Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 8, 2025
Appointment viewing on Sunday night HBO Max has returned in the form of Task, the latest series from Brad Ingelsby, the guy behind Mare of Easttown. Like Mare of Easttown, Task is set in Pennsylvania and involves another criminal investigation. This one, however, feels less mystery and more cat-and-mouse. Task presents both sides of the investigation — the FBI and the criminals — but we know that one side is invariably going to lose, and it’s usually the criminals.
What Ingelsby has done here, however, is give us “bad guys” we can empathize with. Tom Pelphrey (Ozark, Outer Range) plays Robbie, a garbage collector who — along with his best friend and co-worker, Cliff (Raúl Castillo, Looking) — robs stash houses at night. They use their day jobs to surveil Philly drug houses, then sneak in at night wearing sinister Halloween masks to rob them.
Pelphrey has those Taylor Kitsch eyes and a kind countenance that makes him easy to align with, notwithstanding a temper. He’s also got baggage — his brother was killed, and his wife left him a year earlier, leaving him as a single father to his own kids and his brother’s oldest daughter, Maeve (Emilia Jones), the 21-year-old niece who essentially takes care of the family. Cliff, meanwhile, is a loyal best friend with an easy way about him. Despite the fact that they rob drug houses at night, it’s hard not to root for soft-hearted Pennsyltucky hicks who’ve spent their lives as victims of their own socioeconomic circumstances.
On the other side, there’s Tom (Mark Ruffalo), an FBI agent grieving his own family tragedy, the circumstances of which remain somewhat vague after the opening episode. Tom is left to raise his adopted daughter alone, which proves difficult with all the drinking. Like Robbie, Tom is another broken man. He’s forced back into the field by his boss Kathleen (Martha Plimpton) and assigned a young, inexperienced task force to take down the stash house robbers. That mission takes on new urgency by the premiere’s end when a robbery goes bad, people are killed, and a young boy is kidnapped. Everyone is left in quite the predicament.
The drawback to removing the mystery element is that Ingelsby risks writing himself into a corner where the cat-and-mouse between Robbie and Tom must sustain the limited series. That said, there seems to be plenty of complicated relationship dynamics to keep things moving (between Tom and his daughter; between Robbie and his niece Maeve; between Tom and his new task force; and between Tom and Robbie, who at least share their brokenness). We’re dealing with a lot of flawed individuals here and a tone similar to the bleak Mare of Easttown, but it’s hard not to feel torn by the competing interests of both sides, particularly when Maeve and Emily are also in the mix.
It’s good TV, it’s got another great Caamp song to set the mood, and it’s headed toward invariable heartbreak, probably for everyone involved. That’s what fall television is all about.
