The Watch - ‘Task’ Episode 6 Recap

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Chris and Andy talk about the penultimate episode of ‘Task,’ discussing why it’s the best episode of the series to date, the tragic fates of many of its characters, Fabien Frankel’s standout performance, and what’s left ahead of the finale (1:00). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to The Watch. my name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line. It's his house. He'll smoke if he wants to. It's Andy Greenwald. That's literally you.

First of all, I think that this is a very incredible episode of task and a serious one, and we need to treat it with a seriousness that it deserves. But I must say at the outset that Grasso's house

did in some way remind me of the apartment that you and your not yet wife shared in Brooklyn, in which the constant factor, whether it was summer or the dead of winter at your beautiful Christmas party, is the cracked kitchen window. Oh, yeah. Smoked out of the window. Around which everyone smoked. Yes.

There were rules. They were respected. Andy, we are going to talk about episode six of task, which was huge, which was momentous, which had a lot of stuff going on. So if you, for some reason, are tuning into the watch and have not watched Task yet, stop what you're doing, go watch task, and then you can come back and check us out. I want to get right into it, man.

I have no banter. I have no amusing anecdotes. My amusing anecdote is this is one of my favorite shows of the year. This was, I think, the best episode of this series so far. It's called Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Right Doing. There is a river. Is that a song's Ohio song? Like, what is that?

You'd think it's actually a line from a poem by the 13th, century Persian poet Rumi. That's so weird. That was my second guess. That's one of the odds. This one was written by Brad Engelsby and it was directed by Sally Richardson Woodfield, who also appears as the prosecutor when Mave is being

interrogated by Tom midway through the episode. Shout out to Sally. Shout out to Sally. Shout out to Sally. She's wearing two hats in this episode. And it continues, right, where episode five left off with the standoff in the woods. And, you know, one of the more unrelenting, breathless

15-minute sequences that I've seen on TV at a long time, or at least since, you know, the standalone episode of adolescence in the interrogation room. But just an incredible 15 minutes of a standoff in the woods. I believe the title card appears

at the 18-minute mark. So sick. That is such a sick move. Devastating. If you're doing the SportsCenter version of it, Kathleen McGinty gets shot in the shoulder. Robbie is fatally stabbed by Jason. Lizzie is run over by an escaping Jason and Perry in a truck.

And she dies in Grosso's arms despite him betraying the task force and everyone else. You know, moments that like this show has been building towards. And it really, really delivers. You know, last episode was, you know, the heat diner scene essentially with Robbie and Tom in the heading out towards this spot where Robbie had grown up and spent time with Billy as a kid on the

Lehigh or in Lehigh I don't know honestly the use of lakes and rivers I'm getting a little confused but it is Bushkill I've honestly have never been to Bushill but this was the kind of action set piece that this show hadn't really touched on since

you know Tom and Ray wrestling in a basement kind of and we haven't really we've done a lot of talking and then we had some serious action. I kind of complained a little bit about, oh, you know, I think people have expected ending the episode with a bang and they start the episode of the bang. So much to go over here, man. We want to just do general thoughts and impressions first. Yeah. I mean, I do want to talk about obviously the consequential moments of the episode and in terms of the plot, in terms of the surprises, in terms of the masterful orchestra conducting that Brad

Inglesby does here regarding when, how and where he deploys certain events. Certain things that are inevitable, but feel surprising because of where they're placed, maybe. Surprising, but the flip side of inevitable is that dangerous word earned. And it also helps clarify what show we've been watching in a way that I found very significant. You know, it's glib to say that task is Philly Heat. I think there were clear, clearly it's not just that.

