I enjoyed Mare of Eastown. I think. My memory doesn’t expand past my previous sentences. But Kate Winslet, weird-voiced, vaping, I felt represented.
HBO’s Task, created by the Mare of Eastown team, stars Mark Ruffalo, as Tom Brandis—FBI agent going through it.
The nun, turned FBI college career day recruiter; temporary respite from the field following a family tragedy. Tom Brandis—thrust back into action, a wave of Philly trap houses robbed, all operated by the Dark Hearts—notorious, powerful motorcycle gang of Nazis, abusers and losers.
Tom Plephrey plays Robbie Prendergrast—Frank Abagnale Jr. to Ruffalo’s Carl Hanratty; avenging his brother’s death, beaten to death by the local Dark Hearts chapter.
Brandis is given a task force, 4 amateurs—one, terrified of physical conflict—an abandoned, dust-masked safehouse, perhaps intentionally set up to fail.
Episode 3 births a mole. The Dark Hearts spoonfed info only privy to the task force.
Oh, did I mention the missing child?
Criminal mastermind, Robbie Prendergrast, in his final heist, killed the parents of a young boy, stole a duffel bag of fentanyl, no cash in sight, abducted the little rascal, along with all the fent, gave the orphan a bed, unable to release the lad back into the wild as he now knows the address of his captor.
Tom Brandis, assigned a group project with hogged hyenas, must find a child in a race to arrest the trap house thieves before the Dark Hearts serve their own personal justice, a rat tipping all his pitches.
Edge-of-your-seat, heart-pounding, no idea where my phone is, nothing else matters outside of this cat and mouse (and rat)-sounding story, right?
Kinda.
A potential fast-paced thriller, moseying along, strolling, whistling, no urgency in sight.
Brandis has an adopted daughter, conflicted, hopes of helping lower her brother’s jail sentence, doubts from her father’s willingness to allow him a long residency in-cell. A criminal desperately dodging the cops and the mob, interrupted by heavy-handed therapy scenes.
A child is missing. A gang is preparing retaliation. People are dying. Daily.
We are in the height of an emergency. Stakes atmospheric.
And we must watch two members of the task force, Grasso and Lizzie, court each other with cute little nights out. FBI knows of Robbie’s partner in the heist. Not one of them visits his place of work, the garbage job he works with Robbie— instead, Grasso asks Brandis, the former nun, about his faith.
I signed up to watch an HBO drama. No stranger to character building. Bathe me in backstory, lather me in lore. Fill me in on all generational curses. You have my consent to world-build.
Character building can’t come at the expense of the plot. Not every story requires 8-10 hours to tell. Robbie feels cornered, enemies approach his front door, too busy negotiating whether or not he’s attending the father/daughter dance with his eldest.
We’re only 4 episodes in, episode 5 airing in a few. Perhaps this will pay off. I’m okay with being wrong. That’s my default setting.
But right now, I need this task force to lock in. You’re losing.
Thanks for reading.
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