Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
[THEME MUSIC]
GLEN WELDON: The HBO series Task is a grim, but if you stick with it, a stealthily hopeful drama from the creator of Mare of Easttown. Like Mare, it's set in the Philly suburbs and features a great cast hurtling themselves against the Philly regional accent. But where Mare was a murder mystery, Task is a cat-and-mouse crime thriller featuring Mark Ruffalo as a world-weary FBI agent reluctantly dragged back into the field to investigate a series of crimes among rival gangs. There's drugs, stolen money, family drama, kidnapping, shootouts, grief, forgiveness, and of course, water ice. This is NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. I'm Glen Weldon. And we're talking Task.
WELDON: Joining me today is Wailin Wong. She's the co-host of NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money. Hey, Wailin.
WAILIN WONG: Hello from Lefty's Taproom.
WELDON: Excellent. Also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Welcome back, Roxana.
ROXANA HADADI: Thank you. Thank you so much.
WELDON: Of course. Let's get to it. In Task, Mark Ruffalo plays Tom, an FBI agent who's been assigned to a desk ever since his family was struck by a tragedy that's left him and his teenage daughter mired in grief. Tom Pelphrey plays Robbie, a sanitation worker who moonlights as a thief raiding drug houses for reasons of his own, reasons tied up with his own grief over the death of his brother. He lives with his late brother's daughter, Maeve, played by Emilia Jones, who's terrific. Robbie's wife has left him. Maeve is now very reluctantly taking care of his kids. Tom's boss, played by Martha Plimpton-- yay-- puts him in charge of a task force to investigate Robbie's drug raids. Task was created by Brad Inglesby. It's airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max. Wailin, did this hold any water for you?
WONG: [LAUGHS] Yeah, I really like this. I like the structure of it. You know, like you mentioned, it's a cat-and-mouse, not a whodunit. And in this case, it's, like, a three-way cat-and-mouse with a bit of "who's the mole" thrown in. So I really like that. I like the pacing and the kind of doling out of information. That worked for me. Performances really, really worked for me. Pretty much everyone to me felt like a complete human being. And the world felt really filled in. I loved the setting. I loved the kind of juxtaposition of, like, a very verdant Delaware County and quarries and woods with, you know, some grittier urban landscapes and kind of glum suburban strip mall settings. And I like that even small characters would get these moments that really made them feel like human beings that had a role to play in the story. The one thing I didn't quite like-- and we can probably talk about this later-- is I do feel like Mark Ruffalo's character's backstory is so sad in a way that I was like, oh, what? Like, we don't need this many sad things. We could have done a Coco Chanel thing and taken off one sad thing before he left the house. And the story, like, just, like, the thriller element of it, would have been perfectly nice and suspenseful and entertaining without, like, the absolute incredibly heavy, heavy baggage that this character comes in with.
WELDON: OK.
WONG: That, to me, was, like, a demerit. But otherwise, I would recommend this show to my friends. I really liked it.
WELDON: Oh, that's a great take. OK, Roxana, listeners should really read your excellent Vulture review because, A, it's beautifully written, as always, but, B, it's also really well argued. It had me reevaluating my own reaction to the show and considering the show from different angles, which is, let's remember, please, what great criticism does. That's what it's for. But hit me with it. What did you think?
HADADI: Thank you. Well, first, thank you. I appreciate that. And then it's so interesting because I think my take is the exact opposite--
WONG: [LAUGHS]
WELDON: Yeah, yeah.
HADADI: --in that the family drama stuff is why I cared about the show and why I cared about the performances. And all of the drug dealing, Robbie being a robber-- did you get it?
WELDON: Oh, OK.
HADADI: That whole thing-- I said this in my review, and I will say it again-- it really was like FX, early aughts, Sons of Anarchy Light. None of that really felt believable to me. But the show is so intentional in its editing and in its framing and in its blocking to tell you how Tom and Robbie are two fathers of daughters and how their paths are sort of parallel. I really liked the domestic stuff and sort of the question of, if you, as a man, feel lost or aimless, how does that sort of permeate the people around you? And how do you sort of-- I don't want to say ruin their lives because that's sort of dramatic. But the series almost suggests that, right, that, like, your male loneliness can end up trapping the people around you. And I was really fascinated by that. I'm, like, a real sucker for, like, what's wrong with men these days? So I really liked that. But man, I am hearing people compare this with Heat, and I really need--
WELDON: See--
HADADI: --people to calm down. That's a comparison--
WELDON: Yeah, I get that.
