Creator Brad Ingelsby on the ‘Task’ Finale

Chris and Andy talk about the season finale of ‘Task,’ discussing why the ending was so satisfying, the constantly evolving nature of the show, and whether they want more of the HBO crime drama (1:00). Later, they’re joined by series creator Brad Ingelsby to discuss what inspired him to make the show, its significant religious through line, Mark Ruffalo’s finale monologue, the chances of a second season, and much more (27:42). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Brad Ingelsby Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Video Producers: Jon Jones Additional Video Supervision: Michael Delgado Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:59Speaker 04

  I need sports staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

• 2:05Chris Ryan?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me on the other line, unselfish with his love, it's Andy Greenwald. It's the nicest thing you ever

• 2:19Andy Greenwald?

  Never said about me.

• 2:20Chris Ryan?

  Andy, we are recording this for Sunday Night Release. After the task finale, we have a wonderful, nice, long, healthy, thoughtful interview with Brad Ingelsby to share with you guys. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the task finale and the the series finale. We assume maybe series finale, maybe just season finale, who knows? Uh, and then we'll get into our interview with Brad where we got into a bunch of stuff from this last episode, as well as how how the the whole thing made us feel, which was quite a bit. Um, it's great to see you. I really can't wait to talk to you about this episode and the and sort of the end of this this season. Let me just start here. We'll start broadly. Do you find it satisfying?

• 3:03Andy Greenwald?

  I found it insanely satisfying. I mean, I I feel like it's worth noting, right? That like, um, eight hour time delay between us. I'm watching this this show, these last few episodes, um, perhaps in kind of an emotional trans oceanic haze. I'm willing to accept that may be playing into it. But I found this show to be magisterial. I found it to be deeply, deeply affecting, deeply moving. I thought the ending was more or less no perfect in its, um, in the way that it balanced fates, justice, outcomes that were, you know, predictable, you know, and in ways that felt, um, acceptable.

• 3:46Andy Greenwald?

  And also some really, I think, surprising moments of sacrifice and grace, especially in the very in the very end moments of the finale. So I I'm really, really affected by the show and I'm excited to talk to you about it.

• 3:58Chris Ryan?

  I wish I could chart, like, the finale script in the finale episode like a piece of music, because I think, um, the things I felt like in the last 30 minutes, I I have no doubt are somewhat shaped by like my personal experiences and maybe where my head is at right now. And I think that that that might be, uh, like, an individual thing. I'm sure people could have critiques of of certain aspects of this show and certain aspects of the finale. But I think that there was some kind of, like, beautiful musicality to the to the way this season ended and the way the coda kind of took 35 minutes or however long it was after the the last shootout occurs.

• 4:43Chris Ryan?

  And you kind of get this. Look into what these people's lives are like after, after like all the guns are done shooting and all the cuffs have been put on wrists and all that. And I just found it profoundly satisfying, but also like deeply moving. You know, the moment where Maeve and Harper are looking at Billy and Robbie's house for the last time and their home for the last time and are like, you know, I'm worried I'm gonna forget all about this. And she's just like, you won't, like, I thought that too, but you won't forget it. And it's just, Ingelsby has like a real affection for the people he writes about.

• 5:23Chris Ryan?

  And I think you could say in some ways that that's like, does he cut Grosso too much slack? Does he, you know, does he create sort of safety zones for these characters where maybe they don't have to deal with certain consequences or that certain things don't happen? I don't know. I mean, like, at the end of the day, I get to the end of this season and I just wind up feeling real gratitude for the show itself. Uh, there's a couple of things I wanted to bounce off of you, but what did you, you wanna?

• 5:53Andy Greenwald?

  I just want to respond to something specifically you said, which was you were talking about a moment that stuck with you of, um, Maeve and Harper looking back on the house. The moment that stuck out to me is something that you just sort of alluded to, which is the end of the previous episode, there's a phenomenal, I guess in a weird way, although we didn't expect it coming between these two characters, the closest task actually came to the heat diner scene between Tom and Grosso, where he's like, I'm coming for you. And he's like, well, come at me then.

• 6:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:21Andy Greenwald?

  Um, big dogs gotta eat kinda scene. We were on this podcast a week ago saying, oh, okay, so the show put one over on us two different ways. It's not actually a two-hander, and that's something we talked to Brad about, and you guys will hear it soon enough. Um, but also maybe Grosso is the big bad at the end of the tunnel. This episode, Grosso goes to visit his sister.

• 6:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Andy Greenwald?

  And we see him bantering with his nephews. And we understand, you know, in beautifully drawn shorthand, why he is the way he is.

• 6:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Andy Greenwald?

  Um, why he does what he does. And I find that to be very affecting. I think that Brad writes from a position not of judgment, which is a theme in the series, but one of grace and giving people space to be fully alive. And again, this is something that we talk about when we when we have Brad on the line. But I find his incredible thirst, similar to Tom's thirst for vodka in the first few episodes.

• 7:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:20Andy Greenwald?

  His thirst for life, for more life, for more stories, for more context, for more richness, for more reasons, to be really, really compelling and really moving, honestly, in a way that a lot of television shows just aren't these days. And I'm not trying to do a drive by on other TV shows. You can watch procedurals that will give you definitive answers. And you can watch prestige television shows that are awash in very heavy questions. But what this show does is kind of quest and hope in a way that feels very relatable, if not necessary, at this particular moment in time.

• 7:51Chris Ryan?

  I thought, you know, we talk a little bit, we talk quite a bit with Brad in the upcoming interview about God, which is sort of funny.

• 7:59Andy Greenwald?

  Kind of a first for us.

• 8:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's.

• 8:01Andy Greenwald?

  Did you did you not do that with the guy from Drug Church last year? I haven't gotten back to it.

• 8:05Chris Ryan?

  But it's one of those things where I think it's a more useful reading of this TV show to think about it in almost these, whether you would want to say biblical or mythological terms, to imagine this is about, you know, these these people who are like kind of fallen and trying to redeem themselves. And if you want to look at the evil on this show, or the heavies, or the antagonists, they're not called the dark, they're called the dark hearts for a reason. You know what I mean? Like, there is a demon to an angel, you know, there is a counterbalance. And I think it's a very useful way to view the show about, I think you would go into

• 8:49Chris Ryan?

  and you'd be like, well, it's gonna be a gritty southeastern PA crime epic about the drug trade and how it moves from Reading through the cities. And, you know, the bike gangs vying for control of different, and it's like, no, it's not about that. You know what I mean? It's about parents and children, and it's about whether or not you can break cycles of.

• 9:11Chris Ryan?

  Of misery and pain and and being trapped in your own circumstances.

• 9:17Andy Greenwald?

  And it's a version of religion that I find from my other kind of church across the street, maybe in Gladwin, like, very, very compelling. There is no room in the mythology of task for an actual god or an actual devil, because look at the shit we have to deal with here.

• 9:36Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 9:37Andy Greenwald?

  It's not really worth wondering about eternal damnation and hellfire when you can have the kind of experiences that Robbie and Tom have had in the last 18 months, right? And I think it's worth noting that for as much as Brad shows this and Mary of Easttown are set in Delco. Yes, that is very, very, very much true. Maybe what's worth saying instead is these shows don't go anywhere but Delco.

• 10:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Andy Greenwald?

  And Pennsylvania. There is nowhere else. In the same way that I think, you know, Grasso expresses that view that maybe there's no place other than this. We get views of quote unquote heaven, and it's a bunch of trees in Canada. We get views of hell in terms of other people's behavior, but what the show is ultimately about is the choices we make right here. Right here happens to be, you know, in places like Radnor and other places where we spent birthday parties in our youth. So obviously, we're a little bit predisposed to be to be vibing with it. But I, I, I think that it's, it's a very compelling vision of just how we fucking got to do our best.

• 10:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Andy Greenwald?

  And the fact that it was so artfully evolved into, well, it's not even right. I was gonna say evolved into a show about one man's journey towards forgiveness. It was that from the beginning. Brad talks to us about that. But like, the way that we came to accept Tom's journey as the primary focus of the show, I thought was just so subtly done and so artfully done.

• 10:59Chris Ryan?

  Well, it's the twist of the show, isn't it?

• 11:01Andy Greenwald?

  It's the twist of the show, and yet it still had one last card to play with the Sam business.

• 11:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Andy Greenwald?

