This article contains spoilers for HBO’s Task.
Task is HBO‘s latest limited drama series, and it already has people buzzing. Starring Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey, Task is about an FBI effort to end a string of violent robberies in the Philadelphia suburbs. Many of HBO’s most captivating miniseries are based on true stories, and Task is no exception, to a degree… As opposed to a retelling of a true-crime story, creator Brad Inglesby was inspired by real people, dilemmas, and emotions that were used to inform the development of the main characters. If you are familiar with Mare of Easttown, another show created by Inglesby, you know that he excels at the intersection of crime and character study. Read on to find out the real-life details behind this exciting new seven-episode thriller before new episodes release on Sunday nights.
What Is ‘Task’ About?
Tom Brandis (Ruffalo) was a priest in a past life, but now he’s an FBI agent, a single father, and an alcoholic. In Task‘s pilot episode, Brandis is called into his captain’s office (Martha Plimpton) and told that he has to lead a new task force dedicated to investigating a series of home invasions. Brandis is not exactly elated — task forces are always a pain, and he is assigned a team of three young, relatively inexperienced officers. These particular robberies are targeting drug dens, with the perpetrators wearing Halloween masks as they restrain everyone on the premises and steal all the money. Most importantly, the robberies have inspired retaliation from the other side, and the bodies have started piling up.
Of course, we as the audience know the identity of these masked bandits, because their ringleader is our other main character, Robbie (Pelphrey). Another single father and a garbageman, Robbie has difficulty getting his life together in a completely different way. His wife, Karen, left him to care for his three children, a responsibility which he defers to his 21-year-old niece, Maeve (Emilia Jones). Living in what is technically Maeve’s house (left to her after the death of Robbie’s brother), Robbie conducts elaborate and brutal robberies of these local drug dens with his best friends, Cliff and Peaches. Episode 1, “Crossings,” leaves off on the cliffhanger of a job gone incredibly wrong, leaving Peaches dead and Robbie and Cliff with an unexpected fourth child to watch over.
As of the first episode, Robbie and Brandis have not crossed paths, but they are clear foils and complements of each other as two tragic men in opposite positions of power. As Inglesby described it, these are two people on a “collission course.” Task shows that there is more than meets the eye to the people who commit violent crimes and the people who investigate them, digging into the moral complexity that was also integral to Mare of Easttown. Task seems to be, among many other things, an examination of fatherhood, masculinity, and duty, and it shines most not in its action-packed moments (which are also very good), but in its intimate, philosophical scenes.
Real-Life Inspiration
These human-centered moments are also where the show most strongly draws from reality. For one, Inglesby was particularly inspired by his actual uncle when writing the character of Tom Brandis. In an interview with Collider, Inglesby said about his uncle, “He left the priesthood…and me being very interested in that idea of faith and his relationship to faith, and that idea of sort of having faith and losing faith, and that really informs Mark’s character in the show and what his view of faith is in the midst of this tragedy.” It’s easy to see how these overarching ideas of faith play into even the first episode of Task.
Inglesby says that the character of Robbie was also inspired by his reality, but in a less personal way. According to Collider, “The other part of it is just having a conversation with our tech advisor one time. I don’t even know what spurred it, but we were talking about a crime or something like that, and he was saying the people that actually know the most about you and are the most invisible are our mailmen — they come through your neighborhood every single day; they know your building — and trash men because they’re going through your trash every week. They’re coming around once or twice a week. So, that idea was very interesting to me. I feel like we hadn’t seen it before, a trash man who was involved in this scheme.” Inglesby was fascinated by these “invisible” people and even reportedly consulted with the FBI about their role in solving and perpetrating crimes.
Needless to say, Task promises to be a surprising and stimulating drama. While the series promises to stay surprising week after week, you can also expect it to be grounded in truth.
Task is now streaming on HBO Max.