HADADI: --that is sort of killing me.
WELDON: All right. Well, I kind of agree and disagree with both of you for different reasons. So let's start off with the surface stuff first. My parents grew up in Delaware County. A lot of my aunts and uncles and cousins are still there. I think they would all give this the Delco seal of approval--
WONG: OK.
WELDON: --because this thing rushes to establish its Philly bonafides in the first five minutes. I mean, Ruffalo's driving into work. We get KYW News Radio, traffic on the 2's, blue route, tick, tick, tick. Next morning, he says, I made scrambled eggs and scrapple. I could stop by the Acme. Maybe I'll drop by for a-- wait for it--
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
TOM: Maybe I'll drop by for a water ice.
[END PLAYBACK]
WELDON: I mean, we are five minutes in, and we've already won Philly Bingo, and we didn't need the free space. It's amazing. And I just want to shout out real quick Michael Tenenbaum in the Philly voice, who is recapping the show and cataloging every single regional reference. I love my people. Would I be as invested as I am in the show if it was set in, like, the Pittsburgh suburbs or, you know, Lancaster frickin' County? That's an open question. But my way in is so specific. Because something I noticed, if you remember how, in Mare of Easttown, every actor threw themselves neck-deep into the accent, Ruffalo isn't. Ruffalo is hitting it, but he's not Evan Petersing it, right?
HADADI: Mm-hmm.
WELDON: He's-- I'm reading him. It makes me think about this character. It makes me read him as a guy who grew up with that accent, around that accent, but who worked very hard to get rid of it--
HADADI: Right.
WELDON: --which is a real thing that happens. Hi, my name is Glen. Have you met me? So it only comes out when he's not thinking about it. So I felt like that worked for me. I ultimately found the show incredibly rewarding because I thought it was going to be one thing. I thought it was going to be the prestige police procedural it's being marketed as. But like Roxana, what I found was something that was a lot shaggier and more rumpled and character study-ish. But does that feeling of subverted expectations jibe with your experience, Wailin? Or was this show kind of what you thought it was going to be?
WONG: I think, honestly, the show was what I thought it was going to be, which was this kind of crime drama. But I did love all of the subtle character moments that established the ways in which these characters, as flawed as they are, are trying to care for the people around them. And so I think I was pleasantly surprised by the emotional depth that we got from the characters in a way that, like, you don't necessarily need that, right? But they really do make you sit with the emotional stuff, too, these pretty heavy themes of, like, fatherhood and, like, the male loneliness epidemic. And I keep coming back to, like, there's this moment in the pilot when Robbie is peeling an apple. He's sitting with his friend, Cliff, who he's robbing the drug houses with. And they're talking about their hopes and dreams. And Robbie is peeling this apple in this way that's, like, a cool-guy thing to do on film, where you're peeling it with a pen knife. And he's peeling it, and he's cutting off pieces, and he's sharing pieces of this apple with Cliff. And to me, as a Chinese person, cutting up fruit for someone else and sharing a piece of cut fruit with someone else is, like, the ultimate act of, like, familial love and care.
HADADI: Yes.
WONG: To me, it just spoke volumes, you know? And it's, like, again, the show didn't need to do that.
WELDON: Right.
WONG: You know, these actors, you know, are just, like, suffusing these, like, small moments with such depth to me. So that was, like, a great emotional kind of upside of watching this show.
WELDON: What little humor there is in this very dark show is in Martha Plimpton.
WONG: Oh, so funny.
WELDON: She is always eating. She's doing the Brad Pitt in the Ocean's movies.
HADADI: Yeah.
WELDON: I love me a mid-career Plimpton.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
KATHLEEN: They want me to put together a task force. I know. I'm sorry. I assigned Maria Herrera to lead, but she got ordered to bed rest.
SPEAKER: What is it?
KATHLEEN: Oh, it's something about a leaky uterus.
SPEAKER: What's the job?
KATHLEEN: Sorry.
[END PLAYBACK]
WONG: She is playing a little bit of an archetype, you know? But you know, when it's done well, you're like--
WELDON: Did I tell you this is a bad idea? Yeah, that-- she's doing that.
WONG: And then later on, she does get to, like, run around and do kind of FBI gun-waving stuff, which is also very exciting. You know, she's not just behind a desk being like, get your act together, or whatever, like, these bosses say in these kinds of stories.