But I think to use the previous episodes car ride with Tom and Robbie as the comparison point to the diner scene, like the diner scene is a lot of, it means it's Michael Manman, right? Like they're kind of like eyeing each other up and they're gauging each other. And it's kind of like a dick measuring contest in the best way with those actors. This is about two broken men like connecting over their shared humanity, which is a little bit more my speed. but then again, I've been to a diner of a minute. So the fact that this show isn't about necessarily the mono-a-mono-mono collision between these two guys. It's about the spider-web crack tendrils of violence and community and loss and regret and guilt is really meaningful to me in watching it and also feels exactly where the show should be and what the show should be.

And the thing that I wrote down after watching most of it was, and this is my top-down 100,000 foot statement that I kind of want to get your perspective on, is that I just think there's something both beautiful and really, really healthy at this moment about a TV show that doesn't look away from the consequences of terrible things. Yeah. We are desensitized to so much because of the scroll, because of just the nature of what's popular, what's grabby. and this is a show that gives us and earns, again, that tricky word,

Robbie's would-be father-daughter dance with Harper and shows Harper sobbing because her father has, as we learn at the end of the episode, essentially sacrificed himself for her future. Grasso is a full human who has done something unforgivable and has now in the last episode, you know, with the last episode ahead of us, has evolved into the show's villain in a very strong way. Even Jason, who is unequivocally the show's villain, who has murdered both Prendergrass brothers with his bare hands, basically.

He's still a wife guy. He's still a wife guy. Big picture, and maybe this is also like international picture, like I just found at this moment in history and in also my travel schedule, I found the just like unshakable humanity of the show, both affecting but also like a restorative. Yeah, I wonder whether or not some of it is just the uncommon settings of some of these real breakthrough moments. I mean, I think I went into this series and I was like, oh, this is going to be the urban crime drama that Philadelphia has never really truly gotten.

Like, it's going to cat. I don't know if I thought there was going to be a shootout on Broad Street or a chase through the Italian market. There almost was after Sean Payton's behavior on Sunday. But this show largely takes place in the natural world. And many of the insert shots, many of the cutaways are to birds and water and trees and the connection that these characters have to these places being places of peace for them. You know, in the previous episode, Ruffalo talked a lot. They have places of peace, right?

Like even that is so fragile. Yeah. And the idea that, like, Ruffalo is trying to relate to Robbie by describing the patterns of behavior of a bird that shouldn't be where it is but could still find its way home. Or the way that Robbie releases Tom by sending him to a beautiful place that he has to get through by walking for a mile in the woods. You just say as someone who's not much of a hiker, that's not an easy walk, like a mile in the woods. It's more the woods part than the mile, I think. But yeah. In any case, there's just, you know, this is also the setting, obviously,

for this incredibly violent exchange between the bikers, Robbie, and the task force. But it's really striking how much of this show has decided to take place in an incredibly idyllic setting. And what it's trying to do with that, I thought that a lot of the repeated imagery, Robbie jumping into the quarry of birds flying, of, whatever, like obviously get brought back up in his last few seconds of life in a way that I thought was quite beautiful and quite earned, you know, like that can often be that like, ah, yes, I'm touching wheat as I walk into, you know, Valhalla.

But this was, this felt very much like they did the work to get to that moment of release. And even more so, the fact that Robbie had been basically like asking Tom, what happens when you die. Like, what do you see? What do people seem to behave like? Because he fucking knows in the backseat of that car, he might as well have basketballs in that duffel bag. He is not bringing drugs. He does not expect to get out of this thing alive. He knows that he's signing up for his, that's his plan. So his interest in how do people feel when they die? What do you do when people die? Like, that's real because he knows that's what's about to happen. I also think it's significant that his dream of escape, a dream that you, I think, really smartly pointed out is just punctured like

a balloon instantly by a 21-year-old when he says it out loud to her. The dream of going to Canada, like an unspoiled green wilderness. It really made me reconsider all of that because he lives in an abundant green, beautiful wilderness, or he grew up in one. So it's really about returning to the innocent self. It's about returning to a time of before. sin, basically. Yes. And that place doesn't really exist. It's in brochures or it's in the Bible maybe.

