{"id":204510,"date":"2025-10-06T06:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/204510\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T06:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:08:08","slug":"this-is-the-moment-task-has-been-building-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/204510\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is the Moment \u2018Task\u2019 Has Been Building To"},"content":{"rendered":"

TV<\/a>TV<\/a>After four episodes of circling each other, Tom and Robbie came face-to-face in a fateful, revealing car ride\"\"HBO\/Ringer illustration\"\"<\/a>By Helena Hunt<\/a>Oct. 6, 2:06 am UTC \u2022 8 min\"\"<\/p>\n

Tom and Robbie have been on a collision course ever since Episode 1 of Task<\/a>. In Episode 5, \u201cVagrants,\u201d they finally meet\u2014not in a shoot-out or some climactic showdown, but in a tense, winding, cathartic conversation (and sure, it\u2019s a hostage situation, too, but all things considered, a pretty mellow one). It\u2019s the most meaningful set piece of the series so far, and it\u2019s a chance for the characters to finally get to know each other in the way the audience has gotten to know them all season. And, blissfully\u2014but to no one\u2019s surprise\u2014Mark Ruffalo, Tom Pelphrey, showrunner Brad Ingelsby, and episode director Jeremiah Zagar land the plane: Tom and Robbie\u2019s scenes together are a highlight and a grace note for both characters before everything, inevitably, goes to shit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You know those times when you feel like you can finally exhale, only to realize, Wait, everything is still terrible? That\u2019s how I felt watching Tom trudge up to the Prendergrast house: It\u2019s a long-awaited payoff after we\u2019ve seen these characters circle each other all season, but we know not much good can come from them finally crossing paths. When Tom gets there, Robbie is already desperate and scrambling, trying to get together what he needs to hand off his duffel bag of fentanyl to Freddy Frias. Thanks to Eryn, he knows the deal is more than likely a Dark Hearts death trap, but he\u2019s rushing into it anyway\u2014and now he\u2019s had another ambush spring-loaded onto him before he could even walk into the first one.<\/p>\n

Tom tells Robbie that he\u2019s looking for Maeve so he can ask her about Billy\u2019s disappearance; he puts on an act that he\u2019s some dopey paper pusher, stalling until Grasso can get there to back him up. Tom probably knows he isn\u2019t fooling Robbie, although he puts his all into hobbling around and using a conveniently placed Pepsi can to buy time when he\u2019s \u201cusing the bathroom.\u201d He asks for Maeve\u2019s phone number and a hair sample from as Robbie twitches and sweats and tries to come up with some way to get out of all this (good luck with that, bud). Then, of course, everything comes to a head all at once: Tom gets the police sketch confirming that Robbie\u2019s the one who kidnapped Sam, just as Robbie gives up his act and pulls out a gun.<\/p>\n

But Robbie isn\u2019t really done putting on an act yet. As he pushes his gun into Tom\u2019s back and walks him to the car, he comes off like an animal of prey pretending to be a predator. We\u2019ve seen him kill somebody once, back when he shot Derek Nance in Episode 1, but that was to save Cliff; it\u2019s hard to imagine him killing an FBI agent in cold blood, regardless of whether he\u2019s backed into a corner. Even his shit-talking to Tom feels like a put-on. It\u2019s not even all that mean: He calls Tom a \u201cbaby giraffe\u201d and a \u201clittle sneak,\u201d insults that seem more like they\u2019d come from banter with his son, Wyatt, than the threats of some hardened criminal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Robbie guides him to his car, Tom tells him\u2014just in case he didn\u2019t know\u2014that it\u2019s a pretty bad idea to kidnap a federal agent. Robbie responds that he\u2019s \u201ca million miles past good ideas\u201d; at this point, he\u2019s running headfirst into self-defeat, but he seems to think it\u2019s the only way forward\u2014and now Tom\u2019s along for the ride. Robbie has him take the wheel, and they head north together on Route 100 to his appointment with the Dark Hearts.<\/p>\n

What they might not have bargained for when they set out on their little road trip is something every teenage girl knows all too well: It\u2019s easiest to bond with someone else when you can\u2019t look them dead in the eye. As Tom and Robbie take their ride to Bushkill together, they\u2019re both looking straight ahead instead of at each other, framed in their own small space in the car:<\/p>\n

