Task – HBO Delivers a Gritty, Character-Driven Crime Drama

SERIES REVIEW – Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey deliver powerhouse performances as two men navigating opposite sides of the law. This is not just a crime thriller; it’s an unflinching character study where grief, survival, and moral compromise collide. The series builds nuanced portraits of its central figures while never letting go of its simmering tension. We watched the miniseries on HBO (Warner)’s official streaming platform, HBO Max.

It takes nearly five minutes before anyone utters a line, but by then the opening montage has already revealed volumes about the two leads. Tom (Mark Ruffalo) wakes to birdsong, tries to pray but can’t recall the gestures, then plunges his face into icy water as if steeling himself for combat. Robbie (Tom Pelphrey) wakes up, gently moves his child from the bed, and, like Tom, heads out for work.

Tom sits at a job fair booth, fielding questions about FBI careers. Robbie makes his rounds as a sanitation worker. By night, Tom drifts off clutching a Phillies souvenir cup brimming with vodka, listening to the ballgame. Robbie and his partner Cliff (Raúl Castillo) scout a house whose trash suggests a thriving drug trade. Their day ends on that ominous note.

Quiet Mornings, Ominous Nights

These are only the outlines; the finer details come later. Tom and Robbie may serve different masters, but their lives echo each other in striking ways. The series never collapses this into simple moral equivalence—Robbie’s choices quickly rule that out. But from the outset, both are painted as men doing their best to endure harsh realities. That truth defines them, whatever comes next.

The pacing is unhurried, which works to the show’s advantage. Creator Brad Ingelsby spins a narrative steeped in drugs and biker gangs lurking on the edges of Philadelphia (a city that’s already had a crime-drama spotlight this year thanks to Dope Thief). Betrayals, double-dealings, and fragile loyalties fuel the plot. But it’s just as much about the people ensnared in this world—their tangled histories, and the flickers of hope they cling to when the dust finally settles.

Crossroads of Fate

Tom didn’t start out behind a folding table. He was once a field agent, and before that, a priest. His devotion to his wife made him leave the church; her devastating death forced him off active duty. Now he’s recalled early, as masked thieves target drug dealers with uncanny precision. The culprits, of course, are Robbie, Cliff, and their sometimes accomplice Peaches (Owen Teague). Tom’s investigation seems destined to intertwine his fate with Robbie’s.

That convergence takes time, even after Tom forms a task force: the by-the-book Aleah (Thuso Mbedu), brash Anthony (Fabien Frankel), and Lizzie (Alison Oliver), who hides sharp instincts behind a scatterbrained exterior. Meanwhile, conversations with his daughter Emily (Silvia Dionicio) reveal Tom’s grief over his wife’s death. Robbie too carries death’s shadow—he shares a home with his niece Maeve (Emilia Jones), a young woman prematurely burdened with responsibility and grief after her father’s passing.

Fractured Bonds

The supporting cast is just as memorable: Martha Plimpton and Isaach de Bankolé leave an impression, while Jamie McShane is terrifying as the biker gang’s leader. Like Ingelsby’s Mare of Easttown, this series is steeped in a strong sense of place. But where Mare explored the ties that bound its heroine to her hometown, here the central figures seem close to severing all such bonds. Tom barely speaks, drinks heavily, and often needs his daughter to put him to bed. Robbie and Maeve’s household is a battleground. Long before the true danger arrives, both men are already teetering on collapse.

Across seven episodes, nothing comes easy. Robbie and Cliff’s home-invasion scheme unravels, Tom questions the loyalty and competence of his own crew, and the slow burn of the pilot gives way to an edge-of-your-seat sense of peril. At times, that peril proves fatal. Subplots emerge and resolve in ways both surprising and inevitable. As a crime thriller, Task is taut and absorbing. But as a study of two men fighting to hold onto their humanity, it’s even more powerful—thanks to Ruffalo and Pelphrey’s layered, tender performances. They resist the easy slide into cynicism, showing instead that the hardest fight is simply not to give in.

–Gergely Herpai “BadSector”–