You know, I find like when people, I have seen like online some people casually dismissing the show, not that they don't like it, but that it's just like a HBO classed up version of a more typical procedural. And I just think that that's to be, to be, you know, with all due respect, I think that's really missing the point. Yes. I think that this show is a very, very. very thoughtful and at times beautiful and profound meditation on life and loss.

And it supports and allows this kind of like the kind of stuff that we used to like to do in college English classes. Oh, well, this imagery is significant because it represents a prelapsarian time when, like all that bullshit that we don't do anymore because we don't even write. We just talk on podcasts. But it does feel like we could go back to some of that. I mean, you're reading spirituality books, you know. Because it is though.

Yeah. The fucking episode is named. named after a line from a roomy poem. Come on. You know, Tom talks about this bird, and then a bird distracts Robbie. Is that earthly business, or is that inevitable, like, the way of the natural world goes? I don't know. But I think it's worth talking about because we've been praising Brad's architecture skills throughout the whole season.

And so I feel like it's worth diving into just exactly what he did here, Because in addition to playing, you know, I've been saying this for years, and I'm not the only one saying it, playing one of the most effective and still underutilized cards in the show running deck, which is show your hand early or kill someone before you think it's time. Or, you know, time is really the thing that is still most potent, I think, for showrunners in terms of breaking through to a jaded audience. in addition to doing all of that and, you know, along with Sally and the crew, like designing this incredible action sequence, he also ropa doped us because everything was so full on. I can't be the only one who didn't really think about Shelly. I didn't think about that business. I just, I was in the moment. The only reason I thought about it really more than once is that Mickey Sumner is very good.

And why would you have her do one and a half scenes, you know? But she had came, but she, and this is she said for one. She has one line. But the fact that everything about the, like I found, you know, a minute ago I'm talking about how beautiful and profound and how moved I was by how bleak at the show sometimes is. No moment maybe more so than when Robbie has his revenge and then he too gets killed by the same monster that ruined his life. Only to find out, as you were alluding to, that this entire thing was.

a suicide play and that the money was already secured. And it was about keeping his family clean. Maybe there was a, maybe he hoped to get out of those woods. I don't think he seemed surprised by the amount of motorcycle guys who showed up. I do think he was surprised that the task force found him. And I do think he would, he was hindered by the fact that Grasso was doing chip Kelly hand signals all over the place to get guys to like do this, don't do that. I do not take a shot at Lizzie. Talk about traitors to Philadelphia.

Yeah, you know what? There's something about how a lot of what happens in this episode feels inevitable. Like, I did not assume Robbie was going to get out of this series alive. Right. And I didn't think everybody from the task force was going to live. I don't think I foresaw it being as not random, but seemingly arbitrary in terms of its circumstances, the way that Lizzie died. But the connection that she and Grasso, I think, sincerely had.

I don't think that that was part of the assignment. I think all he had to do is just be like, they're coming for you here. He obviously opens himself up to her. The arbitrary nature of the way that she dies in a car crash rather than in a shootout, you know. I mean not crash, but she gets run over. She is run over.

And the reason she gets run over is because she can't hear the truck coming because Grasso is fired off a gun right by her head. So she's lost to... Rupure your drum. I kind of, you know, I figured Alia or Lizzie would probably die out there, or McGinty. But this show isn't about those kinds of moments. It's about the moments afterwards. And that's what you're hitting at.

The reconciling and dealing with violence, the set piece works better because we are now, going to spend an hour and a half thinking about and talking about what happened. And there may be some shootout in the finale and it may be Jason versus Perry versus Grasso versus Tom versus Alia. But I think that it

it's so much more effective to think about it in terms of like these people's these characters' lives go on even if the series ends, you know? And even when Maeve gets that money at the end, which would be the end of any of 90% of versions of this show,

is Maeve gets a huge bag of money in it. I think Maeve's in trouble, man. Yeah, she's 21 years old. Raising drug money now. And a lot of people are watching it or looking for it. And it was so important to Jason that Jason was like still out there eating Perry trout. You know, trout all of Perry.

