Writer and creator Brad Ingelsby’s current HBO series Task is a critical success, redeeming the filmmaker’s 2025 releases after his recent thriller movie received far more mixed reviews. Just two episodes in, the impressive new HBO crime drama series has already proven a hit with audiences and critics alike, with Task also quickly rising on HBO’s streaming charts.
Following Ingelsby’s hit Kate Winslet-led HBO series Mare of Easttown, Task’s cast is led by Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey as an FBI agent and local sanitation worker-turned-thief, respectively. The series balances their perspectives and struggles as they try to investigate and evade one another, giving a bleak but empathetic look into their lives.
The complex characters and great writing have earned Task positive reviews, currently boasting an 89% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Considering Ingelsby’s most recent release ended a long-running streak of positive Rotten Tomatoes scores, Task is a triumphant success.
Task Redeems Brad Ingelsby’s Positive RT Score Streak After Echo Valley’s Mixed Response
Just two episodes into its seven-episode run, Task is already proving to be a brighter spot in Brad Ingelsby’s career than his 2025 Apple TV+ movie Echo Valley. Ingelsby is best known as the writer and creator of the award-winning miniseries Mare of Easttown, which was also Ingelsby’s most recent project prior to Echo Valley.
Echo Valley is a thriller starring Julianne Moore as Kate Garrett, a horse trainer who is pulled into her daughter’s troubled life with serious consequences, and Sydney Sweeney as her daughter Claire, who struggles with drug addiction. While positive reviews of the film highlighted Moore and Sweeney’s performances, Echo Valley still holds a 51% Rotten Tomatoes approval overall.
More commonly, reviews noted the plot was overdramatic and at times the turns were too unbelievable to provide even soapy entertainment. As a result, the movie marked Ingelsby’s first project since the 2015 Liam Neeson action movie Run All Night to score a “Rotten” rating.
Luckily, like Mare of Easttown before it, Task satisfactorily returns Ingelsby to the crime drama genre, and the new show’s current reception already proves that. Task still holds an 89% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating after two episodes, and may even see an increase as the suspenseful story goes on. So far, the series has received praise for its dark tone, growing tension, and layered leading performances.
Brad Ingelsby’s Next Thriller Is Already Continuing Task’s Rotten Tomatoes Redemption
With five episodes left to air, Task still has plenty of time to deepen even further and build into an even more intense cat-and-mouse game, but Brad Ingelsby also has another project coming out before the end of the year. Ingelsby served as the co-writer for the upcoming Apple TV+ movie The Lost Bus.
The survival thriller film is based on Lizzie Johnson’s nonfiction book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire and stars Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. It centers on a bus driver (McConaughey) who has to navigate the growing wildfire to get the children inside to safety.
