'Task' review: 'Mare of Easttown' creator's new crime drama aches with familial grief

In 2021, Brad Ingelsby's limited HBO series Mare of Easttown cemented itself as much-watch TV: a relentlessly bleak crime drama whose high-profile cast made a meal of its meaty family dynamics. Now, Ingelsby is ready to do it all over again with his new series, Task.

Beyond Ingelsby's involvement, Task inevitably invites Mare of Easttown comparisons. Just like Mare of Easttown, it's set in Pennsylvania, and it's got the accents to make sure you never forget it. It also boasts a similarly stacked cast, with Mark Ruffalo taking over for Kate Winslet as Ingelsby's latest troubled investigator with a troubled family. And of course, it's bleaker than bleak.

But Ingelsby isn't rehashing Mare of Easttown, because Task isn't a murder mystery. Instead, it's a cat-and-mouse game where we follow both investigator and criminal: Ruffalo's priest-turned-FBI agent Tom Brandis is the former, while Tom Pelphrey's family man Robbie Prendergast is the latter.

More important to Ingelsby, though, is that we also follow both Tom and Robbie's relationships with their families. Ultimately, it's the juxtapositions and parallels between each family, along with Tom and Robbie themselves, that really make Task tick.

What's Task about?

Mark Ruffalo in "Task." Credit: Peter Kramer / HBO

Task establishes its cat-and-mouse duo long before their game actually kicks off. In a heavily intercut montage — the first of many for Task — we see Tom and Robbie preparing for their work days in the Philadelphia suburbs. Tom wakes up like he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders, heaving himself slowly out of bed before kneeling to pray. He goes on to douse his head in an ice bath and down several Advil on his way to work as an FBI recruiter. Clearly, he's numbing something, although Task isn't ready to tell us what quite yet.

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While Tom's morning routine is one of solitude and numbness, Robbie's revolves around his family. He wakes up alongside his young son Wyatt (Oliver Eisenson), then carefully carries him into daughter Harper's (Kennedy Moyer) room so that the two won't be alone while while Robbie is gone on his garbage route.

It's a sweet introduction, but it's not long before Task reveals that Tom and his coworker Cliff (Raúl Castillo) are using their garbage route as a way to pinpoint drug houses as targets for home invasions. And it's not long after that that the FBI brings a reluctant Tom back into the field to head up a task force — a group played by Thuso Mbedu, Fabien Frankel, and Alison Oliver — to investigate Robbie's crime.

Task is a gripping crime story because of its family angle.

Tom Pelphrey in "Task." Credit: Peter Kramer / HBO

As Tom and his team close in on Robbie, Ingelsby dials up the anxiety by emphasizing just how much Robbie's actions have impacted his children and his niece Maeve (Emilia Jones), the daughter of his late brother Billy. Originally, he'd hoped the money from the robberies would help them live a better life, but after a job gone wrong, he may very well have implicated Maeve in his operation — and risked tearing his whole family apart for good.

The Prendergast family dynamic comes together in mere moments during a dinner scene in episode 1, where overlapping threads of teasing and tension feel immediately lived-in. Particularly poignant is the relationship between Robbie and Maeve, who's had to grow up far too quickly in the wake of her father's death. Their shared grief lingers over their every discussion, often culminating in full-on screaming matches.

Contrast that with the Brandis family, who have suffered a similarly painful loss that has landed Tom's adopted son Ethan (Andrew Russel) in jail. There are no raucous dinners for Tom and his adopted daughter Emily (Silvia Dionicio). Instead, their grief manifests itself in silent nights apart, which Tom spends drinking heavily from a Phillies collectible cup, thinking that Emily doesn't notice. She does.

It's details like Emily's fixation on Tom's Phillies cup that make Task's families feel so authentic. That, in turn, makes Task's investigation feel even more stressful. Yes, the show is undoubtedly a police procedural, boasting its fair share of nail-biting shootouts and stakeouts. But it's a family affair first and foremost. If anything happens to Tom or Robbie, their families will be thrown into chaos. And after spending even a few minutes with these wounded characters, you'll want to fight tooth and nail yourself to prevent that from happening.

Task premieres Sept. 7 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, with a new episode every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.