(Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Task”, especially season 1, episodes 6 and 7.)
The crime drama of “Task” all leading up to a devastating penultimate episode that included the end of the hunt for missing 6-year-old Sam (Ben Doherty), a chaotic gunfight in the woods and the death of Robbie (Tom Pelphreys). During this week’s episode of Filmmaker Toolkit podcastCreator Brad Ingelsby admitted he was nervous about how the crowd would react to last night’s much less action-packed finale.
“There’s a negative in some ways to having such a big explosion (in Episode 6) — it’s the pinnacle of action in the show, you’ll never be able to replicate it or do anything close to it, and there’s still an episode left,” Ingelsby said. “So it worried me that at the end of that sequence: What are the mysteries? What are the things that people are still trying to solve?”
Ingelsby was aware that in his previous HBO series, “Mare of Easttown,” the criminal investigation was not resolved until the dramatic final 10 minutes of the finale. But the creator of “Task” was quick to point out that “Mare” was a spoof led by a cop (Kate Winslett) who avoided facing her son’s suicide.
“Task”, except be more “Heat” than mysteryled by investigator Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo), who emerges from the investigation’s near-death experience ready to confront the family tragedy he had avoided. It’s an arc whose emotional resolution required the time and space of last night’s tear-jerking finale.
“I’m sure there will be people who watch the show and say, ‘Man, episode 6, that was it for me,'” says Ingelsby. “But I hope they stick around, because the emotional stakes are pretty high.”
A loss of faith
When Ingelsby began developing “Task,” he didn’t even have the basic plot points of the cat-and-mouse crime investigation, what he knew was the beginning and end of Tom’s emotional arc, which revolved around the story of the man who lost his faith.
“It’s always between A and B, and because if it’s a guy who’s lost his faith and then has to let his son come home, I know the story has to play out within those two edges,” Ingelsby said, describing how his writing process was shaped by knowing Tom’s arc that focuses on his loss of faith. “If I know where it ends, I know I can’t go too far this way or too far this way.”
That’s right, Ingelsby went into writing “Assignment” not knowing that the FBI would clash with Dark Hearts biker gang in episode 6, but he knew Tom would end up giving that courtroom speech in episode 7. Ingelsby explained that he wrote episode 1 very early in the process, establishing how Tom had completely lost his way the year after the death of his wife Susan (Mireille Enos) at the hands of their adopted son Ethan (Andrew Russell).
He then began writing episodes 2 through 7, knowing he needed to create an emotional journey where Tom believably goes from burying his anger in alcohol, to a climactic courtroom scene where he finally looks Ethan in the eye.
The priest who inspired Ruffalo’s character
During the podcast, Ingelsby talked about how Tom was inspired by one of his many relatives in Delaware County.
“Part of Ruffalo’s character is inspired by my uncle, who was an Augustinian priest for years and years, and he left the priesthood and married a woman. He’s not an FBI agent, but my uncle would give the last rites at the hospital,” says Ingelsby.
The creator of “Task” liked the idea of how being a former priest better equips Tom to take on Robbie in a moment of crisis (the drive in episode 5), and comfort him in his moment of death (the drive in episode 6) based on having given last rites and his experience dealing with people’s fear of death at the end. Tom being a former priest also gave his loss of faith, and the subsequent leap of faith he takes in episode 7, a much more dramatic effect.
Give up Sam
Ingelsby is well aware that the audience will not like Tom’s decision to have Sam adopted by another family at the end of the series. But the emotional dissonance is part of the point.
“I know the audience might struggle with (not keeping Sam), but it was very important to me because when I wrote the story, it’s not about keeping Sam, it’s about embracing your son and getting the house ready for his son to come home. If Sam’s there, make it mud,” says Ingelsby. “He’s really cute and he’s a charming kid and he’s a great actor, but that’s not what the arc is about.”
Ingelsby went on to explain why giving up Sam was key to Tom’s arc. “What I liked about it was that it was an act of faith, ‘I love this kid.’ I love being with him. I have to give him up and I have to believe that the family that takes him will take care of him,” says Ingelsby. “Here’s a guy who has no faith at the beginning of the show, and giving up the kid is an act of faith. It’s not going to the altar and kneeling, sitting on the pew or going back to church, it’s not that, but it’s an act of faith that the baby is going to be okay.”