  Which. I think I didn't see coming. And I think that's interesting because you and I really, really vibe with the way that Brad Ingelsby writes television. I think we probably both and many other viewers probably were like, oh, I see. Maybe there's a gross redemption arc of sorts brewing here. I think last week I was patting myself on the back for saying, oh, Sam's going to get adopted by Tom. I wish I'd seen it sooner. I also felt confident, even though it was quite stressful, that Harper was not going to catch a stray. Like that in this world, there are certain rules, like awful things happen, but I did not think that was going to happen. So I felt comfortable watching it. The one thing that I did not think was going to happen, and I want to know your perspective on this, whether it

• 11:50Andy Greenwald?

  is because of my preimagined rules of television or my preimagined rules of the television of Brad Ingelsby, which I clearly got wrong. I did not see that we were heading towards the great gift that Tom is giving to Sam is letting him go. I did not expect.

• 12:04Chris Ryan?

  I didn't expect that. I didn't expect this being a show. I thought this was a show about two guys on opposite sides of the law. You know what I mean? And then I thought it was

• 12:15Andy Greenwald?

  Kind of like us.

• 12:16Chris Ryan?

  And then I thought it was a show about criminal organizations and law enforcement organizations being undone by moles and people working at cross purposes to them. And it then became about a guy who learns to forgive his adopted son by letting his other adopted son go have a life free from everything that kind of has any connection to his damaged parents and the incredibly traumatic way that he came into his adolescence.

• 12:51Andy Greenwald?

  It breaks the cycle.

• 12:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Andy Greenwald?

  Right?

• 12:53Chris Ryan?

  And it's the same thing with Maeve and Harper going off to, I guess, Canada or wherever they were, six hours north or whatever.

• 13:00Andy Greenwald?

  Well, they go somewhere else, but they don't go somewhere else in this lifetime. And by this lifetime, I mean our lifetime of watching the show.

• 13:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Andy Greenwald?

  Like it's off screen. It's beyond history. It's over. Yeah, it's such an interesting, it's such an interesting thing, this idea that he, that he would let, that he would let him go in a way. And I think there's something profound about the fact that Tom's ultimate accepted, Tom's ultimate journey is not just towards, you know, sobriety or making amends or whatever, it is actually accepting life with the son that he has.

• 13:36Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:36Andy Greenwald?

  You know, I think that that's kind of a powerful thing because even the most, I don't know, empathetic viewers probably like, what a beautiful thing to have a second chance.

• 13:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Andy Greenwald?

  But Sam was Tom's Canada, right?

• 13:49Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 13:49Andy Greenwald?

  And he has, he has to stay in, in, fortunately, like many of us, he has to stay in the United States.

• 13:56Chris Ryan?

  Um, let's talk really quickly about the crime stuff.

• 14:01Andy Greenwald?

  Let's do it.

• 14:02Chris Ryan?

  Because I personally liked it. It, it all falls into place in a way that I think some people will find a little convenient, where multiple times in the last couple of episodes, everybody is converging on the same place at the exact same time.

• 14:18Andy Greenwald?

  It's true.

• 14:18Chris Ryan?

  A lot of the, uh, let's just say, like, uh, narrative rushing attack, where it's like, let's hand the ball off so that we can get three yards, is progressed by, uh, we've, we've triangulated his cellphone or, uh, a source told me that Shelley is doing this. And it's like, who's the source and like, what are you, what are you talking about? Did you find it too convenient or did you find it to be exactly what was supposed to happen? Because it's gotta happen to have like the desired effect of, for the characters.

• 14:52Andy Greenwald?

  Well, I think the best case scenario in crime fiction, a subject you and I are very passionate about, is when you feel that inevitability of page turning, of plot advancing, but it also feels thematically relevant to the material that we're dealing with. So conceptually, the idea that you cannot escape these perpetually repeating systems of violence or fear of pursuit of money or whatever the case may be, we, you simply can't escape them. Everybody's living on top of each other in this place. That's one of the themes of the show. The idea that everything, literally the chickens, shout out Gertie, come home to roost is baked in. I mean, it was, it was made evident the moment the show revealed that Maeve is not only the daughter of Billy, who was in the Dark Hearts,

• 15:37Andy Greenwald?

  but Dark Hearts, but, but was, you know, sleeping with Jason's wife. And everyone in the Dark Hearts remembers Maeve and Crazy Robbie. Like, it's not that far fetched at that point to me.

• 15:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Andy Greenwald?

  That said, I am a proud leather jacketed member of the Soft Hearts and I proudly tell you on this podcast, proudly tell you on this podcast that there was a part of me in the previous episode where when Maeve sees the bag of money and I was like, thank God we won't see Maeve in the finale because it all worked out.

• 16:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I had a feeling that was gonna blow up in Maeve's face a little bit when they were just like, just hide it in the one place Perry's definitely seen you hanging out.

• 16:18Andy Greenwald?

  For what it's worth, that was fairly good advice from her normcore friend.

• 16:22Chris Ryan?

  Oh, she's a ride or die. Was her name Bridges?

• 16:25Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 16:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, she, for what it's worth, I thought that was a pretty savvy read of the situation because I think you and I, due to the entertainment we consume, have definitely spent considerable amount of Malcolm Gladwell hours just wondering how we might respond in certain situations or like what the only good thing to do if blank is, you know, and head on a swivel that one. I thought it was a good plan.

• 16:47Chris Ryan?

  What do you, what do you think about my idea of we freeze time before everything goes wrong and we do a spinoff show of Perry and Jason, but it's like waiting for Godot? It's just like they're stuck in that cabin making different trout preparations.

• 17:02Andy Greenwald?

  First of all, I'm in London, so I have to say waiting for Godot.

• 17:05Chris Ryan?

  Oh, sorry.

• 17:06Andy Greenwald?

  Just FYI. Yeah, no, it's, I'll let you get away with it once. The second thing is a great pull by you. I thought of a different recent entertainment. I got real mountain head vibes.

• 17:18Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 17:19Andy Greenwald?

  From that, that I feel like if this had had like a two hour runtime, there could have been a lot of similar like, we are going to kill a guy in this house, kind of comedy antics, but that is a well-traveled boning knife. I will say that.

• 17:35Chris Ryan?

  It is, and I, and I just want to say for any motorcycle gangs that are listening, I would recommend that if you have bike chains, not to put your initials on them.

• 17:44Andy Greenwald?

  That was a, that is a really smart call.

• 17:46Chris Ryan?

  You know, I think in this day and age, granted, we live in a surveillance state. Perhaps we can find you in other ways, but you know, if it's, it didn't take a lot of, of thinking through to find, who's PD who might be in the dark hearts? Huh?

• 18:01Andy Greenwald?

  I, I, I mean, it, it may have been, as they say over here, over egging the pudding a bit. Because I do think when they pull her body from the quarry and she has a bike chain, like, again, I feel like there was, it was a relatively short path.

• 18:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I personally just liked the idea, and I was okay with the idea that everybody sins, you can't wash them away. They're all following them around. Jason was going to find that out. Um, you know, Jason-

• 18:33Andy Greenwald?

  And Perry on some level was, I think, okay with him finding it out. I mean-

• 18:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because obviously he has like this father-son relationship with Jason. Um, I just want to say briefly with the Grosso thing, I had kind of in my head, if we didn't get a backstory to why Grosso was doing this, sort of written a departed style, Grosso is always like a child of the dark hearts, kind of friends, lifelong friends with Jason, although I don't really know-

• 19:01Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 19:01Chris Ryan?

  If that's a very rewarding relationship, but.

• 19:05Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, I don't, Jason doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who has lifelong friends. Like, I think we all could imagine what he was like on the playground and I don't know.

• 19:13Chris Ryan?

  I can see Jason being a little guy to hang and play Halo with, maybe, but like not, as soon as you kind of introduce any like outside of it influences, I think it's pretty bad. But Grosso has a very, um, I guess understandable, um, you know, if I, I needed to move my mother into a nursing home, I needed to buy a house-

• 19:31Andy Greenwald?

  Listen, this is the right podcast for that kind of conversation.

• 19:35Chris Ryan?

  And that in itself, you know, you can't forgive him for like Lizzie getting killed basically because of his actions, but you know, at the end of the day, he's given this sort of, uh, a narrative that makes a little bit more sense as to why he would betray his fellow law enforcement. But what did you think of?

• 19:52Chris Ryan?

  Frankel and his performance and the sort of grasso arc here.

• 19:56Andy Greenwald?

  I do want to say, just before I forget, before we move on from the Perry and Jason and Aaron of it all, like, I think that, you know, sometimes people throw around when they're talking about a show, they're like, oh, well, it's just because it's HBO, it's blank. And often they're like, it gets a pass because of the starry actors, or just even the way that it's shot.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Andy Greenwald?

  The moment that stood out to me is like, why this is an HBO show, is the fact that they had the resources to do a splinter unit to film, uh, police divers retrieving Aaron's body.

