{"id":227149,"date":"2025-10-20T09:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227149\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:43:07","slug":"emilia-jones-on-maeve-and-jaysons-fight-keeping-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227149\/","title":{"rendered":"Emilia Jones on Maeve and Jayson’s Fight, Keeping the Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from \u201cA Still Small Voice,\u201d the series finale of \u201cTask<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on HBO Max.<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout HBO\u2019s \u201cTask,\u201d Maeve Prendergrast (Emilia Jones<\/a>) is the audience\u2019s eyes, after she discovers that her uncle, Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), is involved in a cat-and-mouse chase with both the FBI and a violent motorcycle gang called the Dark Hearts after killing two of the group\u2019s members, and then kidnapping their son Sam (Ben Doherty) in the wake of their deaths. It\u2019s Maeve who has to watch over Sam, knowing that at any given point, either the Dark Hearts or the FBI might find Robbie.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Robbie dies in Episode 6, Maeve finds herself at a standstill in processing the loss of her uncle, while also simultaneously figuring out how to survive with her niece and nephew after Robbie\u2019s death. In the final moments of the penultimate episode, Maeve receives the bag of money that Robbie had been trying to hide before his death, giving her the opportunity to make a new life if she is able to get away from the Dark Hearts.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the realization that the Dark Hearts are coming to find her, it\u2019s down to the wire for Maeve and the rest of the Prendergrast family to hide the money, and get as far away from them as possible before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Peter Kramer\/HBO<\/p>\n

\n\tJones spoke with Variety about Maeve and Robbie\u2019s family dynamic, how Robbie\u2019s death affects Maeve throughout the series finale and staging the final fight scene with Jayson, the Dark Heart final boss (Sam Keeley).<\/p>\n

\t\tRobbie dies in Episode 6, and in the episode\u2019s final moments, Maeve is given the bag of Robbie\u2019s money at her doorstep. She realizes she\u2019s the only person who knows the whereabouts of what the Dark Hearts are looking for, and leading into Episode 7, it\u2019s a lot that she\u2019s grappling with.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMaeve has always been so clever, so the minute she has the bag of money in her hand, she\u2019s like, \u201cWho\u2019s going to want this?\u201d She knows that people are going to come after her and the kids. But, at the same time, she\u2019s just happy that Robbie\u2019s plan worked out. It\u2019s a moment of very mixed emotions for her.<\/p>\n

\t\tHow does Robbie\u2019s sacrifice change the way Maeve feels about him?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a long time, Maeve was torn between feeling resentment towards Robbie and feeling so much love towards him. She\u2019s had to pick up the pieces and be the strong adult figure in the relationship. When you first meet Maeve, she\u2019s just so tired of picking up the pieces and cleaning up the mess that Robbie makes. At the end of the show, when Maeve realizes that Robbie sacrificed himself with this plan, and it worked out [because] he wouldn\u2019t stop until it was successful, she has a lot of respect for him and she just knows that no matter whatever Robbie did, he was always thinking of other people. Even when he\u2019s being questioned by Tom [Mark Ruffalo], Robbie\u2019s like, \u201cPlease keep Maeve out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRobbie really does have a heart of gold, and I think that\u2019s what Brad [Ingelsby] does so well with the moral ambiguity. The bad guys can have good hearts and the good guys can have bad hearts. The scene with Grasso [Fabien Frankel] when he gives her the warning is a really good moment for his character, because it shows you that for all of his flaws, he\u2019s learned from his mistakes. Same with Tom, and how he lets Maeve keep the money at the end.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere\u2019s a scene in the first episode where Robbie and Maeve are talking on the porch, and we get more insight as to their family dynamic after her father\u2019s death. There\u2019s generational trauma that has been deep inside Robbie, and now Maeve. So how does her family\u2019s past affect the decisions she makes throughout the season?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShe hasn\u2019t had the time or space to really mourn the loss of her father, and she\u2019s been pushing it deeper and deeper inside of her and blocking it out. The scene on the porch that you mentioned is a really important scene for Maeve, because it\u2019s the first time that she really says what she\u2019s feeling. No matter what you throw at Maeve, she takes it, because she\u2019s tough. It\u2019s the first time for Robbie when he realizes that there\u2019s this 21-year-old girl standing in front of him asking for help after she lost her father. That\u2019s why Robbie\u2019s death is so hard for her to deal with, because Jayson killed her dad and her uncle.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe finale has a final showdown at the Prendergrast house, where Jayson has discovered that Maeve has the bag of money hidden somewhere. What was it like staging that final scene with Sam Keeley and the rest of the cast?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was exciting! I was crossing over with characters that I hadn\u2019t really fully crossed over with before. We were all aware that it was the climax of the show, and there was immense pressure for us because we wanted to make sure that we could do it the best that we could. We did all of our own stunts, and it was so much fun and challenging because I was using my body in ways I\u2019d never used it before. Sam is such an intense actor and throws himself in. It was really great to bounce off of. The scene after we\u2019re in the chicken coop and Maeve gets away and Jayson grabs her back, I was really trying to run away, and he was really trying to grab me, and we just kept going on filming because the team wanted to let the scene play out for as long as possible.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere\u2019s a scene where Maeve is looking at the money in the finale, where she says that Robbie would have wanted the family to have it so that they could have a better life. At the very end of the episode, Maeve and the kids have moved out of the house and are on their way to a new destination. What do you like to imagine that Maeve\u2019s \u201cbetter life\u201d would be?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI hope that she can build a nice, comfortable environment for her and the kids, and give them the life that they deserve after such a hard start. I also really hope that she can kind of do things for herself for once, since she\u2019s so young and her whole kind of younger years have been shouldering so much adult responsibility. I hope that with Robbie\u2019s help and the money, she can really start to think about herself and put herself and the kids first, and they can have a really comfortable life where she doesn\u2019t have to worry.<\/p>\n

\t\tThis is your first time working with Brad Ingelsby, so if you could return back to work with him on a future project, what genre would you like to see him explore next?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI would do anything for Brad. His writing is so authentic and nuanced, and he\u2019s just so lovely. \u201cTask\u201d is a crime show, but with love, loss, family and forgiveness, and all of these relatable and intense themes, but, with a whole lot of action, so it\u2019s a little bit for everyone. Every character has such a layered backstory, and if any Brad Ingelsby project was to come to me again, I would absolutely jump at the chance to work with him again.<\/p>\n

\t\tI also learned that while you were filming \u201cTask\u201d in Philadelphia, you saw Olivia Rodrigo in concert with Fabien Frankel and some of the crew during your downtime.\u00a0\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOh my god, we did! You know what\u2019s sad? Mark arranged the whole concert and got everyone the tickets, and he created a group chat and was like \u201cGuys, we\u2019re gonna go meet her after,\u201d and then he had to work! Mark had to go film for \u201cTask,\u201d so everyone else got to go to Olivia Rodrigo after he had literally organized the whole thing! Fabien and I got all of the merchandise, and he had the purple sunglasses with the Olivia Rodrigo tour T-shirt. He\u2019s such an Olivia fan, and he was singing all the words to \u201cVampire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTask\u201d is quite dark in places, so it was just so nice to go to an Olivia Rodrigo concert on the weekend and switch off for a second during filming. It was such a great experience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from \u201cA Still Small Voice,\u201d the series finale of \u201cTask,\u201d now streaming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,59991,134,12386,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-227149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-emilia-jones","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-task","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}