‘Task’ episode 6 recap: can’t forgive, can’t forget
The penultimate episode kills off two new characters, leaving us wondering where Tom goes from here
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IT’S THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE of Task, which means co-creator Brad Ingelsby is clearing the chessboard. We open on the three factions converging in the forest, with the shootout killing two main characters. Tom’s Task Force is essentially put on the shelf after the failed mission, which opens up the new complications in next week’s series finale: dealing with a mole and his son’s hearing.
Below, we recap this week’s episode of Task, titled ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a river’ (a doozy).
Spoilers abound! Read our recap of last week’s episode here.
RIP Robbie
And we’re off. All roads led to the river at the end of last week’s episode: a three-way standoff between Tom’s Task Force, Robbie and the Dark Hearts. Despite Perry wanting to turn back and live to fight another day, Jayson fired the first shot. The shootout saw two DH men go down, courtesy of Lizzie and Grasso, who is on double-agent duty. Though he inadvertently made Lizzie deaf by firing the gun right next to her ear.
Tom and Robbie are reunited again – they’re great scene partners. When they hole up momentarily in a shack, Robbie admonishes him for not staying put in the park – Robbie has a plan. If the ‘plan’ was to lure Jayson away and throw the ‘bag full of fentanyl’ in the river, mission accomplished. But him and Jayson get down to a grisly knife fight, Robbie badly wounded in the stomach. Tom comes in at the last moment before Jayson could get another stab in, carrying Robbie away to a sheriff’s car nearby.
Sadly, we say goodbye to Robbie here as he lies in Tom’s arms, looking up at the sky. His life montage ensues: his two kids and Maeve; swimming in the lake where he’s happiest; a voiceover of the Great Dragon story about him and his brother, Billy. Tom closes his own eyes, sending him off with a prayer? With Robbie now out of the picture, and Maeve and his kids set up quite nicely (more on that soon), who will be Tom’s new task?
RIP Lizzie
Lizzie was running deaf around the forest thanks to Grasso. She makes her way up the bridge, though, diving for the radio to call for backup. Aleah and Grasso come from both sides of the bridge as Perry and Jayson come racing down in their Ford truck. As they hit Lizzie, her medical supply erupts like confetti. An instant kill, Grasso has to have some resentment towards Jayson and Perry now, no?
In the wake of an agent’s death, the Task Force gets shut down by Special Agent Dale and Agent Marcus, who open an internal investigation. (It’s also mentioned that Lizzie’s, who’s 29, ex-husband will come pick up her belongings.) When Aleah heads to the Task Force’s homebase, more of Dale and Marcus’ team are clearing out the site, though they’re taking belongings and laptops to examine. The last time Aleah saw something like this was when a former colleague was falsifying evidence – she knows they’re looking at one of them. This pisses her off, but she’s red with fury when they take her gun away. One of the saddest moments in the episode is when she finds a knitted dart board with the word ‘Bullseye’ stitched on, Lizzie’s nickname for her.
Meanwhile, Grasso is racked with guilt back home. He also gets paid a visit from Mike, who we’re assuming is a mentor-like figure for Grasso in the Dark Hearts. This mystery man says the FBI Internal Affairs visited him, grilling him about Grasso’s affiliation with the Dark Hearts. “Did you tell them I’m a good boy?” he says. On Wednesday, Grasso is going to have to show up for the union reps. He’ll have to keep his head straight; Mike alludes that the FBI have found out about Grasso’s tip-offs before.
Sisters 4 Life
Emily arrives home to a boy from her part-time job, who goes on a little shpiel about God and belief. Anyway, he was waiting by her house to invite her to his magic show in a couple of days. She agrees to come, laughing it off – a sweeter moment in the episode. Sara, on the other hand, is handing over her son to her now ex-husband, Andy. The two sisters comfort each other. Now Sara has to tell their former priest father about her separation.
While the sisters were making up, Tom visited Sammy at the temporary home. Only it wasn’t a proper facility, but rather a sectioned-off area within a juvenile prison. He finds out the county had no funding for a proper care facility. Thinking like his wife, Susan, Tom foster adopts Sammy, surprising his daughters with a new little brother.
Maeve is off the hook
Shame on that FBI woman for wanting to slap Maeve with reckless endangerment and conspiracy charges. Our girl has been through the ringer, and thankfully, Tom recognises this. He’s the one who breaks it to her that Robbie is dead; she tells him that he was always full of naive, bogus plans, like moving to his private island in Canada. Tom also brings up the fact that they met before earlier during the search for Sammy. Maeve tells him that her drop-off plan failed and she was scared of what would happen to Robbie’s children if she were arrested.
She’s eventually let go, returning home to Robbie’s crying children. It’s just them. Towards the end of the episode, Shelley comes back into the fold, giving Maeve the bag full of cash from the sale of the 12 kilos of fentanyl. This might be the last we see of Maeve; I hope she makes a run for it with the kids before Perry and Jayson find out. Though the two men have a lot going on now that Jayson is suspicious that Perry has something to do with Eryn’s disappearance.
Tom’s next task
In the midst of the shootout, Kathleen was shot in the shoulder – the scar a retirement souvenir! Anyway, her retirement has been moved up now that she’s indisposed. Tom pays her a visit with an Edible Arrangement (at the recommendation of his daughters), which our emotional eating queen accepts with delight. In Kathleen’s background check of the Task Force, Grasso was the only one who didn’t come out clean. In another Task Force in 2021, one of Grasso’s colleagues found out that he was tipping off the Dark Hearts about drug search warrants. Grasso got out of the predicament by hiring a top lawyer, probably thanks to the Dark Hearts.
Tom inconspicuously visits Grasso, bringing up why Cliff was in Wissahickon instead of Bailey during the park operation. How could he possibly have known? Tom makes no attempt at veiling his suspicion; Grasso flips the script with a God doesn’t forgive and forget shpiel. Tom counters that confessionals are a human practice to help us deal with shame – forgiveness is asked for. But now Tom has to prove that Grasso is the mole, to which he imparts: “I’ll come after you”.
Tom arrives home to a pissed off Aleah at his door. She was put on indefinite leave and had her gun confiscated by her supervisor. They have a lot to talk about, he says, as they pursue Grasso. Meanwhile, Perry and Jayson head back to the lake in search of the fentanyl duffle bag. Robbie had packed it with brochures about the private island in Canada. Even in death, he got the last gag.
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