\"\"Screenshots via HBO\"\"<\/p>\n

One of them could almost stand in for the other as they start to let their guard down and, just maybe, realize how similar they are. Robbie fills the space with some music but they can\u2019t help but fall back on a road-trip pastime: the unburdening of secrets. Robbie plays into Tom\u2019s charade about why he was at the Prendergrast house in the first place; he tells Tom that Billy is dead, not missing, which was \u201cwhat started this whole thing,\u201d and that Cliff is dead now, too. Robbie\u2019s handing over information that Tom may well already know, but he wants to say it out loud anyway, now that there\u2019s not much to lose and he has a captive audience. Tom responds by asking the obvious questions: what\u2019s in the duffel bag (\u201cBasketballs,\u201d Robbie says) and whether it has anything to do with where they\u2019re going (\u201cYeah, we\u2019re going to a pickup game\u201d). Robbie\u2019s ribbing him like he used to rib Cliff; he\u2019s not all that interested in giving more details about the spiraling crime scene he\u2019s in the middle of. If you\u2019re headed to the end anyway, why not just talk to each other like real people?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It could be that Robbie\u2019s just talking because he wants to distract himself, but maybe he really is starting to enjoy Tom\u2019s company as he asks questions about his family and his job. Tom plays along, telling Robbie that he and his wife, Susan, met at a hospital where she was a patients\u2019 rights advocate and he administered the last rites. At first, she hated him because he believed in life after death, but he still pursued her and, obviously, won her over. It\u2019s a good story\u2014who can resist a tale of a Catholic priest led astray by love?\u2014and Robbie, eternally a romantic, gets caught up in it, ultimately siding with Susan on the life-after-death debate: \u201cI never once felt God in my life,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think people wanna believe that there\u2019s more than this, \u2019cause if this is really all there is, then that\u2019s too fuckin\u2019 depressing for some people, you know. But there\u2019s nothing else after this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The subtext (that\u2019s basically just text) is that both Robbie and Tom are getting closer to death on this car ride. But it\u2019s interesting to look at the mess Robbie\u2019s made in light of the revelation that he doesn\u2019t believe in an afterlife. If he really thinks his brother was erased forever because of Jayson, it makes sense that he\u2019d want to lash out and get some kind of justice. Still, it\u2019s honestly a little hard to take him at his word. A part of me wonders whether Robbie\u2019s recklessness amounts to a death wish\u2014maybe, at bottom, he\u2019s been hoping that all these robberies would eventually land him closer to wherever Billy ended up. Back when he told that story to Wyatt in Episode 1 about Billy riding a dragon up into the sky, it sounded like Robbie was convincing himself that his brother had gone to some higher plane. And the way he talks about those far-off Canadian islands makes them sound a lot like heaven, an impossible idyll you have to work to get to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom, who\u2019s been pretty ambivalent about the existence of God and eternal life himself, seems to be pushing Robbie to have a healthy fear of death. He launches into his grand metaphor of the summer tanager, a vagrant who got off course and ended up in Tom\u2019s backyard, way out of season. \u201cIt\u2019s a bird that strayed outside its normal range, strayed so far that it\u2019s forgotten how to find its way home. Most of them don\u2019t survive,\u201d he says. Robbie, obviously, is the one who\u2019s way out of his normal range. He\u2019s a family man, an occasional romantic, a good pal, a dreamer\u2014not a criminal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ringer editor in chief Ben Glicksman pointed out to me a possible connection between Task and the work of Richard Rohr, a priest and writer who got a passing mention in Episode 1<\/a>. Rohr talks about the two \u201ctasks\u201d of life in his book Falling Upward: The first task involves \u201cestablishing an identity, a home, relationships, friends, community.\u201d That\u2019s like the home Tom is pushing Robbie to go back to. The second task is what you do when the first one falls apart and you have to figure out who you are, and how you\u2019re going to move forward, with what\u2019s left. But that doesn\u2019t mean leaving the first task and everything you used to value behind altogether: \u201cHome is both the beginning and the end,\u201d Rohr writes. It seems like Tom might have left his Rohr-reading days behind him, but he echoes those words when he says, \u201cYou can still go home.\u201d Obviously, it won\u2019t look like it used to, but if Robbie turns himself in, he can still keep a connection with his family and with who he used to be; if he goes forward with his plan, he\u2019ll probably lose any chance of that. Robbie has to decide on his second task right now: What\u2019s he going to do when he feels like he\u2019s got nothing left?<\/p>\n

In their last scene together, Robbie and Tom both come back to some former \u201chome\u201d version of themselves. Robbie gets Tom to take a quick exit off the highway and then forces him out of the car once they\u2019re way out in the woods. Tom seems to think that Robbie\u2019s planning to kill him\u2014and honestly, he seems resigned to it. There have been plenty of times this season when it would be reasonable to think that Tom wants to die; he\u2019s been living in a drunken twilight, avoiding his family and drowning his troubles. But when he thinks he really is close to the end, he asks Robbie to pass along a message to his son Then, Robbie turns the tables, letting Tom go and asking him to look out for his own neglected relative, Maeve. Tom\u2019s not the one who\u2019ll be dying today (not in this episode, at least), even if he\u2019s come to terms with it. I never really thought Robbie would kill him, but showing mercy is his own way of coming home to who he is. Likewise, Tom coming back to the thought of his son is a way of circling back home, even if it\u2019s not what it used to be. Faced with the worst, they both come back to themselves and what they have left. But Robbie still decides to go off in the other direction: \u201cEven if I wanted to go home, I don\u2019t know the way no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom and Robbie\u2019s scenes together surely aren\u2019t quite as eventful as the standoff that\u2019s brewing between the FBI and the Dark Hearts. But it\u2019s the real payoff Task has been building to, and it\u2019ll hang over everything that happens next. Even if their conversation doesn\u2019t change the outcome for them or anyone else around them, it was still necessary for each character and for the show\u2014to get their big feelings out and, maybe, to realize they can extend another chance to themselves, as well as each other.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Helena Hunt<\/p>\n

<\/a>Helena Hunt is a copy editor for The Ringer who loves TV and sometimes writes about it. She lives in San Diego, but no, she doesn\u2019t surf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TVTVAfter four episodes of circling each other, Tom and Robbie came face-to-face in a fateful, revealing car rideHBO\/Ringer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-204510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}