Do you think, I have two quick side questions for you, digressive questions for you. One, are you excited? for the day in 20 years when Brad Inglesby announces that he's making task to with Leonardo DiCaprio and the Mave part about what happens to the money. I feel like that's just, let's just book it in advance. Get your tickets in Vista Vision. And the second question, as I did wonder, like, sometimes, you know, often around where I am right now in the beautiful city of London, you and I will indulge little fantasies of like, oh, what if just two chums shared a flat for a time and, you know,

split the G together on occasion or whatever. Do you think we could have hung in a Perry and Jason type way? Like, I feel like that would be a recipe for the end of a 29-year friendship. I do think you're just, you just keep getting on your phone. Why are you doing that? I'm trying to make you dinner. Show some respect. Just some wet fish straight from the river.

That's not where I saw this show going. I didn't see this show going in like a weird, like, all of these people are trapped with their own decisions now. Grasso is... There are people, there are writers, I'm sure in any medium, but let's talk specifically about television. There are writers who are obsessed with plot, and there are writers who are obsessed with aesthetics, and there are writers who are obsessed with style, and there are writers who are obsessed

with surprises, and those are all valid, and there are examples in each category of shows that I love. What's clear about Brad Ingallsby is he's obsessed with life. He can't stop drinking from the cup of life, like in some sort of dramatic, religious analogy that I can't quite pull off here. Everyone is given a full life. Everyone exists in always all at once. Like you're saying, Jason is a wife guy.

But everyone is the totality of their experience. Tom and Robbie didn't need to get along. But they did. And their behavior afterwards reflected that. Grasso absolutely really cared about Lizzie. But he also is a flawed and failed person who is trying to have everything all at once and make it work out, which doesn't seem to ever work out for anyone. at any point in the show.

You said that, and you're right, like the Lizzie death felt sort of random, but I have to say that. I'm not ready to talk about it yet. Well, I'm going to check in. I just wanted to say that I was more prepared maybe than you were because early in the episode, like super early. Grasso says, Lizzie, stick with me.

And I was like, ah, shit, that's the McBain moment right there. That's a wrap on, that's a wrap on her. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals, with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch.

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and I think it speaks to a larger conversation that probably people are going to have after this episode of why were these people put on a task force in the first place? Because with the exception of Aaliyah, they seem to have some questions about their red flags. Preparedness, yeah. Aaliyah, obviously, like, all about her business has this sharpshooting background.

seems like she's a pretty good detective investigator. She got her badge and her nickname. Yeah. But Lizzie has a bad reputation among her fellow state troopers as being a little bit of a nervous Nelly when it comes to when shit goes down. And Grasso has something in his file that is known to possibly tip off dark hearts, FYI. There's two strands of thought there, right?

one is being asked to join a task force is not nearly as special as you and I may have thought it was. Sure. That everyone's always getting pulled into task forces. It's like being a sophomore in college and someone saying, want to join my band. Right. Like everybody does a time. Everybody picks up a base once in a while. Who among us did not play psychedelic country for two great weeks, you know?

Do the best weeks of your life. The other alternative, and this is something that I'm legitimately asking you because I haven't read anything about this episode yet. and I also am in the dark, and I don't know if that's good or bad, is McGinty still suss? Because we felt that way, and then it seemed to, she seemed to be cleared a little bit by the Grasso stuff, but doesn't her still being a little bit compromised cover for the motley makeup of the task force? Possibly, I mean, I think that I'm open to anything happening.