• 20:24Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 20:24Andy Greenwald?

  Like, that is something in a script that nine out of 10 networks and streamers are like, do you need it? Like, we, there's no one in this shot.

• 20:34Chris Ryan?

  They found Aaron's body, and she has Perry's chain in her hand. And we're just like, all right.

• 20:38Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. Or you do it in the morgue or something. Like, it's an exterior shot, it's a location shot. There's no one in the scene that you know, unless Margarita Le Viva really just, you know, lay flat, uh, for a couple hours. So, but, but it's, it's worth it. Like, that's the time, like, that's worth the spend.

• 20:56Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 20:57Andy Greenwald?

  To, I said this last week, I'll say it again. I owe Sir Criston Cole an apology. I was not familiar with your, the true extent of your game.

• 21:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:07Andy Greenwald?

  I think Frankel, Fabian Frankel was incredible on this show. Um, I think he was completely believable. I think he was completely alive in the character. I think that he was playing the version that we saw in the kitchen with his sister the entire time. You know, like, I, it's sort of an abstract comment to make, but especially because often actors don't know what's in future scripts. Now, I think all the scripts were written for this, so it's possible that he knew the backstory. But it's very rewarding as a viewer when you feel like the actor has been playing something, that has been holding a card and makes sense.

• 21:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:40Andy Greenwald?

  If you track it through the performance, that he has people that he thinks about that motivate him. Um, I, I thought the performance was really, um, vulnerable.

• 21:52Chris Ryan?

  Me too.

• 21:53Andy Greenwald?

  In a way, that I thought was really, really affecting. I thought the way that he delivered the, the, before the bullets start flying, the speech about how he's going to turn himself in.

• 22:05Andy Greenwald?

  It tracked to me. I loved, I loved the explosion of like, I don't know how you did this for 20 years. Like, I can't, I can't sleep. My stomach's all messed up. And I was like, buddy, fly to London seven times in a year. You know, it's like, it's basically the same thing. I'm gonna go turn myself in at the embassy.

• 22:23Chris Ryan?

  What embassy?

• 22:25Andy Greenwald?

  Well, Wind Horse Fingers. I don't know. I heard there's some nice land up in Canada. What do you think of it?

• 22:32Chris Ryan?

  He was great. And it's, it's just really, the idea of making an emo, vulnerable, sweet rat is a really cool wrinkle on that storyline. You know what I mean? Like, there's other versions of this show where, you know, the twist is that he's been the bad guy the whole time. And he runs Fent in Philly, you know, or something. And it's, it becomes a little bit more demonic. It just felt like, it felt consistent and in tune with, and in the same key of the rest of the characters' journeys, even if it didn't feel like the most pipe hitting, hard ass crime shit that we like.

• 23:17Andy Greenwald?

  Look, there are, there are, tropes are real for a reason. And some of our favorite shows, including in some, in certain ways, this one, like, fall back on them. You know, whether it's the, just the mole, or the, you know, the villain with the one Achilles heel of emotion, or whatever the case may be. But there's, there's a tendency, I think, in the TV shows that you and I like the best, that brings an almost like journalistic sensibility in, in like, not in the sense of like, Seymour Hersh uncovering, uncovering like WMDs, but like Joseph Mitchell, or like other New Yorker writers being like, what's your story, man on the street? Like, there's such a deep, deep well of curiosity within the writing of this show that, you know, in real life,

• 24:01Andy Greenwald?

  I was about to say, in real life, people aren't just pure evil, but you know, maybe I'm starting to. Reconsider that phrase, but like generally people are the main characters of their own story.

• 24:12Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 24:12Andy Greenwald?

  And they have reasons for what they do that are not entirely Machiavellian. And it's difficult and sometimes not warranted to find space for that to be given voice in cop shows, crime shows, the TV shows that that move the needle or get us talking week to week. I'm very grateful when we see that. And so whether it's, um, whether it's Jason having real anguish over the discovery of Aaron's body, or whether it's Kathleen downing opioids with white wine at 10 a.m. Like everybody has a little bit extra and they found the room for it and they fought to have the room for it and kudos to HBO for giving them the room for it. It made it a richer, it made it a richer experience.

• 24:52Chris Ryan?

  Martha Plimpton as the tool for this shit captain is, that's also an HBO hallmark is like, hey, let's get, let's get this incredible performer to do something that we've never gotten to see her do before and watch her slide into it like she's been in Sidney Le Met movies for most of her life, you know, like she has been in some, but I mean, like I think.

• 25:13Andy Greenwald?

  There's, there's no, and just to, to put a bow on it, like there is no better avatar for the type of humanity, um, that we're talking about here than, than Mark Ruffalo. Like, do you remember, do you remember the way people talked about him when You Can Count on Me came out?

• 25:29Chris Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:30Andy Greenwald?

  Like, so that movie came out, he was relatively unknown and anyone who saw that movie or anyone who read about movies fell in love with him, right? Like it's such a deep and intense way, not necessarily because he was the character that he played in that movie and he played him brilliantly, but because it was just like watching an X-ray of someone's emotional system.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:50Andy Greenwald?

  He's completely alive second to second with the kind of emotions that usually just pass over people's face like, you know, like fucking wind going through the wheat in Gladiator. And I, this isn't necessarily his best performance, but it, at least in my recent memory, it's the most Mark Ruffalo performance since then.

• 26:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Andy Greenwald?

  Because the other thing you and I didn't see coming was that it wasn't just about the steady drumbeat of his humanity, like as a backdrop to all the crime shit, it was all building towards his scene of forgiveness and his speech. And we talked to Brad a lot about that, so we don't need to like.

• 26:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, let's, we can.

• 26:27Andy Greenwald?

  Break it down again.

• 26:28Chris Ryan?

  We can talk about that because we get into the last shot, we get into the, to the speech, a lot of stuff with, with English.

• 26:32Andy Greenwald?

  It's incredible shit.

• 26:35Chris Ryan?

  I'll talk to you next week. It's great seeing you.

• 26:39Andy Greenwald?

  Do you, wait, I gotta get you on the record for, I gotta get you on the record for one more thing about this. Again, we asked Brad about it, but like, do you want more task? At the end of Mare, we were like, why can't we have more of this? And I think they went a little bit down the road and I don't know the details, but I feel like the takeaway was he would have to top the first one. So maybe we just leave it alone.

• 27:03Chris Ryan?

  I want more Ingelsby Delco stuff.

• 27:08Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Chris Ryan?

  I am very open to Ruffalo, like Tom takes McGinty's job when she retires and runs a new task force or whatever. I do think that one of the things that is amazing about Mare and Task is the completeness of the story. Like I want to leave Tom in that bedroom. You know, I don't want him to then be like, Emily's been kidnapped, you know?

• 27:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, I think that's legit.

• 27:41Chris Ryan?

  I want my own version of that story. And I feel the same way about Mare, honestly, for as much as I love it. I'm like, the things that happen in Mare are the craziest things that would ever happen in somebody's life. I don't know if you want to do season two of that. Now, that being said, it's right there to have Mare and to have Winslet and Ruffalo in a show together and to do a crossover of some kind. And if this is like a Delco crime universe, you know that we'll be the first ones in line.

• 28:11Andy Greenwald?

  But I think you're right that like, maybe the actual way to do it would be Freddie, you know, is still, is the guy doing the drugs. Because for as much as the word like, you know, during the rise of the prestige television era, there was a lot of talk about like novels and books on TV or whatever. And it's like, David Simon saying each episode is a chapter,

• 28:31Chris Ryan?

  Yes, yeah.

• 28:31Andy Greenwald?

  Not the whole book. Okay. Task and Mare are novels in a way that I really, really appreciate and that obviously resonate with us. And part of the beauty of a work of fiction at length, right? Is that the characters can go on journeys, but have like symmetrical or complementary arcs. And what's beautiful to me about Task, among many things, is like Robbie's story is rich, profound, and as you said, complete.

• 28:59Andy Greenwald?

  It's also, you know, finite. I mean, he's, he's dead.

• 29:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:02Andy Greenwald?

  Tom is not dead in the narrative, but his story is equally profound, equally complete and complete because of its relationship to Robbie's story. So I, I, I'm kind of talking myself into agreeing with you because they did it.

• 29:18Chris Ryan?

  They, if I could quote a dormant podcast, they stuck the landing on this. Let's get into our interview with Brad Inglesby and Andy will be back later this week to chat with me. I'm sure. Thanks to everybody listening for our, to our task stuff. It's been really fun talking about it. Greenwald, I'll see you later this week.

• 29:35Andy Greenwald?

  Do you want to just say overdose or homeowner? One more time? No?

