We’re still waiting to find out if the excellent HBO series Mare of Easttown will ever get a second season, but the network’s new show Task looks, feels and sounds like the next best thing. That’s because it’s from Mare’s creator, Brad Ingelsby, who wrote all of the show’s seven excellent episodes.
Like Mare, Task is a crime drama set in working-class Pennsylvania. Mark Ruffalo stars as Tom, a former priest-turned-FBI agent who is investigating a series of increasingly violent robberies involving Robbie (Tom Pelphrey). Both cop and robber are similar — they are still recovering from the loss of a loved one and feel lost and empty. That doesn’t deter them from doing what they need to do to survive, which sets up a deadly cat-and-mouse game.
Task is a terrific thriller, but it’s also an engrossing character study of blue-collar professionals just trying to get by. The show’s moral compass isn’t black and white but rather shades of gray — Tom isn’t an angel, and Robbie is more sympathetic than you might think. Task is the perfect show to binge-watch this fall — it’s an intelligent, chilly drama that you can’t stop watching, even if some tense moments make you want to look away.