I would say that the difference between task and merit is, is, is, found in this kind of construction where Task is a crime show and a lot of a lot of what is happening is evident to viewers if it's not evident to the characters so the viewers know that Grasso is the mole before Tom does I think the viewers know Cliff is dead before Robbie does you know like there's it's a totality of like this sort of

these dozen characters and what they're going through and what they're doing and what they're thinking we know that Aaron's dead before Jason does who killed Aaron and Jason does not. Mayor was more of a detective show. You're talking about Mayor of Easttown, Brad's first show. Mayor of East Town was more about this woman looking for the killer of a young girl. And as things were revealed,

they usually happened in the order that Mayor herself was finding them. The viewer and mayor were on the same page. So I think that there's elements of it that may make you second. guess. And one thing the Inglesby is doing in this show that I think is successful sometimes, and every once in a while I bump against, is the, someone is about to find out a very important piece of information, but the show is going to cut away from that. Well, yeah, but that's TV 101. Sure. I get it. I hear you. I mean, for me, stuff like that is baked into the concept when you make a detective or a crime show, and it's just a question of how artfully you hide it. And,

you know, look, there's a character on the show who's a magician. And so maybe there's some projection there that likes how Brad sees himself. You know, please come to my show. One thing I want to, please, you finish. My point was really more that, like, the way that he is making it and the way that we are being given this information, sometimes before the characters, is that it creates more of a sense of inevitability and tragedy about it. Because you're like, I know, hey man, Robbie, like, this is about to be the most popular

woods in America. Like, you please don't go here. But he's got a destiny. You know, he's got something he's moving towards. And I think, you know, the idea that the show is going to be about Tom finding Robbie. And instead, it's almost going to be Tom finding peace for Robbie. Yes. It's pretty amazing.

Yes. I think two quick things. Well, one quick thing and one longer thing. The quick thing is just there was a really artful reprise of the crazy Robbie thing. Crazy Robbie always trying to find a way to, What was it to save his life, to change his life. I wrote it down. I just can't find it in my notes.

This people are who they are. Which is what Perry referred to him as in episode five. Yes. And you're like, wait, what? Yeah. And then that's how people see him because we're introduced to him as someone who is quirky and interesting and maybe biting off a little bit more than he can chew. But the nature of television is we're right there with him. So we just kind of trust him.

Oh, Cliff likes him. We like him too. That put an era, that added an air of tragedy and an evident. ability to his art for sure, realizing that everyone was kind of like this guy's, this guy's just going to keep trying and we don't think he's ever going to get there. The subtle reveal that the show actually isn't a two-hander, it's the Tom show, was, I think, kind of beautiful and felt surprising in a way. And I don't say that to diminish Tom Felfrey's performance because it's one of the best performances

of the year. and I think Emmy voters are going to agree with me on that. Yeah, all they have to do is watch his scene with the Bargarita Laveva when he finds out Cliff's dead. This is such a sneaky good Ruffalo performance. And one of the things that is a hallmark of Ruffalo's 25-year career is that you could say that about all of his best performances because he's such an unshoey actor, the spotlight speech aside. Like he is just, he just sinks into things and he just embodies a kind of conflicted morality, but always erring towards good that I think is really, really compelling. And so his performance, the pairing of the two we've talked about is so brilliant that he's just such a steady, speaking of bass, like a steady bass drum underneath the more frantic snare of like what Robbie's doing with Cliff. And to have it emerge into the solo and realize that this has been about.

I mean, everyone's the main character of their own story. But he becomes the main character and his story becomes the main story of the show of one of redemption. And I think that Ruffalo is astonishing in this episode. Like he has big action moments and it's clobbering the shit out of Perry. And it's like, whoa, I didn't know Tom had that in his bag. But what he then goes through in the aftermath and you see the priest emerge again in terms of like giving Robbie last rights. And then there is a moment. And I know, I feel like you had, you lost Alison Oliver's performance.