• 29:42Speaker 01

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• 31:40Speaker 03

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• 31:49Chris Ryan?

  Andy and I are so honored to welcome Brad Ingelsby, the bard of southeastern Pennsylvania, the creator of Task, the writer of Task, one of Andy and I's favorite shows of the year. And you've just watched the finale, if you were here, because we are going to be talking explicitly about stuff that happens in the finale in this season of Task. Brad, thank you so much for joining us.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Oh my God, I'm honored to be here, guys. I always love talking to you.

• 32:16Chris Ryan?

  I want to, first of all, I just got to say, I found myself like pretty emotionally overwhelmed by the finale in very unexpected ways. I went into this show really, you know, I obviously like expecting this amazing prestige kind of crime drama. And I think I walked away with something much different. And I wanted to kind of ask you about, why did you do this show? And what were the things that you were kind of working out? Cause you know, obviously you like this kind of stuff and you love like crime TV, crime stories, but it felt like there was something much deeper at play here for you.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think I really started with, you know, the Tom's chara-, you know, the character of Tom and the journey of forgiveness and that, and that to me, and it goes back to Mare, guys, I really, really can say that Mare was a story in my head from the earliest, earliest seeds was about a woman who wasn't going to confront the death of her son and quite literally has to go up to the attic at the end. And that to me was what that story was about. There were a lot of other developments along the way and it became a whodunit, but that to me was really interesting. And the same for Task. It really started with Tom Brandis. I had gotten into this idea of a caretaker and how hard it would be to take

• 33:42Speaker 04

  care of a child with a psychiatric disorder. And I started to go down that road and ask how it would question my faith and my ability to get out of bed every day. And, and so that was really what I was interested in. And then exploring how that character in some way, in this case through interacting with Robbie and the task force, has to let go of the anger that he's been holding inside and has to forgive his son. And that to me was like the simplest seed of a story. And, and that was my interest in it, was a guy who's lost his faith at the end has to come back. And I always felt, which, I don't know if you, I mean, I hope it resonated with you, but I always felt like, at the end of the story,

• 34:25Speaker 04

  his act of faith was letting Sam go, that he was gonna, he allowed Sam to go. And he had faith that he was going to be okay. And that was his act of faith at the end was letting Sam go and believing he was going to be okay. It wasn't that Tom was going back to church and kneeling at the altar or saying mass or any of that. It was, his act of faith was having a belief that Sam was going to be okay. He wanted to keep Sam, but he had to let him go. And so that's what really started the story for me. And then I had to fill in all the other action beats and plot beats along the way, guys.

• 34:58Andy Greenwald?

  So Brett, first of all, because my mic wasn't really working, I haven't spoken yet. So thank you for the show and thank you for joining us. I'm interested to hear you say that your relationship to the show was Tom's journey. And I think that one of the things that was really rewarding and surprising about watching the series week to week was the slow reveal that this really was Tom's story. That what we thought was a two-hander ended up being a one-hander, if you will. That the log line that we got excited about, this is heat in Philly, A, wasn't really in downtown Philly, and B, wasn't really about two guys running toward each other. It was about one guy moving forward. So, since you've known that from the beginning, I'm curious what your log line was when you

• 35:41Andy Greenwald?

  spoke to Mark Ruffalo about joining the cast, when you talked to Tom Pelfrey. How did you communicate the show to them in a way that you could tell us now that we've seen it all?

• 35:51Speaker 04

  Yes, well, you know, look, I did say to them, listen, it's a collision course of these two guys, but I always knew when Robbie was going to die. And I said that, you know, what always, you know, what I always felt strongly about was that a part of Tom's own journey to, you know, releasing the anger was meeting Robbie and seeing, and seeing Robbie's sacrifice, right? Realizing in the end, when he sees the picture that Kath gives him, is like, oh, wow, he did have a plan. He knew what he was doing going up there along. He wasn't going up there to get away. He was going up there as a sacrifice, you know, in some way to better his family. And so, I always said that to those two guys.

• 36:34Speaker 04

  You know, I never shied away from the collision course. And I do think, and look, I'll also say this, on the page, it was probably more Tom's journey in, on the page, but Tom Pelfrey was so good that, you know, and I'll also tell you another story. He was so good that I got done editing the sixth episode, and it always ended with Maeve. You know, with May getting the money and I thought, wow, we're missing something with Robbie. We have to give him a moment of triumph or something. And then I went back into the dailies and we found this random little eight second clip of him laughing. I think Jeremiah, our director, was off camera, you know, making a joke or something.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  Um, and it's why that episode ends, ends with Pelfrey instead of Amelia with, because I just felt like the audience had become so attached to him. And look, it's the same problem I had with Evan in Mare. On the page Evan's character was good, but it wasn't that good. I'll, I'll be honest. And Evan came in and was so charming that when we got to editing the fifth episode of Mare, I went, dude, we're really in trouble. An audience is going to hate us. They love this character so much. And I felt the exact same way about Robbie, that he was a very compelling character on the page, but Tom just elevated this character and um, he was really in everyone's heart. And, and, and so I think sometimes Andy, and you're a writer too, you know this, that a character,

• 38:03Speaker 04

  an actor is able to bring out a character in ways you can't expect or predict. And Pelfrey really did that. And so, um, you know, it's one of those worries that I, you know, had when I actually watched the episode six is like, a Tom is such a compelling presence. What is an episode without him going to feel and look like? And how are we going to carry it through? And it's, it, it, it's why I, um, I hope that ending sequence in the courtroom and, and, and the stuff with May, that there's still enough of that emotional investment and attachment to carry the audience through.

• 38:36Andy Greenwald?

  It, it's also a testament to Mark Ruffalo's performance and just the innate humanity and humility that he brings to every performance, because you, you watch the first few episodes and you're like, well, this isn't a movie star performance. This is a, like the bass drum, like the heartbeat of the show. And then it's only when the, the, the snare drum like drops out of the mix that you realize that that's been keeping you alive the whole time. And, and he, you somehow coaxed that, I don't know if you coaxed that performance, you encouraged that performance, or he just found the rhythm to realize that this, that the star of the show has been here the whole time. The main character has been here.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  I, you know, I, I would always say to Mark, it's such a humble performance. I think if you, as you said, if you look at the early episodes, he's really letting everybody else shine. Allison's, you know, all of her humor and Kathleen and Martha. He allows them to shine in a way. And like you said, he's sort of almost very quiet in those early scenes. And then, only then, does he rise up. I think only when, I always said that I think he's only activated, really, when he thinks he's going to die. And he says, I need to call my son.

• 39:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  And I think if you look at his performance after that point, he's way more active in a way that we haven't seen. That's a turning point. When he thinks he's going to die, he then says, I have to call my son. I have to say something to him. And that's the turning point. And every every scene with him after that, he's more activated, he's more aware, he's more present. And so that I felt like was the turning point in his character in those moments with Robbie, when he, you know, he's starting to feel like he could die. He starts to get activated in a way that we haven't seen before.

• 40:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's awesome, because I think a different performer, well, I'm guessing, but I think a different performer might be like, I need to do something pretty cool in these first few episodes. And I don't know if he did this on purpose, or if this is just a trick of the light, and I noticed it, or what. But like, I feel like I may have even mentioned this to you when we did the event a couple of weeks ago.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:34Chris Ryan?

  He acts the first half of the season, up through five, really, with very heavy eyelids. Like, his eyes are almost closed. And it's like, his eyes open after. And even the last shot of this show, is him looking up and finally seeing, like, life again.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 40:52Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if he was like, I have that in my back pocket, I'm gonna break it out for the last shot of this series. But it worked, man. I was like, holy shit. I can't believe this just happened.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  No, he said, you know, and I also think he acted with, like, just the, you know, I always, especially in the early episodes, could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders, the way he walked around. And like, he was able to bring all of that trauma, and guilt, and regret, and pain into into those scenes. And you, so every scene, even when he was, you know, even when it was a procedural scene, you felt all the family stuff on him. And and that's what's so great about the release, I think, at the end. Is that it's it's sort of he's able to let go of all that stuff. And as an audience, we've experienced it with him just in the way he walks around, interacts with people.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  And so I'm really glad you felt that way at the end that there was some kind of release or letting go. Or, you know, I that's what we intended it to be was there, you know, I wanted it to be a hopeful ending.

• 41:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I was so I wanted to ask you about six and seven, but especially the mechanics of some of the more crime fiction genre aspects of it. Because I think one of the things that was liberating about watching this was letting go of, you know, being a little bit of a granular realist about everything and like, what is the exact kind of like procedural doctor and these guys should be following and

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 42:28Chris Ryan?

