In Task episode 3, it was revealed that Eryn, Jayson’s girlfriend, was the one leaking information about the Dark Hearts drug houses so Robbie, Cliff, and Peaches could steal from and weaken the biker gang. Back in the day, Robbie’s brother, Billy, used to work for Dark Hearts, and he was dating Jayson’s girlfriend, Eryn. When Jayson learned about this affair, he killed him. To rub salt in Billy’s family’s wounds, Jayson even showed up at his funeral, and since then Robbie has vowed to avenge his brother and script a good future for his family with Jayson’s gang’s money. Since Eryn was heartbroken, she decided to partake in this plan; their only issue was that, due to her bad intel, Peaches was dead, Robbie and Cliff had a ton of drugs that they had no way to offload, and they had a kid, Sam, on their hands as well. Eryn advised Robbie and Cliff to hang tight and not go through with the sale because Dark Hearts was on the lookout for anyone trying to move those stolen drugs. But since Robbie and Cliff were desperate to leave the USA and escape to Canada, they made a drug deal with Ray, who in turn said he’d set up a meeting with Lee for the exchange. Instead, Ray and his wife, Shelley, got caught by the FBI for breaking and entering into Cliff’s house, and the task force, pretending to be Ray, assured Robbie and Cliff that the meet was still on. On top of that, thanks to Joe’s research, Tom had to do an internal investigation to see if, much like Eryn was the mole in Dark Hearts, he had a mole in his task force. To make things even more complex, Tom’s personal life was turning into a mess because he couldn’t decide if he should side with Emily, who wanted Ethan to eventually come back home, or take Sara’s side, and let Ethan rot in prison for killing their mother, Susan. How were these plot threads furthered in episode 4 of the miniseries? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Kathleen Is Suspicious
Anthony introduces Tom to his chief, Michael Dorsey, who then leads Tom to the conference room where he addresses all the available units who’ll be working with the task force to nab Cliff and rescue Sam under the guise of a drug exchange at Bailey Park. While Tom is busy with that, Emily is venting to her therapist about Sara’s behavior and how it possibly exacerbated Ethan’s deteriorating mental health. She doesn’t necessarily hate Sara; she understands that Ethan’s actions might’ve caused her to think that her parents’ adoptive children were a liability, and she wanted things to go back to how they were before Emily and Ethan entered the household. The only issue here is that Sara isn’t seeing this whole situation with the same level of nuance; she is simply driven by reflexive hatred. By the way, it’s not like Emily isn’t aware of the racial power dynamics in her family. She explicitly states that just because Susan and Tom “saved” them from a life of potential poverty and misery, the only emotion that she and Ethan are supposed to express is gratitude. If they do anything more than that, they are chastised for stepping out of bounds; meanwhile, Sara can get away with being openly bigoted in front of everyone. Later on, in order to vent some more, Emily goes out drinking with her colleagues. Leo, one of her colleagues, tags along just so that she doesn’t go absolutely haywire.
Going back to Tom, he confronts Kathleen based on Joe’s allegations that maybe one of his team members is a mole. Kathleen assures Tom that his team members are alright; he should just focus on the fake drug meet and ensure that it goes down smoothly. Now, last week, I might’ve cast aspersions against Elizabeth, but the way Kathleen tells Tom to not worry about the leak, I am starting to feel that she is the leak. Think about it; she is about to retire. Someone in her position doesn’t get paid all that much. So it’s possible that she has partnered up with Dark Hearts to secure her retirement fund. Heck, it’s possible that Maria, the agent who was supposed to lead the task force, has been poisoned by Kathleen because she was asking too many questions about the need to protect Dark Hearts from the wrath of the Halloween gang. Tom is relatively gullible and blindly trusts Kathleen, which is why he has been brought in. This is just a theory, though; we’ll learn later on if I am onto something. Before heading out for the fake drug meet with Cliff, Tom asks Anthony about the tests he and the rest had to go through to be eligible to be a part of this task force. Anthony promptly says that while he and Aleah are in the clear, Elizabeth is not, because state troopers’ methods of approving a candidate are weird. This could be a classic misdirect, and it’s possible that both Kathleen and Anthony are the moles and they are casting aspersions against Elizabeth to avoid being punished for treason. Tom puts this info on the back burner for the time being and heads for the meet.
