LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Task” has tense standoffs between not-too-different cops and criminals. It has gunfights in the woods and heists that turn into bloodbaths that turn into kidnappings. Yet the HBO show’s most dramatic and essential moment may be a guy reading from a piece of paper.It helps that the guy doing the reading — a victim impact statement in court — is Mark Ruffalo, who is very likely to get an Emmy nomination next month for playing a former priest-turned-FBI agent seeking some kind of redemption for himself and his son who’s about to be sentenced for killing his mother, Ruffalo’s wife. “I think that stuff was some of the earliest we wrote,” “Task” creator and showrunner Brad Ingelsby told The Associated Press in an interview. “It was like, ‘OK, now, so that’s the emotional journey of the show and then we’ve got to figure out what the plot is.’”
Ingelsby, who previously took Kate Winslet on a similar journey in similar Pennsylvania terrain in 2021’s “Mare of Easttown,” said the idea was “a man of faith and lost his faith in the face of this tragedy that sort of would have to have to find his way back to some belief.” The title “Task” refers both to the police team Ruffalo leads the religious responsibilities that linger in him.
