TASK Review: A Tight, Bittersweet Crime Drama That Surprised Me

At first I brushed it off and did not pay much attention to TASK. It looked like another crime drama that would eventually get buried under my already stacked watchlist. But after seeing a few people rave about it online, I finally caved and pressed play, and within minutes I realised this was operating at a different level. Mark Ruffalo pulls you in almost instantly, even before the title card comes up. He carries pain, weariness, intelligence and a quiet menace behind his eyes. As the layers start to peel away you learn he was once a Catholic priest, that his wife recently died, that someone close to him was responsible, and that he has not processed any of it. Now he spends his days as an FBI campus recruiter and his evenings drinking himself into numbness.

Running parallel to him, we shift to Tom Pelphrey’s Robbie, a trash collector who has slipped into robbing houses, not random ones but trap houses run by a biker gang. It should have been a terrible plan and of course it goes wrong in the very first episode. Once you see their reasons and the desperation behind those robberies, it becomes hard not to sympathise with Robbie and his friends. I found myself rooting for him, hoping he would somehow escape the mess he had walked into. But as the episodes move ahead that hope starts slipping away and you can feel the dread of what is coming.

The show moves at a deliberate pace that keeps tightening the tension. It never feels sluggish, even though it carries the quiet stillness of a slow burn. At just seven episodes it is a tight, emotional experience that leaves you with a bittersweet ache. TASK ended up being a strong and memorable watch for me and easily lands at an eight out of ten.

Originally published at https://www.vinitnair.com on November 10, 2025.