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Task (2025)

2025 · Crime,Drama · crime-procedural, family-relational, contemporary-realistic

Task poster

Task is an HBO prestige crime drama in which an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) — a former priest wrestling with faith and a son in prison — leads a task force hunting a career criminal (Tom Pelphrey) who conducts violent robberies while raising his own children. The show runs dual storylines as moral mirrors, asking what separates justice from crime, and exploring how family obligation can simultaneously redeem and corrupt. Reviewers consistently liken it to the slow-burn moral intensity of True Detective Season 1 and the domestic crime register of Mare of Easttown. The tone is measured, serious, and emotionally demanding, with cinematography and acting singled out as best-in-class. It rewards patient, attentive viewers who appreciate character-driven prestige television over procedural mechanics.

From the reviewers

Ruffalo and Pelfrey give memorizing performances that you just can't stop watching.
A pitch-black crime drama owing not only to its dark subject matter, but also to the hush-hush hours of the night during which so much of the violence takes place.
The decision to portray the thieves almost (but not quite) as average Joes--at least at home--is interesting, and gives "Task" a family vibe it otherwise might have lacked.
There's a kind of moral ambiguity here, too: what are we to make of the fact--if we're to make anything of it at all--that the home invaders aren't ripping off law abiding citizens, but users and dealers and thugs?
Episode 1 frames Task as a moral thriller about faith, family, and blurred lines between justice and crime - setting up Tom and Robbie as mirror opposites destined to collide.

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