Task, HBO’s new crime drama limited series from Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby that premieres on Sept. 7, is so good that it’s hard to review. I’m tempted to just list off all the ways that it’s great: The characters are so finely observed; the plot is so well-paced and thrilling; the cinematography makes the suburbs of Philadelphia look like the most verdant place in the world. The only nits I have to pick are that some elements of Mark Ruffalo’s character, a priest-turned-FBI agent dealing with some harrowing family problems, are a little unconvincing to me (but they still come together nicely in the end, and his performance is excellent), and that it’s not as funny as Mare of Easttown. But that’s it. It’s one of the best shows of the year, and is even better than Mare of Easttown in plot and scope. It doesn’t go as deep into the soul of a single fascinating, lifelike character as Mare, but that’s by design; it has two main characters. They’re two men on either side of the law who have a lot in common. I call it “Sad Heat.”
Ruffalo plays Tom Brandis, a paunchy, stoop-shouldered, beleaguered field agent who’s leading an interdepartmental task force investigating a string of drug house robberies. Tom Pelphrey — who, as Laura Linney’s mentally ill brother1, was the best part of Ozark when he was on it — plays Robbie Prendergrast, who’s leading those robberies. Robbie works as a garbage man, and identifies houses where drugs are being packaged through their trash, which is very smart. Both of them are fundamentally decent men who want what’s best for their families, and are both grieving recent losses of loved ones, to death and otherwise. They’re on a collision course, but you don’t want anything bad to happen to either of them. Tom is the show’s brain, and Robbie is its heart.
Beyond the two leads, it has a stacked supporting cast. Fabien Frankel, best known as whiny knight Criston Cole on House of the Dragon, demonstrates that he can be charismatic when given a more likeable part. He plays an endearingly guidoish detective named Anthony Grasso, who’s a member of the four-person task force with no-nonsense federal agent Aleah (Thuso Mbedu) and eccentric state trooper Lizzie (Alison Oliver). They’re all great.
But the breakout supporting character is Jamie McShane as Perry, a senior member of the Dark Hearts, a biker gang whose houses Robbie keeps hitting. Like Tom, Perry is also trying to find out who’s behind the robberies, but he’s going to do something different when he finds out. Perry is another fascinating, complex character. He’s menacing and explosively violent, but he’s not totally evil. You end up empathizing with the position he’s in, as he tries to protect the people he cares about as the walls close in on them all. A lot of the good stuff about the character is on the page, but McShane is clearly bringing some stuff that couldn’t have been written that way. There are scenes where he has emotional outbursts with a sensitivity that feels like the kind of thing where he did it like that during his audition, and it was different from how anyone else did it, and that’s how he got the part.
McShane is a “that guy” actor who’s most recognizable from Bloodline and Wednesday but has over 150 credits on IMDb. He was great recently as an evil U.S. Marshal on 1923. He’s been around for decades, but has not quite broken into the top tier of value-add character actors like Shea Whigham or Bill Camp — guys whose presence make you go, “Oh hell yeah, I love that guy.” But this might do it for him. He deserves an Emmy nomination for it. If I were ranking likely acting Emmy nominees for Task, I would go Ruffalo, Pelphrey (Ruffalo is more likely to be nominated, but Pelphrey is more likely to win, if that makes sense — you’ll get what I mean when you watch), Emilia Jones as Robbie’s niece Maeve, who is 21 and forced to be the only grown-up in the house, Mbedu, McShane, Oliver, and Frankel. But it’s definitely going to get some noms. Maybe not as many as Mare, because it doesn’t have a true “you gotta see this” performance like Kate Winslet’s.
It’s coming out at around the same time as another two guys limited crime series Emmys contender, Netflix’s Black Rabbit. I’m reviewing that one for TheWrap. It’ll be fun to see which one is the bigger hit. Laura Linney is directing two episodes of that one. It all comes back to Laura Linney.
I reviewed The Terminal List: Dark Wolf for TV Guide. It’s a Dad Show. I didn’t particularly like it. There’s a reason why Taylor Kitsch hasn’t become a big star but keeps getting chances at lead roles:
The Friday Night Lights veteran has struggled for his entire career to break out as a leading man, and Dark Wolf gives more evidence as to why: He is an overly laconic performer. He often plays characters who repress their emotions until they explode — most of the time, he comes off as inexpressive and aloof. That kind of inscrutability makes Kitsch shine as part of an ensemble or in supporting roles — his enigmatic performance as Edwards on The Terminal List gave the season a jolt of intrigue — but it makes him emotionally inaccessible as a lead. This is in marked contrast to Pratt (who appears as Reece in a few episodes of Dark Wolf and executive-produces), for whom a large part of his on-screen appeal is that you always know what he's feeling.
I’m also doing weekly reviews of Peacemaker Season 2 for Episodic Medium, which recently moved to Ghost. Subscribe over there.
Pelphrey and Ruffalo both had their breakout roles playing Laura Linney’s brother, which is a weird coincidence, innit. Whatever happened to the guy who played her mentally ill brother in Love Actually? He should be on Task, too.