IR TV Review: TASK - EPISODE 1 [HBO]

The inception of "Task" on HBO from Brad Ingelsby, the creator of "Mare of Easttown" starring Mark Ruffalo starts off its first episode as a slow burn pursuing a parallel storyline marring the idea of whose morality is better served within the concept of the series. Ruffalo's FBI field agent is on leave but battling demons to be sure both personally, spiritually and professionally. Ruffalo is great at playing these downtrodden characters ripe to explode within a slow burn. Tom Pelphrey plays a character on the other side who himself has a quandary and yet the approach is an interesting diametric much like within "Ozark". The pilot though is definitely slow moving trying to show the tendencies of the characters. Another important character is Emilia Jones playing a character leaps and bounds away from her lead character in the amazing "Coda". It is the right move but specifically so different from that to the point that she can't be recognized.

As the character work in the episode begins to build and Ruffalo's character begins to show cracks, the basis of the task is revealed as he is brought back in to head up a new case after wantonly sitting on the sidelines. His character doesn't want to be brought back into the mix and his specialists assigned to the new force have their own quirks which the episode aptly shows. Only towards the end of the first episode does the situation ramp up (and does so quite admirably) with a myriad of consequences. In an earlier scene, Ruffalo's character is discussing his current path with an follow priest (he seemingly was in the priesthood for eight years) and we get a sense of that spiritual ebb. Pelphrey and his boys meanwhile are seemingly oblivious or ignorant of the fire they are stirring though the backdrop of sanitation workers as at least an inroad is an interesting starting point. The pace of the exposition though is a little too deliberate and overly wordy in a way at the beginning. B-

By Tim Wassberg