If there’s anything that seems to preoccupy the TV work of writer-director Brad Ingelsby more than his native Philadelphia, it’s the wages of sin passed down from parents to children. Ingelsby entered HBO’s roster of auteurs with the 2021 series “Mare of Easttown,” for which Kate Winslet won an Emmy for her portrait of a grief-stricken cop looking into a young woman’s murder. Mare herself was in mourning for her son, who died by suicide before the events of the show; the case’s resolution — spoiler alert for a half-decade-old mystery — hinged on the child of Mare’s best friend and the violent lessons he learned from his father.
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With the limited series “Task,” Ingelsby once again returns to Philly’s exurban environs to follow a law enforcement officer in the long aftermath of a loss. But unlike “Mare of Easttown,” “Task” is not a character study dominated by a single protagonist, nor a whodunit. (Ingelsby pens most installments, sharing story credit on a few with David Obzud.) The seven-episode season is structured more like a cat-and-mouse pursuit between recently widowed FBI agent Tom (Mark Ruffalo) and garbage collector Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), who moonlights as the captain of a crew that’s been sticking up local motorcycle gang the Dark Hearts, thereby earning the feds’ attention.
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Much like the lawman drowning his sorrows in alcohol, a robber named Robbie with Robin Hood-like tendencies may trigger some knee-jerk skepticism from viewers wary of reductive tropes. Yet each performer enlivens a role that looks a bit beleaguered on the page. Ruffalo’s Tom was a priest before he took up his gun and badge and remains an avid bird-watcher after, implying a soulfulness that suits the tender-eyed actor. Meanwhile, it’s Pelphrey who inherits Mare’s iconic Delaware County accent, though he swaps his predecessor’s misanthropy for an infectious can-do optimism that sells his accomplices on the larceny scheme. A longtime TV journeyman, Pelphrey enters “Task” with a lower profile than a movie star like Ruffalo, but provides an equal counterweight to his more established foil.
“Task” is no more a two-hander, however, than it is Ruffalo or Pelphrey’s one-man show. It’s a true ensemble, taking its name from the cross-agency team Tom’s boss Kathleen (Martha Plimpton, flinty and fabulous) assigns him to lead; the new gig ends a stint manning career fairs, a desk job that allowed Tom to focus on his fractured family. (There’s a booth for Easttown PD at one, in a winking nod to “Mare.”) Tom’s charges include Lizzie (Alison Oliver, unrecognizable from “Conversations With Friends” and “Saltburn”), a sparkplug state trooper prone to freezing up in high-pressure situations; Anthony (Fabien Frankel, removing his “House of the Dragon” armor), a devoutly Catholic detective; and Aleah (Thuso Mbedu), a domestic violence survivor. Add in Robbie’s accomplices Cliff (Raul Castillo) and Peaches (Owen Teague), plus the rigidly hierarchical ranks of the Dark Hearts, and “Task” quickly sprawls into a broad cross-section of a regional underworld. The performances, consistently lived-in and assembled by casting director Avy Kaufman, are what weave the many threads into a tapestry.
What unites these disparate factions is the principal players’ role as caretakers at home, and their inability to shield their charges from the brutality they witness and enact at work. Tom and his adopted daughter Emily (Silvia Dionicio) still live in the same house, but they’re communicating across the chasm-like absence of both Tom’s wife Susan (Mireille Enos) and Emily’s brother Ethan (Andrew Russel), who’s been institutionalized at the start of the series. Robbie and his 21-year-old niece Maeve (Emilia Jones, who broke out in best picture winner “CODA”) have blended households after the death of Maeve’s father and abrupt departure of Robbie’s wife, the two struggling to co-parent Robbie’s kids even before a raid on the Dark Hearts goes terribly awry. (Robbie has a personal motive for going after the group that’s revealed over time.) Even within the biker gang, higher-up Perry (Jamie McShane) rides into town to bail out his protegé Jayson (Sam Keeley) when Robbie’s heists start taking their toll, scrambling to save Jayson from the ruthless discipline of their shared chosen family.
These competing agendas intersect in a series of nail-biting setpieces overseen by directors Jeremiah Zagar (“We the Animals”) and Salli Richardson Whitfield (“The Gilded Age”). It’s especially rewarding in these scenes for “Task” to explore all sides of the criminal-crime fighter divide, including the grey area in between where someone like Robbie resides. Like “Mare” before it, “Task” can be unrelentingly grim, and the shifts in perspective — if not tone — offer something of a reprieve as the walls close in on all the characters. “Task” traces parallel reckonings with the weight of fatherhood and the need to lighten the load for the next generation, by extreme means if necessary. The only solace, to us if not those muddling through, is that they’re not alone in their efforts.
The first episode of “Task” will premiere on HBO and Max on Sept. 7 at 9 p.m. ET, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Sundays.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the name of Fabien Frankel’s character.