And so you went through your grieving process. I did. And you were emotional, maybe uncharacteristically. So it could be the jet lag. I miss my kids. But when Tom comes home with Sam, and again, we were joking over text last night. We both watched the episode and you were like, well, the inevitable happened in a compelling way. And I was like, oh, Tom adopting Sam, which felt inevitable from the beginning.

I don't have receipts. I didn't say it on the podcast. It just felt like something that we were headed towards. But he shows up and he's got a Batman Lego. and he goes in the kitchen to make peanut butter and jelly and his daughters who are now united in a really beautiful way. And again, this is a subtle thing. Clearly, Brad has multiple children because a sign of a healthy home is the children conspiring against the adult. And not being on the adult side anymore, being like on each other's side, which is sort of beautiful and

subtle and definitely recognizable, I would say, as a hashtag girl dad. But he's making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they're saying, like, why are you doing this? Why did you do this? Are you sure this is a good idea. And I'm sure the audience is saying that as well. And he basically says, I saw him in this place, this awful, hopeless place. And I thought about your mother. And I thought, what would she do? And the best answer I could come up with was to bring him home. That is anyone else. Does he say something like, there's no way she would let him be there? Like, she would never let this kid stay in this place. Yeah. And now does anyone else want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? and it got super dusty in this London executive apartment.

It was a beautiful. The totality of the experience of watching Tom basically get this second lease on life from Robbie because Robbie is, you know, they do this car ride, they talk about Team Susan or Team Tom and what happens after you die and birds. Tom thinks he's going to be killed. He's going to be executed.

out in the woods by Robbie, and he's just like, just let me talk to my kids, let me talk to my kids. And Robbie's like, I'm going to actually send you somewhere beautiful, you know, and he lets him go and he makes him walk through the woods.

And that his emergence from those woods seems to revive not only his ability to be a police, a law enforcement officer or an agent, but also a father and also a communicator and somebody who's like opening up his heart. And maybe that's also what, happens after Robbie dies in his arms. You know what I mean? Like he's given this gift that allows him to return to who he was. I mean, think about like he's now got two kids in his house. He has now got

another third child that he is essentially fostering. He's pursuing this case outside of like what is just the bare minimum of what is required from him in his job. He's like, no, I'm going to go to Kathleen's house. I'm going to keep looking after this. And then he goes after Grasso and what was a, I thought, a wonderful scene. Like, yes, it is the third time Grasso has pointedly asked about the Catholic Church. But I actually thought it was pretty cool that Grasso wasn't like, I didn't do anything. No, I love that. That he was like, are he that rhetorical question?

Or are you really asking me? And it's like, what can you prove versus what do you know is the whole thing? Before we get there, just to say, like, this entire series is above my religious pay grade. Like, there is something that strikes me as profoundly Catholic about all of it. in ways that I don't. I'll let you know when I get to the chapter that explains task. I was going to ask if you could talk me through it. And maybe, you know, if we get a chance to talk to Bradigan,

we can talk specifically about this stuff because the idea of life and death as connected as a circle is, you know, is stitched into every fabric of the very fabric of the show. Tom lost his wife and essentially lost his son in the process. Robbie kills Sam's parents and takes Sam and all of this awful, awful deeply felt death

leads to Sam snuggling up and falling asleep for the first time in maybe many years in his life in Tom's house. And that's what I think anyone who's ever lived

or gone through any kind of grieving process clings to and comes out the other side of. It's like we have we have life still. We have more life and we have to make the most of it when we have it. And I just, I found that again, I found it very affecting. I find it very moving and I feel

lucky about the show because it gave me the action highs and it gave me this gut punch of emotion. Even, I think sometimes like Catholic imagery and religious imagery and crime stuff can be it can be a sign of heavy handedness. Yeah. It has been

both in the work of Dennis Lane. I think one point in the fifth episode when Shelley and Robbie meet in the beginning of the episode and Robbie's like, why should I trust you? And Shelley is like, here, I have this plan. We're going to sell the drugs on our own. He's like, he's like, why should I trust you? And she's like, because I'm a good person. And he was Jesus Christ. And I'm a good person or am I a good person or we bad people is like a very, very, very overworked trope in crime television and in prestige television over the years. But I don't know, the show just kind of earns those kinds of discussions.