Courtroom speech
As discussed above, one of the few things Ingelsby knew about the finale when he wrote “assignment” was the broad strokes of Tom’s courtroom speech. As I said, the scene scared Ingelsby. “There is a danger that it could be very heated,” Ingelsby said of the courtroom speech. “I think I went into it quite nervous, there’s a lot of pressure on that speech.”
So, what was the key to that not be crazy? Not surprisingly, Ingelsby, a research junkie, found the answer by working with “Task” mental health consultant Ariel Stern and reading testimonies from parents and caregivers about the difficulty of caring for a child, like Ethan, with serious mental health issues.
“One of the things that stood out to me when I was talking to Ariel, or reading an article, was ‘the weekends were the worst for me as a parent,'” says Ingelsby, quoting a line from Ruffalo’s courtroom speech, which came directly from research.
For Ingelsby, who, like most parents, looks forward to the weekends when he gets to enjoy his children, that line hit hard.
“It just broke my heart to hear that because you’re going through life, you’re picking up your kid from school, you’re passing these parents, you have no idea what they’re going through and how hard it is. And I wanted Tom not to run away from that. I wanted him to admit that it was hard,” says Ingelsby. “I think once we got to acknowledge the harshness of it, then it felt like we’d earned the right to (have) some (dialogue), which in itself could be insane, like, ‘He called me dad.’
There is a confessional aspect to Tom’s statement in the courtroom – the theme of confession that runs throughout the series pays off in this moment. Pointing to Tom, Ingelsby admitted that he didn’t wear a name tag on Parents Night, and didn’t want people to know he was Ethan’s father.
“He’s so honest up front in saying these things that he did, and the shame that he feels, it makes his acknowledgment of the joy that much more true, because he’s allowed the audience to get close to him,” Ingelsby said. “He showed how vulnerable he is, and then when he says, ‘There was so much joy,’ you go, ‘Oh my God, this is his truth.’ It allowed you to hold on to that moment. And Mark, he’s just so good in that scene.”
The decision for Tom to read from prepared commentary – rather off the cuff and from the heart as we’ve come to expect in these kinds of scenes – was important for two reasons. One is dramatically obvious: It sets up the powerful moment, where Tom puts down his typed statement to finally make eye contact with Ethan (“Ethan, look at me, son”). But for Ingelsby, the carefully crafted written words also spoke to where Tom is in the final moments of “Task.”
“Like a priest at the podium giving a sermon, it just felt like he had taken his time and care,” Ingelsby said. “I’ve always felt that ‘Mare’ was a show about a woman avoiding having to face the death of her son. Tom is avoiding having to face what his son has done and his anger is holding him back. And so (it meant something) for him at the end to have gone through the craziness of this case, to sit down and take the time to write his thoughts that he’s been avoiding, and also EmilyShi (to take the burden off the daughter) Dionicio). It was the act of grace, ‘Emily, I don’t want this to be your choice. I’ve put you in a difficult spot, and I’ve been avoiding this for a long time now, let me. I now have the strength to shoulder the burden of this.’”
That last shot
Ingelsby didn’t want to show us Ethan’s homecoming. The breakthrough moment in the courtroom when Tom welcomed him home was the emotional denouement. The thought of having cake and celebrating their reunion months later would be a false note.
Ingelsby thought the audience needed a moment with Tom right before Ethan walked back through the door for the first time since killing Susan. He liked the simplicity of Tom preparing Ethan’s room and had a quiet moment looking out the window.
“What it meant to me was Tom cleaned up, he’s tidying up his son’s room, he’s preparing for his son’s return,” Ingelsby said of the final scene. “And he looks out the window and he hears the birds. And it’s not that he knows he’s going to be okay, it’s that he knows it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be challenging, but there’s a spirit in him that’s ready to face what’s coming in a way that he wasn’t ready at the beginning of the show.”
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