Summary
Task reaches a masterful conclusion in “A Still Small Voice”. Mark Ruffalo’s Emmy is virtually guaranteed, and there won’t be a dry eye in the house.
Task ended with Robbie’s death, in many ways. I don’t mean literally, obviously, because Episode 7 devotes another epilogue-style hour to tying up loose ends and trying to deliver some kind of payoff that doesn’t make the audience want to weep into their couch cushions. But Robbie’s death was the turning point. It was the denial of a truly happy ending, a reminder that real life is cruel and unfair, that most victims are undeserving and most so-called heroes are too flawed to qualify. “A Still Small Voice” tries its very best to provide a made-for-TV conclusion, where the villains get their comeuppance, compromised figures find redemption, and those who are lost finally find their way home. But it never quite escapes that long shadow of loss.
I do appreciate the effort, though. While it’d be hard to describe this finale as “happy” – this is still unavoidably a story about pain, loss, and guilt – it gets closer than any prior instalment, and it’s a reassuring place to leave things for that reason. You can imagine the lives of these characters continuing in our absence without worrying about what may happen to them, even if some little flourishes of ambiguity mean we can’t say for certain what it’ll be. If nothing else, they’re better off than they were before. Maybe that’s all we can hope for.
Jayson’s Demise
Finally, and deservedly, Jayson runs out of road in “A Still Small Voice”. After being responsible for so much of the show’s generous servings of emotional trauma, having killed Robbie’s brother before it began, Robbie in the penultimate episode, Perry in this one, and potentially even Maeve in some hypothetical future, it seemed like he might never get his comeuppance, despite being the most deserving of it.
Initially, it seems like Perry might serve him his just desserts. With a federal agent dead, the Dark Hearts need to go to ground. Jayson was already on the chopping block before that, so his death is an unavoidable part of the cover-up, and Perry is given responsibility for it. But he’s too emotionally attached. He strongly considers stabbing Jayson with a kitchen knife, but then doesn’t. He ends up waiting and deliberating too long. In the interim, Jayson learns that Eryn’s body has been found clutching Perry’s initialled metal chain.
So, Jayson stabs Perry in much the same manner as he stabbed Robbie. Perry’s final words are a warning that the rest of the Dark Hearts are coming for him, but it isn’t the Dark Hearts who finally catch up with Jayson. It’s DJ Grassanova.
Anthony Grasso’s Redemption
Grasso being revealed as a mole inside the FBI was a tough pill to swallow. He was the most charming and charismatic character by far. That’s why nobody suspected him. That’s why he was able to tip off the Dark Hearts for two years without getting caught, even though he came close. One of Tom’s only remaining missions in the ending of Task is making sure that Grasso’s betrayal can be proved.
He needn’t have bothered, as it turns out – Grasso feels bad enough as it is. If you were wondering why and how he became a mole in the first place, it becomes obvious when he briefly visits his sister – played by Lilli Kay, late of Apple TV+’s underrated sports dramedy Stick – to warn her that some things are going to come out about him that’ll be uncomfortable to hear. It’s simple to understand. Grasso needed money to look after his family. His sister isn’t as dismayed as you’d think. She reassures Grasso that she knows who he really is, and perhaps that’s how we’re supposed to feel about him, too.
Grasso plans to turn himself in. But his Dark Hearts contact tells him that the gang believes Robbie sold the fentanyl and stashed the proceeds at Maeve’s. In a brief shoot-out, Grasso kills his would-be assassin, but takes a bullet in the gut. He receives, though, a clarity of purpose. He knows what he has to do, so he drives to Maeve’s house and warns her that she has to leave. Jayson arrives soon after, and then Tom and Aleah. Grasso warns the latter about the former. When Jayson drags Maeve outside as a human shield, Grasso takes the first opportunity to shoot him dead.
Mark Ruffalo’s Emmy Is Due
Even though the climactic shoot-out revolves around Grasso’s redemption, it shouldn’t go unmentioned that Tom swaps out the rucksack full of money with the decoy full of fliers and newspaper ads. Maeve and the kids will still get their happy life elsewhere, free from the Dark Hearts. Robbie got his wish.
Tom doesn’t absolve Grasso, who survives despite looking like he was already dead when he arrived at Maeve’s place. He won’t give him penance, either, despite Grasso asking for it – he points out, rightly, that people beat themselves up enough on their own. Isn’t that what Tom has been doing all this time? Isn’t that why he hasn’t visited Ethan in jail? Why he hasn’t been present for Emily, or engaged with her about the family statement they have been asked to provide at the sentencing hearing?
Tom’s own redemption is in forgiveness. At the hearing, he gives the statement himself, absolving Emily of the responsibility and, I think, winning Mark Ruffalo an Emmy. I was bawling during this scene. It’s a remarkable capsule summary of mental health, parenting, and the unexpected knock-on effects of a pandemic, creating medication shortages that allowed the creeping voices of psychosis to tell a challenged boy to kill his adoptive mother. There are infinite forms that Hell takes, and Tom has lived through several of them. Here, he comes out the other side. He looks his son in the eyes and tells him he forgives him. He loves him. And when the day comes that he’s released, his father will be at home waiting for him.
Task hasn’t been a happy show. But its ending shows a winding path through forgiveness and understanding that might ultimately lead us there. And that’ll do.
