TL;DR: Robbie kidnaps a kid, the FBI hunts for leads, the biker gang sharpens its knives, and Tom Brandis’s family implodes over a dinner table. It’s tense, messy, heartbreaking television—and it absolutely rules.

I’m two episodes into Task, Brad Ingelsby’s latest foray into the world of bruised souls and broken systems, and I already feel like I need a support group. The first hour cracked open the door on a story that could’ve coasted on the “gritty small-town crime” template HBO has turned into an awards-season factory, but instead, Episode 2 detonates like a hidden landmine. We’re suddenly knee-deep in fentanyl stashes, biker gangs with names that sound like a rejected Bruce Springsteen lyric, and a kidnapping that shouldn’t work but somehow ratchets the tension to unbearable levels. And then, just when you think you’re safe, Ingelsby yanks the rug again—this time in the form of a family dinner so brutally awkward it makes the Red Wedding look like a quaint Sunday brunch.

I should warn you: this is not a recap. This is me, sprawled on my couch at 1 a.m., processing how an hour of television managed to feel both like a procedural and a therapy session designed to excavate my deepest family baggage. Because Task isn’t just playing cops and robbers. It’s digging into the marrow of what makes people keep secrets, cling to lies, and weaponize love in ways that are as damaging as they are human.

And if you’re here because you Googled “Task Episode 2 review” or “Task Dark Hearts biker gang explained,” buckle up. We’re going long. Like, “my editor told me to keep it under 2,000 words but this is closer to a novella” long. But hey, if Ingelsby can give me a 60-minute episode that leaves me staring into the void, the least I can do is unpack every agonizing, brilliant beat of it.

The Slow-Burn Tension of Robbie’s Bad Decisions

Let’s start with Robbie Prendergast. Tom Pelphrey is quickly cementing himself as the MVP of Task, embodying a guy who can convince himself that kidnapping a child is somehow a rational life choice. He’s got that particular Pelphrey magic—equal parts magnetic and terrifying. Watching him in this role reminded me of his turn in Ozark, where he made you want to reach into the screen and either hug him or shake him until he stopped self-destructing.

The robbery gone wrong at the Nance house sets up this episode’s central engine: Robbie spiraling further into moral quicksand. He drags his friend Cliff (Raúl Castillo) deeper into the muck, reassures him with the kind of desperate bravado only a man who’s drowning could muster, and pretends like this whole “oops, we killed a few people and kidnapped a kid” thing is just a Tuesday hiccup. Cliff, bless him, is the audience surrogate here—wide-eyed, sweating, realizing in real time that this partnership is less “buddy crime spree” and more “guaranteed federal indictment.”

And then there’s the duffel bag. Instead of cash, they’ve stolen fentanyl—enough to spark a DEA nightmare and enough to guarantee the Dark Hearts biker gang will turn into bloodhounds sniffing out whoever crossed them. It’s the kind of plot complication that feels almost cliché on paper, but Ingelsby makes it sing by weaving it into the personal stakes. Robbie isn’t just some random thief who stumbled into drug kingpin territory. He’s got a vendetta: his brother Billy died under mysterious Dark Hearts–related circumstances. Suddenly, the robbery isn’t just about money. It’s about revenge wrapped in desperation, which makes it all the more likely to implode.

Pancakes, Lies, and the Kid Who Doesn’t Know He’s a Hostage

One of the most unnerving things in Episode 2 is how casual Robbie is about holding Sam Nance hostage. The kid is sitting at the breakfast table, scarfing down pancakes, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s been kidnapped. Robbie feeds him a half-truth, passing it off as an excuse about “calling out sick,” and it lands with this queasy mix of tenderness and manipulation. Pelphrey plays it straight—you can tell Robbie doesn’t want to hurt this boy. But the lies come so easily it’s clear he’s long since blurred the line between survival instinct and outright delusion.

Maeve (Emilia Jones), Robbie’s niece, gets dragged into this whole mess by accident, and I have to say: she’s shaping up to be one of the most fascinating characters in the show. She starts Episode 2 as the harried stand-in parent, trying to wrangle Robbie’s kids while holding down her own life. By the end, she’s making impossible choices—like sneaking Sam out of the house in a misguided attempt to free him, only to realize too late that the boy has grown attached to his captors. Her whispered “What have you done to us?” as she brings him back is one of those lines that will stick with me for weeks.

Meanwhile, in Biker Gang Hell

The Dark Hearts are not subtle. They’re not meant to be. They’re the narrative sledgehammer looming over every scene. Jayson (Sam Keeley), the local chapter president, is interrupted mid-coital bliss by the news of the robbery, and his immediate reaction is to call an “emergency church meeting”—which, for those not fluent in biker-gang-speak, means “somebody’s getting stomped out before lunch.”

The fentanyl subplot ties neatly into the gang’s ruthlessness. Ingelsby doesn’t romanticize them; they’re not Sons of Anarchy antiheroes. They’re businessmen in leather vests who treat human lives as disposable assets. Perry (Jamie McShane), the gang’s leader, is especially chilling. When he pulls Jayson aside to discuss the missing drugs, the scene hums with menace. They’re not worried about the FBI, dismissing Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) as a bureaucratic “pencil-pusher.” That underestimation will almost certainly backfire, but for now, it positions the gang as a force that doesn’t just operate outside the law—they exist above it, insulated by fear and loyalty.

The Brandis Family: A Greek Tragedy in a Living Room

If Robbie’s plotline is about bad choices snowballing, Tom Brandis’s arc is about grief calcifying into silence. Ruffalo plays him with the weary stoicism of a man who has prayed into a void and stopped expecting an answer. And when the truth about his family finally comes out, it’s devastating.

We learn that Tom’s adopted son, Ethan, killed his wife, Susan, by throwing her down the stairs during a psychiatric break. The show has been dancing around this reveal, but Episode 2 rips the bandage off in the most excruciating way possible: a family dinner. Tom’s daughters, Emily and Sara, argue over whether Ethan deserves rehabilitation or punishment. Emily wants mercy, Sara demands justice, and Tom just sits there, radiating the kind of despair only Ruffalo can pull off—his face a mask of pain, his voice breaking when he admits that even God went silent on him.

It’s a brutal scene, not because it’s loud or violent, but because it’s so ordinary. Anyone who has ever had a family argument that dredged up old wounds will recognize the rhythms: the passive-aggressive digs, the sudden eruptions, the way one cruel sentence can collapse years of fragile peace. Ingelsby isn’t writing melodrama here. He’s writing the kind of truth you almost don’t want to watch because it hits too close to home.

Maeve’s Desperate Gambit

The climax of the episode belongs to Maeve. Her decision to free Sam is as heartbreaking as it is misguided. She sneaks him out of the house, makes the anonymous call, tries to blend him back into the world—and then the kid climbs back into her car. It’s a gut punch, because it underlines just how tangled this web has become. Sam doesn’t even know he’s in danger. To him, Robbie and Maeve are just strange, sad people offering pancakes and a roof over his head.

When Maeve breaks down and asks Robbie what he’s done to them, it’s not just about Sam. It’s about all of them—her, Robbie’s kids, the fragile family unit that’s already held together with duct tape and prayer. By the time she carries the sleeping boy back into the house, the sense of inevitability is suffocating. We know this can’t end well. The only question is how many people will be destroyed along the way.

Final Verdict: 

Task Episode 2 delivers an hour of television that is as gripping as it is emotionally devastating. It exposes dark family secrets with unflinching honesty, balances them against the high-stakes mechanics of a crime thriller, and leaves you both exhausted and hungry for more.