“Mare of Easttown” writer and creator Brad Inglesby got us glued to our screens back in 2021 and rightfully so. The Kate Winslet-led drama wasn’t just a great mystery thriller, but a great family drama about a police detective trying to keep her post-divorce life together in a small town where everyone knows her business. Adding to the pressure were the different generations of women in the Sheehan family tree: Mare (Winslet), her mother, Helen (Jean Smart), and her daughter, Siobhan (Angourie Rice), both of whom are just as outspoken as she is. Their household spats were just as gripping as the scenes where Mare was trying to track down a missing person.
Thankfully, with Inglesby’s new series, “Task,” that balance of normalcy with life and death scenarios hasn’t changed, and neither has his capability to create female characters that can hold their own. In a show that spends a lot of time examining the lives of two single fathers on opposite sides of the law, Inglesby also makes time for Robbie’s (Tom Pelphrey) smart-mouthed niece and blessing in disguise, Maeve, played by Emilia Jones. Hers is undeniably the best performance in the show so far. When Jones hits the notes of protectiveness and authority just right, she’s reminiscent of a character from another crime drama that involved a young girl wise beyond her years. Maeve is channeling “Ozark’s” Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) at her fieriest, and it feels like she’s just getting warmed up.
There have been flickers of Ruth — a girl who (in her own words) didn’t “know s**t about f**k” — in Maeve already, but this week’s opening scene made it impossible to ignore. After realizing just what kind of trouble Robbie had brought home with him, Maeve laid into her uncle with the same kind of frustration that we used to see from the business partner of Jason Bateman’s Marty Byrde in “Ozark.”
Just like Ruth, Maeve isn’t afraid to put elders who think they have it figured out in their place. She lets Robbie have it and her argument is totally justifiable. It comes from a cocktail of frustration, concern, dashed hope, and flat-out anger that Julia Garner’s character ran on for four seasons. If Jones keeps it up for the rest of “Task,” she could end up with the same kind of reception when award season rolls around.
Over the run of “Ozark,” Garner earned six Emmy nominations, three of which she actually won. We’re not going to try and compare here (particularly given that “Task” is a limited series), but there’s certainly enough here from Jones, who previously earned plenty of attention for her appearance in the Oscar-winning “CODA,” to get the same kind of praise. Her co-star, Tom Pelphrey, is an “Ozark” alum himself, and “Task” is serving as a reminder of how great he was in that show.
While he only appeared prominently in one season of the show, Tom Pelphrey stole “Ozark” from the Byrdes as the troubled younger brother of Laura Linney’s Wendy Byrde back in 2022 and got himself an Emmy nomination for his troubles. Just like Emilia Jones is evoking major Ruth Langmore vibes, Pelphrey is tapping into the same inner rage and turmoil that his character, Ben Davis, had in spades. It’s clear that “Task’s” Robbie has his fair share of it too, and for good reason.
His explosion of rage and grief in front of Maeve in this week’s episode seems to have been lit from a similar short fuse that his character in “Ozark” had, and there’s more of this incredible performance to look forward to in the coming weeks. When “Task” finally does come to a close (much as we’d prefer it not to), we only hope that both of these stars are rewarded with the same level of recognition that the “Ozark” cast did. And yes, this is also you’re reminder that it’s about time you gave “Ozark” a rewatch, after all.
New episodes of “Task” air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.