In “Task”, on the first Sunday on HBO, Brad Ingelsby, creator of the mini-series 2021 “Mare of Easttown”, which presented the wider world in Wawa and Delco Accent, returns with another story of crime and family in rural-suaburbains to the west of Philadelphia. Where women were at the center of the “mare”, men are the subject here – a cop and a criminal, symmetrically arrangement – of the middle age fathers who care about their children.
The two were loaded with tragedy. Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), whose woman took off a year before, has a very missed dead brother in the house he lives with his two children and young adult niece (Emilia Jones like Maeve, a secret hero); He is a garbage collector with a touchline to steal drug houses, which he identifies through their garbage. This routine was successful enough for him and his partner, Cadren Trashman Cliff (Raúl Castillo), attracted the attention of the authorities.
FBI agent Tom (Mark Ruffalo) has a dead wife (Mireille Enos, briefly seen in flashback), a son in prison that he cannot visit and a semi-eloiced adult girl (Phoebe Fox); On leave of work on the ground, he kept the table of agencies during the job fairs. This changes when his boss (Martha Plpton), to his great dissatisfaction, reminds him as a substitute to carry out a work force in drug flights, already assembled by his predecessor in other branches of the police. There is Lizzie (Alison Oliver), young and distracted; Aleah (Aino Mbedu), laconic and concentrated; And Anthony (Fabien Frankel), loose and Italian.
It clearly emerges from the firearms that the two parties are preparing and the fact that Robbie has stolen criminals – including a motorcycle -drug gang, The Dark Hearts, which has its own explosive internal business – that something is going to be deadly sooner or later. (If it is a spoiler, you have the chance of a special brand of naivety.) Bikers, which are not at all kind, although painted with recognizable human qualities – represented mainly by Jamie Mcshane as Perry and Sam Keeley as Jayson – are the usual screen collection of the exclusively Goodian team. (Ruffalo has gained weight for the role and wants you to notice.)
In “Task”, Robbie (Tom Pelphrey) is a single father who steals from other criminals.
(Peter Kramer / HBO)
Indeed, the predominant experience of looking at the “task” is waiting for the next terrible thing to happen, which can be called suspense or dramatic tension, but as regards an often depressing watch, especially since the safety (physical, psychological) of young children is involved. (It may feel a little cheap, dramaturgically, like endangering a kitten, but it works.) We are grateful for everything that is relatively ordinary – Lizzie and Anthony dancing in a bar, the younger girl of Tom, Emily (Silvia Dionicio) connecting with a colleague from Custard Ice Stand. (Another element for the regional reference bucket.)
In the structure of comparison and contrast of the series, we learn that Robbie, although he is a source of bad decisions, is the most optimistic and proactive of the two characters – he has a dream, in the form of a brochure, concerning a Canadian island, where he would like to spir his family. (He does the crime to afford it.) He is sufficiently interested in finding “a life companion” to open a meeting application. Tom, who had been a priest for eight years before losing his mind and joining the FBI, still in mourning for his wife, drinks too much, is to make a stomach and cannot connect with Emily, the only member of the family who remains in the house.
The two have links with nature. Tom, who cultivates vegetables, is an orbigator; Robbie keeps chickens. The two are essentially tender, which may not be the most practical quality for their professions, but necessary for history – we must love them. They are like a and a half side of the same medal.
Among the criminal buffoonery and the work of the police, there is a lot of life and death and God, guilt and forgiveness. Ingelsby thinks big. The title of an episode, “out beyond the ideas of reprehensible and right -wing acts, there is a river”, paraphrase the Persian poet of the 13th century Rumi, and water is a pattern – diving into it, swimming, dragging by it. Birds also, which appear in random plans and, like lakes and rivers, work as a kind of psychic relief for the spectator and the metaphors of history. When Tom, speaking to Robbie, identifies a certain bird as a “vagabond … A bird that moved away from its normal range, so far moved that it is forgotten to find its way”, which does not really concern birds. Writing can be a bit on the nose, but better a violent story with ideas than that without any.
For all my reservations regarding this kind of drama, it is very well done and very well played, and, where many crime stories are satisfied with sensational nihilism, the “task” wants to let you feel … quite well. Not horrible. Optimistic. I hope it didn’t spoil it for you.