  Almost feeling like this was more like a bunch of people that were not in control of their own lives and something was pushing them to these locations and having them collide. And

• 42:39Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 42:40Chris Ryan?

  How much do you let what you want to say about human life dictate the crime stuff? And how much do you let the crime stuff dictate what you want to say about humanity?

• 42:53Speaker 04

  It's always it's always the I'm always interested in a group of characters. And then the crime is just an excuse. It's just an excuse to get them together. I mean, true, and I think every time I get to writing a procedural scene, I cringe and go, oh, my God, what can I do to possibly make it interesting? Like, these scenes kill me. I hate procedural scenes. And if you if you look at task in particular, I think my remedy is always to add some humor. Like, you know, Martha Plimpton, so they're getting these like procedural beats, but they're always a laugh or a joke. Because I'm really, you know, I hate to say this, Chris, I'm really not interested in the procedural stuff. I mean, I shouldn't say I'm I shouldn't say that.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  I know an audience needs to follow a story and they're and you need to and you need to move the ball down the field. But I'm really, really interested in the way these people interact and the way an incident changes their life or situation, how they react in the face of suffering, how they react in the case of Tom in the wake of losing his faith, like. Those are the things that get me out of bed every morning. The procedural elements, I'm telling you, they're always hard to write. And yet I know there's a need to have them. But the thing that gets me excited and the reason I got into this business was to write, I wanted to write characters.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  I wanted to understand how they interact with each other, how they respond in the face of losing someone they love. Those are the things that get me excited. And the other stuff is just an excuse to spend time with them. And I really, truly feel that way. And I think that's why, what you're getting at is that even when we have those procedural scenes, like they're quick and fast and we don't go into the computer screens or laptops or cell phones, we almost just like, I'll just quickly snatch the clue that gets us to the next scene of interacting with these people I care about, you know?

• 44:56Andy Greenwald?

  We get it. You love the beauty and the poetry of the game. You're not an X's and O's guy. You're like Kevin Patullo. Right? You're just, you just like the assortment of players on offense.

• 45:06Chris Ryan?

  The over/under for Kevin Patullo references was seven minutes and Andy.

• 45:09Andy Greenwald?

  You don't need to get them to run in the same direction or in opposite directions. So a lot of the conversation about the season, obviously, circles themes of forgiveness. The word penance comes up specifically in this finale. Tom does not judge Grasso. He leaves that for himself to do. He forgives Ethan. But Brad, you're the creator of the show and inevitably you doled out some justice, especially in the finale. Some fates felt like you were balancing scales. Aaron's body is recovered, Perry dies in the water as well. Others were surprising.

• 45:42Chris Ryan?

  The Dark Hearts did not get forgiven. I would say that, yeah.

• 45:44Andy Greenwald?

  That's fair.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  No, no, we let them go.

• 45:48Andy Greenwald?

  They had some heavy losses. I guess the specific question is, in the role of creator and judge, jury and executioner, why is Grasso left alive? Why was it important for you to give him that arc and even to give him the chance, give us the chance to understand him more this episode via the introduction of his sister?

• 46:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I thought that scene was really important and that was one we that and that was one that we had planned and Lily Kay came in as a wonderful actress and she and she and God bless her, she came in, did one day of work. And that scene was always in there because one of the things we we talk about a lot on set is, hey, we don't have to agree with the decision these people make, we don't have to agree with a Grosso or or a Robbie, but I feel as a writer that it's my responsibility to understand why. And and that's what that scene with Grosso and his sister did, I think, was to at least

• 46:53Speaker 04

  understand why, how he got in in this situation in the first place and the shame he feels about his decision. And I think, you know, one of the things my uncle, he was a, you know, he was a priest and he would hear confession and one of the things he said to me was, I'd be in the booth and the same people would come every single week and they would say, you know, I cursed at my mom or I lied to my spouse and and he would say, you know what, I'm not going to give you any penance, I'll I'm going to talk to God on your behalf, I don't I don't want you to worry about these things, I'm going to talk to God. And while they came back every single week with the same sins, it was they wanted the penance, right?

• 47:35Speaker 04

  And the shame was so overwhelming and corrosive. And that, you know, I grew up Catholic and and and it's still something I deal with and and I feel like I was exploring a bit of myself in Grosso and trying to just understand things. I think that's a part of his journey along the way. He's he's asking Tom these questions along the way. He wants to believe again, he wants to have a faith. And and I think what I was getting at with Tom is that almost the worst punishment that Grosso could have is to be is to have to deal with it on his own. You know, it's it's it's almost worse than death in a way for Grosso is to have to live with the consequences of his actions. I'm not going to let you off the hook, Grosso.

• 48:20Speaker 04

  You know, I'm not going to give you, I'm I'm I'm going to let you sit with what you've done on your own. And I think that's something that I learned from my uncles, that the people You know, they were always beating themselves up. You know, it didn't require him to, you know, have any penance or dole out any penance. They were doing it themselves, way worse than any penance he could give them. And that really resonated with me. And I felt like that was something Grasso, who I felt grew up in the Catholic Church in South Philly, had that experience, that institution that he felt had let him go or had let him down. I felt like that would be a punishment worth, you know, it, I think it would be worse than him actually passing away in that last scene. It's just the ability, he has to go on with his life and deal with the consequences of what he's done, you know?

• 49:05Andy Greenwald?

  I, I did want to ask you specifically about Catholicism because while I may recognize the Delco accents, that is not a church I'm familiar with, certainly growing up in. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about your experiences, like young Brad, if you will. Like, were there elements of growing up in the church that excited you or surprised you or intrigued you in the same way that the comic books maybe you were reading did or books? Like, is there something that lit you up with questions or the size of the world or the beauty in the world? Because, yeah, I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that because it's baked into the show in a way that's fascinating.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  And yeah, it really is. I mean, it was something that, you know, that was one role my father had. He wasn't a disciplinarian, but like, if you're going to live under this roof, you have to go to church every week. I don't care if it's Saturday night or Sunday morning, you are going to go to church. And so it was such a part of my upbringing. And, and what I loved about the church was, you know, the compassion, the inclusivity of, of, of the Bible. And yet what I couldn't understand, it just felt so inconsistent to me, right? That there were passages that I could understand as being this all merciful God. And then there was Job and this, you know, and then there were other passages that I couldn't make sense of. Like, how can that exist and that exist?

• 50:24Speaker 04

  And I don't think I've ever gotten the answers, but I, you know, what I always say to my uncle, and there's a great quote by a rabbi, I think it's Herschel, I may have mentioned it to you guys before, but he said, "I'm closest to God when I'm asking the questions as opposed to when I think I know the answers." And that has been my journey is I don't, I don't know, I don't have an answer. But there are so many things I love about the church and so many things that make no sense to me. And, and I think the older I get, you know, there's a distance between those things. But I feel like I'm always on the journey and that's why I meet with my uncle all the time. So there were so many things about the church, Andy, that I loved.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  Oh my God, this, there's a sense of kindness, take the poorest among us and bring them in and care for them. And then there were other passages I would read and go, wait, but that doesn't seem like the same person. Right. And that's the, and that's the magic and the torturous nature of the Bible. It's all interpretation. I could read a passage and think one thing, and it's actually a quote we used in Mare. I think in the opening episode, the priest says, "Our idea of God, it tells us more about ourselves than it does about Him." I think that's so true. Like I want to believe that God is all merciful. And so that's how I think of it. But that, but, but I have a lot of friends and, and my father has a different view of things. And so it's just always really intrigued me and there are so many things I love about it.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  And so many things that still to this day make absolutely no sense to me. But I'm on the journey always and I love to ask the questions. And I think in asking the questions, there's a reward there, you know?

• 51:59Chris Ryan?

  To keep it-

• 52:00Andy Greenwald?

  If you did find the answer, would you, would you announce it on the Watch Podcast?

• 52:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:04Andy Greenwald?

  Could that be a Watch exclusive? I think that would be great for our numbers and our lives.

• 52:08Chris Ryan?

  And our salvation. I don't mean to keep, to keep us in on God corner, but I, you know, I wanted to mention to you that one of the things that- Early in the season, we got an email from a viewer who talked about Richard Rohr to us in this email. And, you know, I bought Falling Upward and started reading it and was obviously struck by the heavy use of the word "task" in the opening passages of it. And frankly, Rohr writing about storytelling, but also, you know, this idea of the two tasks in life and the two halves of your life, I thought served as like an incredible lens through

• 52:50Chris Ryan?

  which to view the series. I wanted to know if you could talk to me a little bit about Rohr and whether or not like that was kind of like a structural thing, or was it just a reference? Because obviously, a character brings it up. Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I really know Rohr. I really know his work, and it was recommended to me by my uncle. I really know his work through the universal Christ, which was my experience with Rohr. And I think I know what you're getting at. There's like the task of understanding your place.

