On "Task"

The latest crime miniseries from Brad Inglesby, best known for "Mare of Easttown," is "Task," about a law enforcement task force investigating a series of violent robberies in rural Pennsylvania.  The narrative is split about evenly between the two men who embody the two sides of the investigation.  FBI Agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) is charged with heading up the task force by his superior Kathleen McGinty (Marth Plimpton).  This is a ragtag group that includes a city cop, Aleah Clinton (Thuso Mbedu), a state trooper, Lizzie Stover (Alison Oliver), and a county detective, Anthony Grasso (Fabien Frankel).  Brandis is a widower, and we also look in on his complicated home life, involving his grown daughters, Emily (Silvia Dionicio) and Sara (Phoebe Fox).

Then there's Robbie Prendergast (Tom Pelphrey), who has been committing the robberies with his friend Cliff (Raul Castillo), specifically targeting trap houses run by a local motorcycle gang, the Dark Hearts.  Robbie has a grudge against Dark Hearts leader Jayson Wilkes (Sam Keeley) and his mentor Perry Dorazo (Jamie McShane), who don't take kindly to their drug running operations being disrupted.  Robbie's home life is also complicated, as he's currently living with his adult niece Maeve (Emilia Jones), who is looking after Robbie's young kids for him, but wants out as soon as possible.  For most of the series, the law enforcement and criminal characters don't interact, each pursuing separate goals and dealing with several smaller subplots.  Robbie's past and grudge against Jayson is dissected over multiple episodes.  Meanwhile, the task force soon discovers they have a mole in their midst.

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar and Salli Richardson Whitfield, "Task" is one of the best crime miniseries I've seen in a while.  It doesn't particularly strive for authenticity regarding law enforcement procedures, but rather it's aiming for a more genuine picture of the wider community.  This is a fairly rare thing in mainstream media.  Like "Mare of Easttown," most of the characters speak with Delco accents, nobody is very well off, and broken families are a major theme.  The cast is full of familiar names, and it's no wonder, because the material is fantastic and the characters are unusually nuanced and well written.  Tom Pelphrey and Mark Ruffalo give excellent performances as struggling fathers, but Emilia Jones is the one who really impressed me.  I've seen her in several other projects before this, including as the lead in "CODA," but "Task" is where she really got my attention, playing a young woman trying to hold her disintegrating family together, to her own detriment. 

What I value most about "Task" from a more meta standpoint is that it's not afraid to be a character drama about real people, and specifically real people who are not good at what they're supposed to be doing.  Robbie is a terrible criminal who botches a robbery so badly in the first episode that he instigates a manhunt.  Tom isn't a very good FBI agent either, and two of his team are downright incompetent at times.  However, these are all interesting, realistic people whose actions  do follow a sound internal logic when you get to know them.  Several of the storylines unfold like Greek tragedies or episodes of "The Wire," where wider systemic issues or personal flaws are what doom the characters.  I'll warn here that "Task" is a bleak story, featuring many deeply damaged people, and several of the deaths that occur are upsetting.  However, the ending is a hopeful one.  

I was initially hesitant about watching "Task," because I haven't had much interest in terrible stories about terrible people lately.  And that's not what "Task" is at all.  Yes, it's about crime and criminals, and there are scenes of violence.  However, its outlook is very humane and sympathetic to nearly everyone involved in the story on both sides.  And I find that a very valuable thing.  

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