And I think that when Grasso is asking about confession and talking about like the nature of like, you know, unburdening himself. And Tom just says like confessions for human beings, like God's just. humans, a human practice to help us with our shame. It's not for God's sake. If you want to be forgiven, all you have to do is ask. Yes. Yes. About that scene.

And then like a vengeful God, Tom's like, if you're not going to come clean with me, I'm coming for you. Pretty ballsy to show up at the new bad guy's house alone, especially now that you've taken on the charge of a traumatized eight-year-old boy. Yeah. But you got to make, I mean, still got to be a TV show. I respect it. One thing I want to say, I want to make sure that this is on the record, that I will no longer be slandering Sir Kristen Cole.

He's got it. It is an incredible thing when you realize that your only experience with an actor is seeing them essentially in a corset, or in his case, like a very tightly fitting armor. I'm not saying he's bad on that show. I'm saying, what is he doing? And it's certainly not, we've been talking a bunch of the last few weeks about shows or directors that understand the actors that they cast and how to showcase them and unlock them and unleash them like Ethan Hawk in the lowdown or whatever. Or Tom Pelfrey here or actually most of this, Amelia Jones, who's maybe the like the MVP of the entire series.

We haven't even mentioned her much today. He's so good. He is just purely good in the show. Bobby and Frankel, like English actor who is just just. understanding the assignment. And I feel like maybe we'll ask him about this, but like I just, without naming names,

I bet they auditioned a lot of people who thought they were auditioning for Delco Heat, you know, and we're playing not to the cheap seats, but playing to the popular seats. And this guy is so haunted. He's just deeply haunted throughout. And the turn from calling him boss

and seeming to be really like the supplicant, like going to him for confession to the devil. Yes. Is so elegantly done. Did you like the scene between Grasso and his county detective boss, who's also obviously in cahoots with the dark arts and them talking about? And like Grasso just being like she died in my arms and like... He's like, forget her?

Yeah. I mean, it was a good scene. A lot of yinglings, a lot of yinglings, morning, noon, and night, which I don't necessarily disrespect. One thing I'm learning, you know, when you get like TV brain when you see the shows too close to each other and like after I watch this and then I watch the first house of Guinness and I was like, boy, men do not like to have liquid poured on them. Like that is just like a real violation to get your head in the sink or have a drink thrown

in your face. Yeah, I like that scene. But like I just, I guess the other thing to say about the surprise, like finding out where we are in the show. Like all these things happened and then it pivots into kind of. of a different type of story for the last episode. The proof that it works, and it's a leap of faith, shout out the Catholic Church, it's a leap of faith that they would get to episode six and take the 1A on the call sheet

off the board and essentially solve many aspects of the task forces case. And I don't feel diminished. Like I'm not thinking that it's going to be like in the grand tradition of the wire where the last episode's like a long denouement. Like that is not the case. We are dealing with something deeper from a different perspective than we had previously realized.

Yeah, and I haven't watched. Obviously, we have not watched the finale, but given what we know now about what this show is really about and given what even Tom and Grasso talk about in Grasso's house, you have to assume that Ethan's court hearing is coming up.

And that is going to be about, like, physician heal thyself. Like, you can't just go around telling people you know, what happens when you die and how forgiveness works. Without reckoning within your own family. And that might be what this fucking show is about. Like the Perry and Jason and Grosso stuff

could get wrapped up in five minutes. It's really going to be about, like, is this guy's soul capable of being revived? I can't be the only one who thought that when there's the shot of Tom walking into not Covenant House, but essentially the Juvie where Sam's being held that I thought he was going into the prison. That's not of this episode thing.

you're right about Perry and Jason like all Jason has to do is figure out what happened with Aaron and then that's a that's a wrap on Uncle Pear do you think we're going to get much of an explanation as to like how they how Grasso comes comes to be a departed style

like detective I think there's a lot more there and that character is going to reveal himself and like I said it has suddenly he's the villain now in a show that doesn't really do villains other than I mean Perry and Jason are villains but they still love their ladies, you know.