Maeve Doesn’t Approve of Robbie’s Plan
Robbie has a conversation with Cliff about Bartosz agreeing to transport them and their family to Canada. Maeve drops by to tell Robbie to think about what he’s going to do with Sam and also tell Harper that he probably won’t be attending a father-daughter dance ceremony because he’ll be busy with either the drug exchange or the meeting with Bartosz to decide how much he wants in exchange for the trip to Canada. Here, we get a flashback sequence where Billy, Robbie, Maeve, Harper, Wyatt, and Karen are spending some time at the lake. Two minor revelations are made here. Firstly, Robbie was aware of the fact that Karen was unhappy in the marriage, and Billy advised Robbie to let her go. Since Robbie didn’t listen to Billy’s advice, Karen had to run away, thereby instilling the kids with the fear of abandonment, which could have been avoided if the duo had handled things a bit more responsibly. Secondly, Robbie was aware of Billy’s affair with Eryn, and even though he had warned Billy to stay away from her, he didn’t listen to him. Which means that Jayson’s outburst didn’t happen all of a sudden. He was aware of it, and maybe he had ordered Billy to stay away from “his girl.” It’s only when Billy chose to defy that order that Jayson went ballistic. Is that justified? No, absolutely not. Cheating isn’t an invitation for violence. If you know your partner is unfaithful, just let them go and never look back.
Anyway, in the present day, Robbie is chilling out at the lake again, this time with Cliff and Sam. He gets a text from Bartosz saying that he is waiting for him at the truck depot to talk about the payment for the trip to Canada. So, they decide to head out. At the truck depot, while Robbie goes off to have a chat with Bartosz, Cliff and Sam hang back in the car, and Robbie tasks Cliff with looking after Sam. However, Cliff falls asleep, and Sam takes off to release the fish he had caught from the lake into another water body because he is against Robbie’s plan of cooking it. A passerby notices this kid roaming around on his own and tries to take him to safety, which is when Robbie arrives and gets really aggressive with the passerby because he is afraid that his jig is up. The passerby takes a picture of Robbie and Sam on his phone, which angers Robbie even more, and he beats the living hell out of the guy and then chucks the phone into the forest nearby.
Later that night, Robbie informs Maeve that he is going out to get the money. The following day, they’ll need to prepare to leave for Canada. By the way, this is where we learn Robbie and Cliff’s families are not escaping with them. Apparently, Robbie and Cliff will go first, make sure everything’s set up right, and then bring in the rest. That sounds like a dumb idea because Maeve, Wyatt, and Harper will be vulnerable without them. Once Dark Hearts knows that Robbie has hit the highway, won’t they just come after his family to compel him to make a U-turn? I guess Maeve doesn’t understand that. Hence, she thinks that giving Sam back to Dark Hearts, probably along with the drugs, will solve everything. But people have died, and until and unless Dark Hearts are allowed to draw blood, they won’t stop. Before going out for the drug exchange, Robbie and Harper share a really bittersweet moment, where it’s apparent that her fear of abandonment is kicking in again, and she is probably afraid that Robbie won’t come back for her, Maeve, and Wyatt once he has reached Canada. Robbie shuts down those apprehensions with a little dance number, but he understands what he has done to Harper’s psyche. If she makes it through all this, she’ll need a whole lot of therapy to get better.
Perry Goes On A Mole Hunt
Perry is seen going through the photos of the 2017 rally in Reading, where the shootout between Dark Hearts and The Vipers happened. Then he goes off for a meeting with a lieutenant of Dark Hearts and shares all the info he has on Cliff and the ballistics report, which shows that the gun that was used at the Zephyr Bar shootout in Reading and for the murder of Warren, Derek, and Joanne are one and the same, which means that one of their own is the traitor. The lieutenant inquires why somebody would want to do that, and Perry hypothesizes that this traitor is after Jayson. After learning that, the lieutenant informs Perry that he doesn’t have to go to great lengths to save Jayson because the gang’s higher-ups, called the Mother Club, have already decided to fire Jayson from their team. Yet, Perry goes to meet Shane and questions him under the assumption that he is the mole in the gang. Instead, he ends up hearing Shane’s confession about the fact that Jayson killed Billy because of his affair with Eryn. Evidently, the allegation that Billy was killed because he was stealing money from Dark Hearts’ coffers was a lie to hide the real reason from Perry. Perry doesn’t waste another second and goes to confront Jayson about Billy’s murder (just a side note: there’s a lot of angry spitting going on in this scene). With that out of the way, Jayson tells Perry that, as per his informant, the drug meet with Cliff is still happening. Perry tells Jayson to take a small crew and nab Cliff.
