After a strong second episode, Task backs down on its most compelling elements and works overtime to set up what will inevitably be its second wind. Mare of Easttown was often like this, too, continually rewriting its rules as it went, but Task usually feels top-heavy with exposition, relying too heavily on its powerhouse actors. The beginning of the episode starts with Robbie explaining to Maeve that he’s targeting the Dark Hearts because they killed his brother (her father). We also learn who the mole in the Dark Hearts is, Eryn (Margarita Levieva), a scrappy woman with long, beautiful hair and a snakebite piercing. She’s also the partner of the Dark Hearts’s leader, Jayson. She wants revenge on the gang for killing her lover, Robbie’s brother, hence why she’s working with Robbie’s crew. The problem is that the Dark Hearts now know there’s a mole. How long does she have to live? The odds aren’t great. Robbie and Cliff hope they can use a back channel to offload their fentanyl haul, perhaps through the shady-seeming Ray, a former cellmate of Cliff’s.
Of course, the gang has its own problems. Freddie Frias is a rival Black gang leader whom they want to recruit to be on the lookout for their stolen fentanyl. He jokes about the “Halloween crew” that’s been knocking off their houses. Instead of immediately agreeing to help them, he tells them a story. No white knucklehead wants to buy from him. Once, white drug dealers in the Dark Hearts even pissed all over him. If they want his help, he wants 50 percent or to piss all over them. Later, Tom and Grasso try to tell the gang they have a leak, only to be dismissed.
The task force has its hands full, too, which finally gives us a bit more character development for our motley crew. Aleah and Lizzie try to get information from the deceased Peaches’ co-workers. When they’re bullied by a man who says he’s “looking for a pair of tits because I don’t see one between the two of ya’s,” Aleah quickly puts him in his place, reminding him they have federal jurisdiction. Lizzie, however, can’t quite hold her own during the encounter. When one of the men later squeals for a cash reward, he leads them to Cliff’s house.
Unfortunately, Ray beat them to it. He wants the drug haul for himself. He knocks Tom down the stairs when Lizzie hesitates to stop him and flees on foot. Aleah and Grasso end up saving Lizzie’s ass and capturing the hoodlums. She’s on thin ice and knows it. She’s the weak link, the pipsqueak, snickerdoodle, Stovetop. She ends up getting a drink with Grasso that almost seems like a date until some old friends dunk on her in front of him. In response, as he gets ready to exit the bar, Grasso makes a toast for one of the best women in blue he knows. A cop show a few years ago wouldn’t have felt such a need to point out there are “good” and “bad” cops, but Grasso’s toast is littered with such euphemisms. (To which I say: ACAB.)
Aleah is the one who gets to the bottom of Ray’s link to Sam’s kidnapping and the Dark Hearts murders. She interrogates his wife with Lizzie, who once again makes an awkward blunder when she brings in Tajin peach rings for Ray’s wife. Her line delivery as the incompetent fool is incredible. Aleah, meanwhile, divulges the harrowing story of her past experience with domestic abuse. She drives the knife in and gets Ray’s wife to crack by talking about her broken cheekbone and eye socket. She even wrote her Social Security number on the bottom of her shoes in case she was murdered and her mom needed to identify her. It’s a powerful scene about domestic power dynamics, the kind Task could use more of.
The best part of the show remains its women. Inglesby writes sensitive but flinty women with a gentle yet edgy, masterful touch. One of the strongest scenes in this episode is Maeve teaching the unknowing captive Sam how to swim. Or she starts to at least. In a beautifully shot green forest, she helps him learn to float like a starfish. She tells him how her dad just threw her in so she would be forced to learn. “Please don’t do that to me,” he squeaks. Instead, she gently helps him by slowly removing her arms as he starts to float. “You’re a better teacher than your dad,” he says. “That’s the thing about getting older,” she responds. “You get to choose what you take from your parents and what you leave behind.”
At home, Tom’s struggling with the upcoming sentencing hearing for his adopted son. He doesn’t feel like he can ever forgive him for killing his wife. Of course, in dramatic fashion, Emily overhears this discussion but hides instead of calling him out. Later, he dreams of the day he and his wife, played by Mireille Enos, welcomed their adopted children home. It harkens to the brief, frantic, surreal flashbacks in Mare of Easttown. Enos, of course, is famous for her own impeccable starring role as the troubled detective Sarah Linden in The Killing. So far, this seems like a waste of her talent.
When a knock wakes Tom, he’s given a startling revelation by a fellow cop. There’s a mole in his task force. At least we have another liar to find.
Accidental Leaks
• The sighting of Bald Ann Dowd, a.k.a. Alison Sivitz, at the Task premiere a few weeks ago suggests the show may enter The Discourse, though it might be too soon to tell. I’m not seeing many X or Instagram baddies talking about this one, and I’m still on the fence about whether or not this show will rise to the heights of Mare. Perhaps that one was just right for the lockdown blues of 2021.
• Emily visits her brother Ethan in prison, and he’s … not doing well. He’s distressed, dissociated, and depressed.
• Sara is having marital issues. She tries to complain about her family while drinking red wine, but her husband just wants to define the relationship.
• Line-read award: Grasso: “How stupid do you think we are?” Ray: “On a scale of one to two?” Also, Lizzie, drunkenly making fun of her fellow agent: “More like grassa-no-pussy or grassa-getsa-no-assa.”