Anything else from this episode? I mean, I have a bunch of stuff that I thought was just really lovely, like, or well done. I mean, obviously, Lizzie's death, her whole, like, sequence of events in the woods, getting basically, like, terrified, and then killing Shane, when Shane obviously thinks that Grasso is going to stop her from pulling the trigger. That quick moment where Shane is just like, I'm going to kill her. I'm going to get her. And Goss is like, if you touch her, you're fucking dead, you know?

His efforts to protect her while also trying to do whatever he's trying to do out there. I mean, I don't think he wanted the bikers there in the first place because he had told Jason, he's got an agent with him, don't come out here. And look, man,

I mean, like, that's a fucking brutal death scene for Lizzie. I will note with it, you know, getting hit full speed by a pickup truck. I don't think you'd look as lovely and peaceful after, as Miss Gossel holding her in.

I respect the fiction. Yes. I was grateful for the fiction. Alison Oliver, Get Your Flowers. Yeah. An incredible 110% commitment performance. I watch conversation with friends and you could have given me 10 guesses about what I would see her do next and none of them would have been this.

Yeah. And I like that show fine. And that was just great when when Aaliyah finds the bull's eye patch, you know. Heartbreak. Beautiful. I love the Maeve confession scene. I think Amelia Jones is just God tier. And I love the writing and I love just enough. I find myself in two-handed scenes like that. I was like, is she just going to say that's the same guy who killed my dad? Now he's taken everyone away. But she did it in a look. And so when you have a chance when actors take dialogue off the board, not saying that line was written, but it could have been, and it wasn't necessary.

I love that. I also love Dave's release, like, when she gets home. I did, too. There was, again, that, that reminded me of mayor in the sense that, like, I think some people who were watching that show also as, like, a crime show or procedural were like, oh, it's a little bit fantasy at the end. Like, it's a little bit of rewarding, but I'm like, these people deserve a reward. Like, I think that Brad is essentially optimistic about life, even though the shows are quite dark. It is funny to say that, though, I did read a little bit of ambiguity in the reaction where she was like, now I'm the mother of two small children. Exactly.

It's hugging you and it's hitting you. I mean, it's better for the world. Tom is factually right when he says that. But it's not like her life gets that much easier even then when the drug cast shows up. I liked how strongly Tom kept saying Wissahickin. Yeah. That's a word. we used to hear a lot in our life

and 20, 30 years, go by. And then now. For an HBO series to say it a lot. That was pretty much all I had for this one. As far as unanswered questions, like we've kind of gone over them. Perry and Jason are still out there. The Aaron mystery to the extent that there is one,

we're just waiting for Jason to put two and two together. And then it's Grasso and his boss and whether or not the boss will get implicated. And just, where's Freddie? Because we've spent some time with Freddie. And look, I think that there is some chatter out there about this not being a limited series. There was chatter about mayor too and mayor remained the limited series. Season three, we bring the two houses of Philadelphia together.

Jesus Christ, don't tempe with a good time. Mayor of Tasktown. I wonder whether or not they would let anything be the, is Grasso and the wind is Jason's dog? thing dangling, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. I don't think so. I don't think so either, but it does. I thought the thing that jumped out at me most was McGinty saying, I'm not going to put you up for my job.

But maybe she will. Yeah, well, let's find out what her intentions are. Great to talk to you, man. We'll be back on Thursday with some more watch pod stuff. Everybody enjoy Task. I hope you've ever enjoying Task. Yeah, that would be a weird way to. Yeah.

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