WELDON: I'm going to take your badge. I'm going to take your gun. Get your act together. She's doing that. Not saying she's not doing that.
HADADI: I do think the men, for the most part, are better written than the women--
WELDON: Agree.
HADADI: --with the exception of Maeve, who I think is pretty well-rounded in her frustration with being stuck in this town.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
SPEAKER: What is it that you're missing here?
MAEVE: I don't know what I'm missing because I never had anything!
SPEAKER: I thought we were in this together.
MAEVE: First, my dad dies. Then Karen takes off. And I'm here raising her kids-- your kids. I mean, what the [BLEEP] do I know about raising kids?
[END PLAYBACK]
HADADI: My partner has said this about my taste, which is that I love watching guys being dudes. And this show has a lot of guys being dudes, but in ways you wouldn't expect. Exactly like was said with the cut fruit, there are these moments where these men swim in, like, a quarry together. There is a lot of really tender friendship stuff that I think is just really well articulated. And I think the performances elevate it even more. I do think Ruffalo is, like, really perfect in this. He has not worked for me lately when he's gone big. Like, I--
WELDON: Sure.
HADADI: --did not really care for him in Poor Things or in Mickey 17. But I think he just-- he's so tired in this. And I think that really--
WELDON: Yeah.
HADADI: --works.
WONG: He's been through a lot.
HADADI: He's been through a lot.
WELDON: Been through a lot.
WONG: No one's been through more than this guy.
HADADI: My man is exhausted, and I think that really helps. And I think Pelphrey is doing something also really interesting. I think most people will know him from Ozark. And I think this is really, like, a magnificent showcase for how deep he can go. And I also really-- I really enjoy Fabien Frankel in this, too, because he has sort of, like, a-- you'd think at first very predictable hotshot young cop personality, which I think takes on some additional texture. I don't know. Like, the plotting of this thing, I think, really takes its time. And I really think it tests you to stick with it. There is something sort of inevitable that happens, I think. But I just think it takes a little bit too long to get there, man. I don't know. I just think it tested us.
WELDON: You already mentioned Emilia Jones's Maeve. That's a great performance.
WONG: Oh, my gosh.
WELDON: I think the writing is actually-- as you mentioned, Roxana, I think the writing is doing her a good service the way it doesn't do a lot of the other women in the show.
WONG: She gets the sum-up line of the series, and it comes at the end of the second episode. She says to Robbie, what have you done to us?
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
MAEVE: What have you done to us?
[END PLAYBACK]
WELDON: Yep.
WONG: The question I pose to all destructive men everywhere-- what have you done to us?
WELDON: Also not for nothing, great accent. Just up to the line without going over. It's all in the vowels. You can hear it. It's there.
HADADI: And we haven't talked about this character, this boy Sam, who Robbie, essentially, I would say kidnaps.
WELDON: You should say it.
WONG: It's a friendly kidnapping.
HADADI: Yeah. And then they're sort of grappling with Sam. That young actor is so compelling.
WONG: So good! All the kids in this are good. Yeah.
HADADI: Yeah. The scenes that he has with Maeve, I think, are really getting at the question of this show, which is, like, what do we transfer to the generations that come after us? Like, what sort of trauma and pain do they absorb by being in our presence? That all is so good. Again, it's like, you sort of want to, like, rearrange the board of some of these pieces because I think they really nailed the central concept. And then in building it out, we sort of see, like, the growing pains of the show.
WELDON: Well, here's where I agree and disagree with you both. I mean, like, I think the motorcycle gang stuff wasn't where my heart was. I liked the cat-and-mouse crime thriller stuff fine. But I was intrigued by kind of what you both have talked about, which is this show's obsession with men talking about their feelings, but specifically grief, how grief works, how grief is a thing that happens in the wake of a death that it's, like, this physical process that your body puts you through. It has a beginning, middle, and an end, although, you know, sometimes the end gets kind of feathery and lingering. And what ties these two men together-- and this is like-- the show does all these kind of facile parallels between them. What really ties them is that they both screwed up the grief process in different ways. Tom has reasons that he couldn't fully engage with that process because we learned in the pilot that the loss of his wife is the result of a crime that happened within the family unit. So his grief is of necessity, not clean, not pure. It's complicated. It's mediated. It's tangled. And Robbie is different. Robbie has gone through the grief process, but he is still in it. He didn't let it end. He's holding on to it. And in both those cases, it's going to twist you up in a very specific way. It's going to convince you, as both of these men are convinced at the start of the story, that forgiveness, which this show is all about, forgiveness is something that absolutely no one should give out because absolutely no one ever deserves it, which is a really poisonous view of the world, and it's not sustainable.
