FBI agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) is kind of in his flop era in the Task trailer. Having experienced some sort of tragedy (by the looks of it, a deceased wife), he seems close to rock bottom, needing a friend to lug him up the steps in an apparent drunken stupor. This is problematic, because he’s in charge of the titular task, and leading a team that doesn’t exactly have “a wealth of experience,” as he complains to Martha Plimpton.
Created by Brad Ingelsby, the Mare Of Easttown showrunner is returning to the working class suburbs of Philadelphia, where “an FBI agent (Ruffalo) heads a Task Force to put an end to a string of violent robberies led by an unsuspecting family man (Tom Pelphrey),” per the synopsis. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Ingelsby shared that the protagonist was inspired by his uncle, a former priest; he added a layer of law enforcement after learning that priests sometimes assisted the FBI in mass casualty events. “That was a character that I was interested in—a man whose faith is challenged by events in his life. How does he react and respond?” Ingelsby said. Ruffalo is “such a versatile actor, and what we were looking for in this part was someone that could be a dad, an FBI agent, an ex-priest. It’s hard to do all of those. It’s very, very specific.”
In the Task trailer, Tom admits, “I’ve prayed for an answer, and all I got in return was silence.” Inglesby said when we meet the character, “He’s kind of let it go in these last few months,” and Ruffalo “wanted to tap into how that would happen in the wake of a tragedy.” The writer explained, “He is eating junk and he’s drinking, and he’s doing things that normally he wouldn’t do. Also, I think it helps the character to be a guy that starts out, and you don’t have a lot of faith in him as a cop.” Sounds like everyone’s faith is being put to the task! The seven-episode series will premiere on HBO in September.