• 53:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. It's like you build up your identity, and then you have to figure out what fills up your identity, like what fills up your heart, basically. Yeah.

• 53:28Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. Well, you know, I think the reason we put Rohr in there is because it's a conversation I've had with my uncle a number of times, and this idea of Christ as being almost like the love that exists between people. And that's always really interested me. As a kid, I was taught one thing. There's this guy in heaven who's waiting to judge you, the ultimate arbiter, right? And what I found so appealing about Rohr was, wait a second, what if that's a very myopic way of viewing God? What if it's a much more inclusive Christ? You know, and that it's almost sort of the love force that exists between all these people. And I just found that to be such an interesting

• 54:12Speaker 04

  idea. And it's something that I've had many, many conversations about with my uncle. And I really think it's sort of how he views God now. And he was raised in the church that believed, hey, if you sin, you go to confession, and there's someone keeping track in heaven, and you're gonna have to face that person eventually. And so, I've always been eager to learn about other ideas of God and see how it's...

• 54:37Speaker 04

  How it, I don't know, lines up with my ideas over the years. And so it wasn't that Tass was born out of Roar. It was more that my experience with Roar, you know, was something I felt that Tom would have explored as a character. That, that I really felt like, just given his identity as a priest. And I always felt he was a very inclusive and progressive priest. I felt like, oh, that's something that he would have read. He would have read Richard Rohr. He would have listened to his things. And, and so it felt like it was in the zone of what Tom would listen to. And so that's why I put Roar in there. And so it wasn't as if Tass was born out of Roar, but it did feel like I felt strongly that Tom would know Roar's work and be, and be someone that read his books.

• 55:21Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's either way, the best art is the art that makes you read other stuff and go look for other stuff. So I just thought it was really cool because the finale to me was as much about kids as it was about the characters that were having gunfights and, and going to jail. And you wind up at the end with Ethan, Emily, these very like obvious shots of these people. Sam and Maeve and the kids all starting kind of like a second half of their life in some ways. And I just thought it was really fascinating that even with, you know, Robbie going down and, and, and Lizzie going down and the Darkhearts going down and Grasso's going to prison and all these people.

• 56:05Chris Ryan?

  But there is this like rebirth at the end of the episode.

• 56:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I think that was like, I'm really glad you said it because it was so important for me to have, it was really important to really give the kids a voice. And that was something that like, and, and I can tell you, there were many times, just to give you a peek behind the curtain, where I, I felt like, you know, we could have, in the edit, we could have gotten rid of some of those scenes. You know, that Emily with the guidance counselor and,

• 56:35Speaker 04

  You know, just little scenes like Harper asking Maeve about the date. And there were so many little scenes that if I would have submitted the episode to HBO, they probably wouldn't have missed it. But I felt like if we're going to talk about the actions of the fathers, well, we have to give voice to the kids that have to be a part of it and they have to speak with honesty. And we have to see the impact these actions have on the kids. It's just so important. And so that was something we really, really were constantly trying to keep in the show. So I'm really glad that resonated with you. And I thought one of the most meaningful scenes in the show was when Emily said, like, all I'm ever supposed to feel is gratitude. I'm never allowed to have an honest emotion.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  I'm just supposed to feel one thing all the time and God forbid I feel something else. I'm not grateful anymore. And that was one scene that I really was like, we have to keep this in the show. It speaks to what the show is really about. And I know the plot stuff needs to be there, but in the end, it's my hope that the aggregate of all these little things that we're trying to keep will have an impact at the end of the show, you know? So we really, really, really wanted to keep the kid scenes in there.

• 57:49Andy Greenwald?

  I think they're incredibly rewarding and they're incredibly important. And like a moment ago, you talked about how you're torn between the prose of the investigation and the investigative beats and then like the poetry of the deeper meaning, but let's make this a trinity. I don't know if you've ever heard of that arrangement of things before, but like, I think the third piece is what you're talking about, which is that every time you set off on a journey as a writer, what I'm really responding to is that the car just swerves, like a misaligned whatever, towards more life. And I find that so rare in the way TV is made these days. Those scenes do get cut. And sometimes I feel like it's almost like, it's like an extra course in a meal that like, you can't help but introduce Sarah, the daughter, and oh, we don't like her.

• 58:32Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, but now she has a backstory and now she has empathy and now she has nuance and now she's a part of the fabric of the show. Like, I think one of the most, if I may, like Brad beats of the finale is that the fucking magician kid is now babysitting. Like, it feels good, you know, to see the depth of this. And I wonder, there's sort of like two parts to the question, I guess, in one of the parts.

• 58:57Speaker 04

  I know.

• 58:58Chris Ryan?

  But you get this lovely moment.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys. That actually means a lot to me because I like, there are battles we have and I'm so, it makes my heart warm that you guys like have picked up on the magician being there babysitting.

• 59:12Andy Greenwald?

  But I just wonder if like in your writing, like do you trace that to some like innate curiosity advice you were given once? Are you just a misaligned chassis that's driving off the road? Like, do you digress in your office? Like giving us these, you know, writing backstories that even though we don't even see, I wonder how you calibrate that interest?

• 59:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's always like, you know, one of the things that I like to say

• 59:38Speaker 04

  early in the process is why everyone needs to earn a seat at the table. Everyone needs to be here for a reason. And it can't just be a funny line or a funny scene. Like, if we're gonna have Leo, he needs to pay off in some way. If we're gonna have Sarah, she needs to pay off in some way. And so, and it's important to me that that payoff is unexpected. It's, you know, it's, oh, we thought you were one person and then we learn a little bit more. Like you were saying, Andy, oh, we hate Sarah. She's so nasty in the second episode. Well, and we learn a little bit about her. We understand her a little bit more. And suddenly we look at her a little differently. And so I love just trying to,

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  I love trying to understand or expect what an audience expects and then subverting it in some way. That isn't cheap, but subverting it in some way that feels earned and surprising. And it is important to me that at the end of the show, I could make a case for every character having been in the show. Well, they weren't there just to give us a laugh. You know, it was like Leo was there.

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  And the reason I love Leo is because what I always said was important about him and why we fought to keep him was, he lets us see Emily as a kid. Every other scene, she's just with her dad. She's working, she's taking care of her dad, yeah. Yes. And it's like she lets, he gives us access to what she might look like if she was a normal teen, not dealing with all this crisis. She smiles, she giggles, she gets drunk, she throws up, she gets asked on a date. Like, it allowed us the glimpse of side of her that is the what could have been if this family. And so I really want to be able to say at the end of the show, everyone had a reason. They all gave us something. And it's really important to me that I can say that at the end.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  And sometimes they do lose a bit in the edit or the payoff isn't what you imagined, but. I really try, and I think it comes from a love of human beings. I really like, I really love these characters so much. And, you know, I want more Leo. I wanted more scenes with Aaliyah. I wanted more scenes with Alison, Lizzie, and like, you know, ultimately, I didn't get to have all those scenes. But if it was up to me, it would have been like 18 hour show, and there would be scenes with Lizzie and Aaliyah hanging out and getting to know each other. You know, I love that.

• 1:01:54Andy Greenwald?

  I feel like you're triggering, Chris. You keep saying more Alison, more Lizzie. I'm watching him, I'm watching him just bite his cheek. Chris, you just want to go ISO on this for a minute?

• 1:02:02Chris Ryan?

  I mean, she was just too beautiful for this world, you know? She was too. It was, it is what it is. Like, you know, I don't think I could have handled it if she had found out Crosso was the mole, you know?

• 1:02:12Andy Greenwald?

  But like, Brad, legitimately, you have Amelia, and you have Alison, and you have Fabian, and they're, none of them, they're not just not from Delco, they're not from the United States of America. And yet, these are three of the greatest, like, I don't even know the word, inhabitations of people that we have all met or known that I've ever seen on the screen. The only question is, how? And yes, they are amazing actors, but if you could just talk about like, the initiation process, the hazing, like, the moment behind the monitors when you saw Alison do that scene at the bar that Chris is now tearing up thinking about, like, it feels like some sort of like wizardry.

• 1:02:53Speaker 04

  Well, listen, as you said, a lot of incredible talent there. But I think a couple things, and I think we talked a little bit about this when I was on the panel with you guys, is, you know, after we hire the actors, we immediately bring in the dialect coach, Suzanne, who they all know, and she's just wonderful. And so that process starts really, really early. And we usually identify one person, or one voice, really.