HADADI: Yeah.
WELDON: But that's where both of these characters are. That's the thing that these two characters share. We know that these two characters are going to come together in some way. That's not a spoiler. So we won't say how or why, but these two actors do end up sharing the screen at some point. And that, to me, is the make-or-break part of this show. So look, it was hilarious, Roxana, that you pointed out people were comparing this to Heat because this was never going to be De Niro and Pacino.
HADADI: Yeah.
WELDON: Because these are not two characters who are crackling with electricity. It's not going to be a volatile chemistry because these are two chronic depressives commiserating, right? And it's-- but it's that commiseration that-- oh, that makes the show for me, because what's happening in those brief scenes is that both of these very broken men are smart enough to realize that they're headed toward disaster, each of them struggling to prevent it, both for themselves and for each other. And it's the "for each other" thing which I find kind of, you know, heartening. I mean, the most interesting thing about the show, of course, is that even though they are enemies in the eyes of the law, their real issues aren't with each other. They're with other people in their lives. There is something hopeful in those scenes.
HADADI: I guess my frustration is, I think that the end, I will say that a certain arc, to me, did not feel entirely earned. And so I think there's just a little bit of, like, a finger press of, you should feel that this is hopeful and that, like, we achieved catharsis and that we have reached a point now where certain characters have dealt with their issues. I think there could have been another episode of perhaps more distinct grappling with all of that guilt and grief that we have talked about. But what I will say is, yeah, that meeting and what you are getting out of it, Glen, I do think that that is, like, valuable and worth watching the show for. I would just say maybe don't watch it week to week. Maybe binge it. Like--
WELDON: Oh, that's a good point.
WONG: Like, you think it'll be really unsatisfying tuning in week to week.
WELDON: Interesting.
HADADI: Yeah. And that's so atypical for me to say because I love a weekly watch.
WONG: Mm-hmm.
HADADI: But I really think that this, like, gathers steam in a certain way when you are sort of, like, bingeing those first five episodes together. And what I will say is, like, in some ways-- and this is maybe, like, a galaxy-brained comparison. But in some ways, it reminded me of, like, season one of The Bear and, like, the Carmy-Richie dynamic. And I think that sort of, like, men trying to figure out who they are to each other, if that is your bag, I think that you should binge the first five and then go from there with the rest of the show.
WELDON: In your review, your excellent review, you used a C-word, which is "chore."
WONG: Yeah.
WELDON: You described this as a chore, Roxana.
HADADI: I said--
WELDON: So--
HADADI: --it sometimes--
WELDON: OK.
[LAUGHTER]
WELDON: All right.
HADADI: --feels a bit like a chore.
WONG: I have one very shallow thing to say, which is that Mark Ruffalo, with his little beer belly running around with his FBI vest on and the gun and the flashlight and stuff, I'm sorry, he's not looked this hunky to me since 13 Going on 30. I took a picture of my TV like a boomer, like, sent it to a group chat being like, look at Mark Ruffalo.
[LAUGHTER]
HADADI: That's so funny.
WELDON: That is funny. That is-- there's a pot for every lid.
[LAUGHTER]
HADADI: He is very paunch-forward in this. There's, like, an exceptional--
WELDON: Totally, yes.
HADADI: --edit where the biker gang is sort of dismissing his involvement, and we cut directly to him eating a sub.
WONG: [LAUGHS]
WELDON: Yep.
WONG: In, like, a really messy way, the way I eat a sub, which is, like, stuff falling--
HADADI: Yeah.
WONG: --out everywhere.
WELDON: OK, people. Hoagie, please.
HADADI: Oh, excuse me. I'm so sorry. But yeah, those details, that's the cold cut meat of the show.
WONG: [LAUGHS]
WELDON: There you go.
[THEME MUSIC]
WELDON: OK, well, tell us what you think about Task. We're on Facebook. We're on Letterboxd. Or maybe if you see us down the shore, maybe you can hop on our bikes and grab a hoagie and some water ice. Go, Birds. And that brings us to the end of our show. Wailin Wong, Roxana Hadadi, thank you so much for being here.
WONG: Thanks.
HADADI: Thank you.
WELDON: This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Carly Rubin, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon. And we'll see youse all next time.
[THEME MUSIC]
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