before Him, He’s all, ‘Well, we said they were forgotten, but now that you’re here, Anthony, we got some things to talk about’?”

“Confession is for humans,” Tom says in his own measured way. “It’s a human practice to help us deal with shame. Confession isn’t for God’s sake. If you want to be forgiven, all you have to do is ask.”

In next week’s finale, I hope Grasso asks God for forgiveness … while choking to death on his own blood.