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  That an actor can attach to and Amelia was able to, I, I, I forget her girl's name, but it was a woman from Ridley and Allison had one too. And the other thing I think is so important, guys, is like, we shoot the show here. So Allison is here in Delco. She's driving around to bars. She's going Fabian and they're going to bars. And I think, I, you know, I can't quantify how that, how that, you know, how much that means, but it means a lot. And so it's, it's a mix of incredible talents and like, I mean, I mean, the crazy thing is, is that all three of them could speak in the Delco accent for Fab, like a South Philly thing. And then the minute you said, cut instantly go back into British,

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  like, and that was Kate's gift too, just instantly go back. And, and I don't know if it's a part of their training, I, I, but it is, it is a gift. And, you know, I can bring them into Delco. I could drive them to the bars or get them set up with people I have. But I think I, I just am always amazed that, you know, at, at the ability to switch on and off that quickly. I, I don't know. I mean, I, I love, I love them all.

• 1:04:32Chris Ryan?

  Well, now that he's come out of retirement, I would love to see Daniel Day-Lewis in one of these shows, but not, not turn the switch off. You know, and just be like, walking around being a guy from Philly all day.

• 1:04:44Andy Greenwald?

  Dirtbag guy.

• 1:04:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Andy Greenwald?

  Also, I just, I'm just watching, while you're answering, I'm just watching Chris and I just feel like there's like the gears are turning that like there are intimacy coordinators now on like sexy movies and like, could there be a regional coordinator?

• 1:04:56Chris Ryan?

  A Philadelphia coordinator?

• 1:04:57Andy Greenwald?

  Just like, smoke one cigarette outside of Bad Brother, like, once a week with these guys. And like, just to help keep them focused, you know?

• 1:05:04Speaker 04

  I got you, Chris. I got you covered, man. We're gonna bring you in the next one.

• 1:05:09Chris Ryan?

  You know, we, this is a good, actually, opportunity to ask you about this where You know, it's a Philly show. It's broadly a Delco show. I think that when I've talked to people about this series, or before it came out, or when the trailer dropped, the one with with G and R in it, like, there was this anticipation, at least I had this anticipation, it's like, oh, this is gonna be like an urban thriller. Like, this is, we're gonna get, and it is pastoral, you know, like, most of the, I would say, second half of the season is in the woods, you know, and

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 1:05:40Chris Ryan?

  All of the most important moments happen in nature.

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:05:45Chris Ryan?

  Aaron's death, Sam's swimming lesson, you know, Robbie's quarry jump, and obviously, the huge shootout up at the, at the summer home, the cabin, like, that is an element of Philadelphia that I don't think people really know, is that, like, you go down a block and you're in the the middle of the forest.

• 1:06:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:04Chris Ryan?

  But could you talk a little bit about exploring the more rural parts? And then also, working with Jeremiah and Sally, because I feel like they really leaned into the natural beauty of the city, but also, like, the poetry of, like, seeing wildlife, seeing

• 1:06:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Chris Ryan?

  foliage, seeing, like, all this stuff.

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, so it's funny, because I would always say, like, hey, it's a Delco show, not a Philly show. Like, I think, you know, I think there were, like, so many of these log lines, I think, were written, and it was like, it's Philly, and I was like, oh, boy, if people come into this thinking it's gonna be like a urban thriller, like you said, Chris, this is gonna be a huge disappointment. Um, but I always felt like, you know, again, it was born out of character, truly, I, I can, I'll be honest and say, I never really started saying, I wanna make a show about, about, about the woods in Delco. And, and, and in the same way, I never wanted to tell a story about vagrants in the fifth episode. It was born out of, oh, my uncle, he's an ex-priest, he's a bird watcher now, right?

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  It's, it starts with a character, and grounding that character. In, in, uh, in a way I can understand and then out of that character, only out of the character, am I taking the themes and stretching them. And the same with Robbie, I felt like, okay, who is this guy? He's a trash man. He kind of lives out in the woods. Oh, he has a quarry. He swam in with his brother. This was their place of heaven that's been snatched away from them that he's always trying to recreate in some way. And so it was only out of that idea, Chris, that all the wood stuff came into play. And I think I'm always operating out of, out of a place of character. You know, again, I truly never said to myself, I wanna, I wanna make a show that's out in the woods. And, uh, it was like, where would

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  Robbie go that I believe?

• 1:07:52Andy Greenwald?

  Right.

• 1:07:53Speaker 04

  Oh, he'd have a little, like, a little swimming hole where him and Cliff would go. Oh, that's cool. Oh, it's a place of lost heaven. Well, that's where Aaron could die later, right? And so everything is born out of me trying to understand a character in a very granular way. And then only when I, I have that character in my head, then I'm stretching all these themes out. Like, that's where the vagrant came from. Oh, what if Tom saw this bird? It wasn't supposed to be there. Oh, now I can use that as an entry point for him to bridge the gap between him and Robbie. And then I could use it again. And then it was the same with Robbie. Oh, I love this quarry. How can bring the quarry back? Oh, that's where he used to go with Billy. Oh, that's where Aaron goes to meet him, right? And so I think when you're starting from a place of character, all those other

• 1:08:38Speaker 04

  elements kind of, it's like a snowball. They start to come into you, but it's all coming out of the character, you know? I rarely start from a place of, oh, I want to tell a story about this place. I always say, I want to tell a story about this guy or this girl. And then what's their life like? And how do I use those things?

• 1:08:54Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah. But, but I do have a question about the place. Specifically because, and this was true in Mare as well, but it's something that I kept. Noticing and thinking about while watching Task was you and Jeremiah and Sally's camera specifically really showcased the relative age of this part of the country, right? Compared to certainly where we live now in California and that the houses and the towns and the streets have a certain look that is almost unchanged. So like Ray and Shelley's house in California, that's like 1.2 million. Like, that's a beautiful house. You know what I mean? Not that I've lived in California too long.

• 1:09:31Chris Ryan?

  Don't tell Shelley she might have done something different.

• 1:09:33Andy Greenwald?

  Exactly. It's like fentanyl. Just dress it up a little bit.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  Task season two, Shelley.

• 1:09:40Andy Greenwald?

  But yeah, just knock down these connecting walls and you've got it. But what's changed is the, you know, to go back to the Richard, where the content of the vessel, right? Like, people are still yearning for community, still living in homes, but now there's fentanyl and now the middle class has been destroyed. And there is a, your camera doesn't flinch from showing that contrast. And, you know, you, in between making these series, I think you moved back home full time and you live there now. And so I wondered just what you feel, or if you feel like a responsibility to this place, how to depict it, how and how you choose to depict it.

• 1:10:19Speaker 04

  A hundred percent, Andy. It's, you know, it's, you know, honestly, people say, oh, did you have a, like, a tough time doing a follow-up to Mare? And I said, yeah, because I'm telling another story about Delco. It's, it's not that I, I feel the, you know, there's obviously the burden of Mare, but also it's just a responsibility. I have to live here. I have to walk these streets. I have to, I have to bump into these people. So it's incredibly important to me. And I think what I, you know, truly what I, the most important thing to me when I write these stories about this place is that I hope the people here appreciate them. And I think what I'm always trying to do is give a voice to a very specific community

• 1:11:00Speaker 04

  of people that I don't think we often get to see on screen and to, and to show the kind of, I said, the heroism of, of the day-to-day life here, right? Like, what I always admire. And it's really the character of Robbie is like, I just love this idea of he's living a life he never imagined, in some ways hasn't asked for. But he's getting up every day, he's going to work really early in the morning, he's doing a job he doesn't love, out of a sense of duty. And like, I've always, that seems really simple, but I've always found that to be like incredibly heroic. Like, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna tie my shoes, I'm gonna go to a job I don't love, I work with people I don't like.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm gonna do something for the course of the, over the course of the day I, I really don't want to be doing. And I'm doing it because I love my wife or my kids and I want them to have a better life, or at least a life that's a little bit, a little different. And like, I've just always loved that idea. And I've always just, I've always found that simple idea incredibly heroic. And I've also always thought those lives are as complex as other lives that get depicted on screen. Um, and I, I always want to try to, try to give those lives, the dreams and the fears, the anxieties, um, and the complexity and the layering that I think they deserve. And so,

• 1:12:25Speaker 04

  it's really important to me that I can, that I can give a speech here in Delaware County and not have, you know, and not get up and get, you know, in some way harassed or like, I want people to feel proud of these shows. That is incre- I think it's probably the most important thing to me. Truly the most important thing to me is I want people to feel like I've honored this place, I've, and, and that the characters do justice to them. That's really important to me.

