Critic Reviews
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A master class. .... Pelphrey, his eyes staring into nothingness, and Ruffalo, his shoulders hunched beneath the weight of the world, are outstanding, as are the supporting players, embodying gritty souls caught up in unforgiving machinations — until there is, somehow, some forgiveness. Ingelsby understands that the extremes of the crime genre provide the perfect basis for searing human drama, provided they’re handled with skill and conviction. “Task” has more than enough of both.
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Sep 10, 2025Together, they [Ruffalo and Pelphrey] elevate “Task” into something that resonates far beyond its procedural frame.
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Enriched by regular moments of grace, “Task” still moves at an engrossing, steady pace. Ingelsby preserves the thrills of a relentless investigation while foregrounding his ensemble’s relatable — often painfully so — experiences with guilt and forgiveness.
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Mare of Easttown’s creator has crafted another riveting HBO crime drama in Task, packed with emotional complexity and powerhouse performances.
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Perhaps the best crime thriller of the year, it’s also a validation of the seven-, eight-, or nine-part TV series.
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Every last frame becomes naturally compelling and leaves viewers wanting more after seven episodes. Task proves that the HBO + Ingelsby formula is one of modern television's safest bets. It's hands down the best drama series of the 2026 Emmy pool and a can't-miss show this September.
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The performances, consistently lived-in and assembled by casting director Avy Kaufman, are what weave the many threads into a tapestry. .... 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.
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Like Mare, but slightly more elegant in its plotting, Task uses the detective-story format and the specificity of its rural Pennsylvania setting to explore elemental human problems. .... Ingelsby’s latest makes an astute study of guilt, revenge, and forgiveness.
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Like “Mare,” it’s a polished act — from the directing and writing to the career-high performances from a perfectly selected cast.
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There's not an ounce of levity or joy to be found in "Task," as dour a crime drama as its HBO predecessor "The Wire," and just as morally complex. .... You can't look away while waiting to see if either of them will find it [freedom].
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As strong as it is as a crime thriller, it's even better as a study of the lives at its core, thanks to remarkable work from Ruffalo and Pelphrey. Both bring sensitivity and tenderness to characters whose circumstance would make it easy for them to surrender to hardness and despair.
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Where Mare Of Easttown was a show about motherhood, repression, and redemption, Task seems interested in fatherhood, faith, and grief. Those are slightly more common themes for the crime-drama genre. But this premiere suggests Ingelsby has a perspective (and a cast) that could make them feel fresh again.
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A nice reminder that while HBO has found both popular and critical success with its dragons and fungus zombies, it’s also still one of the few places you can see a story like this being told: Smart, powerful, and worthy of your full attention.
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“Task” proves engrossing and propulsive throughout, a smart, generally sophisticated crime drama, although there are a few too many moles and turncoats that detract from a story that otherwise feels authentic.
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You’ve seen this kind of show before, probably many times – but Task’s compelling characters, patient writing and undercurrent of emotion help it stand out from the crowd.
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Task will put your attention span through its paces, but stick with it – you will be rewarded.
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Even if it doesn’t prove as compulsive viewing as Ingelsby’s previous work, Task is grown-up, sophisticated, well-made drama.
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The plotting is serviceable, the pacing is glacial and the presence of two single fathers grappling with grief, guilt and fury means the doomy darkness can feel overwhelming. This could do with some of Mare’s warmth and levity (remember those fart jokes?), but the depth and texture of the drama are spellbinding.
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“Task,” the latest from “Mare of Easttown” creator Brad Ingelsby, is simultaneously more disciplined and haphazard than its 2021 predecessor. The heist piece is straightforward, but at times the fallout distractingly jumbles the puzzle. Even so, the cast’s superb performances easily overcome those flaws to produce a story that’s more emotionally resonant and fulfilling.
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Though it can sometimes feel like a task to keep returning to this downbeat world, Task rewards the viewer with emotional payoffs that are as likely to lift as break the heart.
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For all my reservations when it comes to this sort of drama, it’s very well made and very well acted, and, where many crime stories settle for sensational nihilism, “Task” does want to leave you feeling … pretty good. Not horrible. Hopeful.
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“Task,” premiering Sunday on HBO, isn’t a sequel to “Mare,” but it is set in the same universe of rural, depressed Pennsylvania. And it’s a worthy follow-up, with a steady lead performance from Mark Ruffalo and several breakout turns from the sprawling supporting cast.
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It’s a feedback loop of gloominess, that turns the process of watching early episodes feel like trying to walk up a muddy hill in the middle of a downpour. .... That said, just as Mare came together satisfyingly in the end, the last three episodes of Task are very strong as both suspense and character studies.
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This show isn’t perfect, but I keep finding myself willing to forgive Task its trespasses thanks to all of the other miracles it pulls off.
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Yet for all its high-intensity action, it's in the show's quieter moments where Ruffalo, Pelphrey, and the rest of the talented ensemble cast leave a lasting impression, emotional ripples that reverberate long after the initial impact has faded.
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It may not produce the same fervor as “Mare” by virtue of not having a mystery waiting to be solved in the final episode, but it’s a reminder of how well HBO can do this kind of thing when a perfectly cast ensemble is invigorated by the craft and the writing around them.
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The show wants to walk its characters through every station of the cross, but it too often strives for intensity and winds up merely glum. The schlubby, inward-looking torpidity of Ruffalo’s performance doesn’t help quicken the pulse. (It’s tempting to think what kind of electricity Michael Keaton, who was initially cast in the part, might have brought to it.) But Pelphrey brings a wounded soulfulness to his working-class striver,
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Ruffalo and Pelphrey are fine actors who elicit sympathy for their characters, and you will root for both them if you stick it out for the full seven episodes. But the pace is slow and the set-up too long.
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What’s frustrating is that while Tom and Robbie’s dance of evasion and investigation gets more predictable, the series’ performances get richer, so Task teeter-totters on an imbalance of story and ensemble.
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[Pelphrey's] frazzled and desperate performance outshines everything else in Ingelsby’s latest, and if it can’t compensate for the show’s shortcomings, it nonetheless makes it worth sticking with until (almost) the end.
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In the end, “Task” is neither disaster nor triumph. It’s a competent crime drama elevated by its lead performances, but one that rarely rises above its formula. HBO has built its reputation on redefining the genre; here, it’s content to simply reheat it.
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Task’s suspense sequences, as in a home invasion and a protracted chase through a forest, are nothing short of gripping. But as the character-driven panorama that the series spends most of its time trying to be, Task focuses on all the wrong things, with broad traits used to sketch its characters, who are mostly saddled with quirky backstories.
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That Task has no answers for the biggest existential questions it raises, about the purpose of suffering or what we’re meant to do with it, is no big sin. That makes it admirably ambitious and touchingly human. That the show gets so lost in the misery that it seems to forget why it went looking for it in the first place is the letdown.
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Task, by contrast [to Mare of Easttown], is relentlessly bleak, humourless and narratively airless.
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