On his way out, Perry apologizes for killing Billy; he justifies his actions by saying that Eryn would have left him for Billy and she would have taken the kids as well. Neither does Perry punish Jayson, nor does he forgive him; I guess he understands that the need of the hour is to bring an end to the Halloween crew and catch the mole in the gang. If Jayson is thrown out, whoever takes his place won’t listen to him as much as he does. So, he wants to get these 2 tasks done before Jayson is inevitably fired. While Jayson gets busy with infiltrating Cliff’s faux drug exchange, Perry pays Jayson’s family a visit because Eryn is an integral figure in the enmity between the Halloween crew and Dark Hearts. After beating around the bush for a while, Perry straight-up asks Eryn if she is betraying the gang. Eryn, of course, denies the allegations. That’s when Perry changes his tone and says that it’s fine if she wants out. He even promises to make arrangements for her and her kids elsewhere, if that’s what her heart desires. No, this isn’t Perry being generous; he is using compassion to get Eryn to admit that she wants to leave the gang, which would mean that she is the traitor. However, Eryn is familiar with Perry’s tricks, and she doesn’t fall for it.
Cliff Is Dead
Coming to the fake drug exchange, the FBI and every other law enforcement unit has surrounded the area where Cliff is supposed to meet Anthony, thinking that it’s Lee. The task force is under the assumption that both Robbie and Cliff will arrive at the scene in the same car. But Cliff jacks a car and goes on his own with the sample of the drugs, while Robbie observes the situation from afar. The situation goes sideways for the task force because a car with civilians in it enters the target zone. Since Tom and his team can’t see who is in it, they rush in and find out that it’s not Cliff, but a random couple who is looking for their lost dog. Meanwhile, as Cliff arrives near the rendezvous spot, he shoots a text to Ray’s phone, but Ray’s phone is actually in Jayson’s possession, and he is the one who sees the text. This means that whoever is helping out Jayson has access to the evidence room and has poached Ray’s phone for Jayson. But I suppose the mystery around Jayson’s informant will be revealed in later episodes. For now, the focus stays on Jayson and his crew attacking Cliff while he is waiting for Ray to arrive. Cliff somehow manages to warn Robbie of the betrayal, but by the time Robbie can get to him, he is kidnapped by Dark Hearts and taken to their lair for torture.
Meanwhile, Tom dismisses everyone after this massive flop. Elizabeth and Anthony, instead of contemplating their failure, decide to party and make out. Anthony reveals that he has some weird issues about having sex with Elizabeth in the same bed that she had sex with her ex. But Elizabeth doesn’t make a big deal out of it and makes light of Anthony’s terms and conditions to keep things from getting awkward. Tom goes home to find his daughter returning drunk out of her mind; thankfully she had Leo with her, who seems to be a decent guy. Once Leo is gone, Emily briefly vents to Tom about the fact that she is disappointed in him after hearing him express his true feelings about Ethan to Sara. As soon as Emily slams the door in Tom’s face, Sara appears with her “I told you so” expression. I hate her. I truly hate this character and the type of person that she represents. I hope that Emily, Tom, and Ethan find some kind of middle ground, and I wish that Sara would stay out of it because her vengeful spirit doesn’t deserve love.
Going back to the aftermath of the failed drug exchange, at the end of Task episode 4, Jayson tortures the living hell out of Cliff in order to learn about the mole in Dark Hearts. Cliff refuses to give in. So, Jayson asphyxiates Cliff and kills him. Just to be clear, yes, Cliff is in fact dead. So, now, Robbie has to deal with this whole drug situation all on his own while looking after his family. Speaking of family, Perry finds a picture of Maeve and Billy, and his eyes glide over to the gun in Billy’s holster. Yes, it’s the one that Tom claimed was used during the Reading shootout and the one at the drug house. Therefore, now he knows that it’s Billy’s family that’s coming after them for killing him. I don’t know if Perry is aware of the fact that Billy has a brother. He spots Maeve. So, there’s a high possibility that he is going to go after her instead of Robbie, thereby complicating this already twisted situation even more. However, Perry isn’t the only person that Robbie has to worry about because Tom is coming after him too. The passerby’s phone that Robbie had chucked into the forest has been retrieved, and there’s a clear picture of Sam and a semi-clear picture of Robbie. How will Robbie battle on two fronts at the same time? We have to wait till next week to learn more about it. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on this episode of the show in the comments section below.
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