• 1:12:52Chris Ryan?

  I was wondering, you know, some of my favorite moments of this season of the series was moments that were unexplained, or moments where I feel like you didn't override it. And the thing that kind of haunted me was Erin looking up at those kids partying up on the ledge. And obviously, like, it becomes a moment of like, you know, I need these kids to recognize that I'm being attacked by Perry, so hopefully they'll hear me. But before that, it seems like she's remembering being with Billy and Robbie as a kid. And there are a bunch of moments like that where You don't have somebody go back and say, like, Sarah and Emily don't go right up to

• 1:13:37Chris Ryan?

  Rob, Tom, after the sentencing hearing and say, "What led you to that statement, Dad? And how are you feeling about it now?" Like, do you let these things breathe? But as a writer, is it hard to edit yourself? Or do you look to maybe cut in post and say, "Okay, like, this doesn't need this extra beat"?

• 1:13:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's a great question, Chris. I think some of it isn't editing and going, "Okay, I think we achieved it without having to say those things." But I also think some of it is like, you know, setting yourself up in the right way. Like, you were mentioning that scene with Erin. Like, you're exactly right that she's looking up and remembering a time that might have happened there and how much it's changed now. But I think so much of that emotion that you're so rightly getting out of that scene is that we laid in the backstory of these people. And if you've done the backstory and you understand how much Billy meant to her and to Robbie, then you're able to get away with saying so little. And it's the same thing with Tom and his family.

• 1:14:42Speaker 04

  It's the layering you do even before you bring the audience into the story, you know? Like, that's what I love about Task and Mare is even before the story, even before you bring the audience in, so much of the story has happened, you know? In Mare, "Oh, well, it's Dawn's daughter's been kidnapped. It's been a year. I haven't gotten any clues. The town that embraced me as a kid is turning against me." All that's already happened, and that's before we even jump into the story. And the same with Tom Brandis. Even before we enter the story, Ethan's been in prison for, I think he says, like, you know, 12 months or something like that. And so, you know, I think you can get those emotions if you've done the backstory and you've layered it in.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  And the interactions so far are packed with that, all that backstory and pain and trauma. So when you get to those moments, a look can say a whole lot, you know?

• 1:15:34Andy Greenwald?

  Okay, yes. And I completely agree with you. You do the work. We fall in love with these characters slowly and then, like, going broke then all at once, right? And so that I don't even, so that suddenly Mark Ruffalo is making peanut butter.

• 1:15:47Chris Ryan?

  Or in some cases, instantaneously.

• 1:15:48Andy Greenwald?

  Right, in the case of certain cops.

• 1:15:52Andy Greenwald?

  So all of a sudden, Mark Ruffalo is making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I don't know why I'm sobbing on my couch. Like, I don't know how you did that alchemy. But there is another example, just to bring this conversation back to the finale, where you did lay down a marker, whether we knew it was coming or not, in terms of how you set out to make the show. And at some point, you must have realized, in order to pull off this thing, I'm gonna have to write this statement. I'm gonna have to write this speech for this actor, and it's going to have to anchor the entirety of the series. Let me step on your answer by saying, you fucking did it, because that was awesome, and it was incredible. And maybe I'm jet lagged and miss my kids, but that hit like a sledgehammer.

• 1:16:35Speaker 04

  Thank you, Andy. That means a lot to me, man.

• 1:16:38Andy Greenwald?

  How did you prepare for it? Did you agonize? Did it flow? It was all heading towards a speech, and you've backed yourself into that corner.

• 1:16:49Chris Ryan?

  Can I also just say, I always love the fact that Tom reads it and doesn't have some prepared, memorized monologue, or pretend to throw away the statement? And like, he's a guy who would not be able to do a three-minute monologue like that, you know?

• 1:17:09Speaker 04

  That's equal. And it's funny you say it, Chris. That's exactly what Mark said to me, too. I would have written this down.

• 1:17:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:15Speaker 04

  I said, oh, yeah, 100%, you know? And so that was a decision we both made. I think it was very... It was really hard, Andy, for all the reasons you said, in that, you, as you said, I've been walking myself into a corner this whole time, and now I have to pay it off. And I thought what was my way into it as a structure was that I wanted Tom to be... I felt like it was very important... It was important for him to acknowledge how hard it was first. That was the way, that was, that was my way in was for him to be like, I'm gonna tell you how incredibly hard it was. And I felt like because he was honest about that side of things.

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  And there were some really painful moments there. I didn't put the name tag on because I didn't want the parents to think I was Ethan's dad. And some of that was just reading testimonials from parents and snatching those things out. Um, I think there was another part of the speech where he says, you know, the hardest part was the weekend. Where we had him on our own, we couldn't, we couldn't drop him off to anybody. Um, and that was something that I read and, and, and when I read it, I thought, oh my God, of course. Like the weekend would be the scariest. All these parents were coming to pick their kids up and saying, it's Friday, guys, let's go home. And, and you, and then you get Mark Ruffalo going, holy shit, I gotta go home. Yeah. I gotta go home for two days like, and, and, and you read some of those things that just instantly hits you in a way where you go, oh my God, that is like, I, I could never write anything that good.

• 1:18:41Speaker 04

  That has to be experienced and, um, and so I thought for me, it was really important to be honest at, at the jump. And so that when he says, but there was also so much joy, that part, he was able to resonate as well. And so I really thought, well, let's, so let's have him say how hard it was. And let's have him be really, really honest about the experience of being Ethan's dad. And we're gonna get, and we're gonna hear the truth in that side. So that when he says, but it was also so beautiful that we also believe that equally. And that, and when I got that in my head, I felt like I could write the speech. And it was even longer on the page, if you can, because it's, it's long in the show. But it was even longer on the page.

• 1:19:23Speaker 04

  But as you were getting at earlier, Chris, I felt like, well, let's do longer and let's get in the edit. And we'll see which pieces can be trimmed or, or, um, and, and then, and then you have an actor like Mark, who's just so honest. Um, who can get up and deliver a speech like that and be on camera for that long. And the whole scene's about him having to give this speech. And, um, but yeah, I felt like it was what the show was about, you know, that, that if I could, if I could, if I could ask myself, what is the show about? It's about a guy who can't let go of the anger that quite literally has to open the door to his house and let his son in. And that to me was what the, and that to me was what the show was about. So I had to land that plane in, in, in, in the last episode. And thank God I had Mark Ruffalo there to do it with me, you know?

• 1:20:08Andy Greenwald?

  The show taught us many things. I feel like we learned about Canadian real estate. We learned about how not to have your heart explode when you jump to a freezing quarry. The other thing that I did learn, I have to say, is I learned that task forces happen quite frequently. I mean, Grasso's whole, the whole betrayal is revealed because he was on another one. So inevitably, we have to ask you, is there a chance of another task force? I mean, they do get, they do happen in the wild. We asked you this about Mare, but we have to ask you again, not even so much is HBO going to say like, do more, but do you want to do more? Do you feel that there is more here?

• 1:20:45Speaker 04

  You know, I, you know, I, I do feel like I could tell another story of Task. I, again, and I, I think it's, as I was getting at it, it's less about the plot and me being excited to get to know another task force of people and getting to spend time with them and the, and getting to create new characters that I can go on a journey with. And the idea that, wait, I get to build another task force, like Alison Oliver and Fab and, and of course, Ruffalo and Tuso and Martha, like, and the idea that I would get to bring them back is really exciting to me. And like, it's my dream to write these characters in this play. So if there was an appetite, like a hundred percent, I would do it because it's

• 1:21:29Speaker 04

  my, as I was getting at it, it's, it's why I get out of bed every day as a writer. I get to write characters. And this story specifically allows me to introduce another, like a completely new set of characters that we have to, have to live with and experience a case with. And so that really gets me excited.

• 1:21:48Chris Ryan?

  Coming soon on HBO, Mother Club, the story of the Dark Hearts after they've been decimated by.

• 1:21:56Speaker 04

  And they don't make it out too good here.

• 1:21:58Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, yeah, those guys, because Vincent goes too. I don't even know what their, their leadership structure is like anymore. Brad, thank you so much for joining us, man. Thank you for this series. Thank you for, for Mare and for, for Task, because they've been really fun to talk about, really fun to interrogate. And even though Andy and I would have season tickets anyway because of where they're set, like, I think they're, they're some of our favorite television of the last few years.

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you, guys. So appreciate you having me on the show, man.

• 1:22:32Speaker 04

  This is U.S. Bank's Cozy Cash Formations with your chief financial playmaker, Fernando Mendoza.

• 1:22:39Chris Ryan?

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