Task Episode 4 Recap: All Roads

As HBO’s ‘Task’ reaches its halfway mark, things get more tense for Tom Brandis and Robbie Prendergrast. The last episode ended with Tom discovering that there is a mole within his team, and he doesn’t know whom to trust anymore. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Robbie, the cops are already closing in on him and Cliff, as a trap is laid out for them. The fourth episode begins with Tom racking his brains about the identity of the mole while Cliff and Robbie wonder what to do next now that the former’s house has been raided. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Perry Receives Shocking News from His Bosses

Using Ray’s phone, a meeting is set up with Cliff while the FBI assembles a SWAT team to ensure all entry and exit points are covered, leaving no room for Cliff to escape. They also consider the possibility of Sam being with them. Meanwhile, Robbie and Cliff discuss leaving for Canada once they have the money. Robbie says that he knows a guy named Bartosz who can arrange things for them. As Maeve takes his kids to school, she tells him to inform his daughter that he won’t be able to make it to the father-daughter dance at school. Perry continues his search for the gun’s owner from the 2017 fight. He goes through an album, but before he can find something, Vincent from the Mother Club shows up.

Perry updates him about Cliff and the question of the gun, but that’s not what Vincent is here to talk about. Clearly, the leaders of the gang are not happy with the robberies and all the subsequent troubles that have arisen because of it. He reveals that the Mother Club had a meeting, which surprises Perry because he was invited to it. It was decided that Jayson has to go, which makes Perry defend him. He talks about the suspicion that whoever is orchestrating these robberies has a personal vendetta against Jayson, but Vincent doesn’t care about that. And neither do the bosses. They want Jayson gone, which means that Perry and Jayson have a very small window within which they have to sort the issue.

Emily Processes Tom’s Thoughts on Ethan

Emily talks with her therapist about the conversation she overheard between Tom and Sarah, where he confessed that he could never forgive Ethan for killing his wife. Emily reveals that a couple of years before Susan’s death, Sarah had given her parents an ultimatum. At the time, Ethan’s situation had gotten worse, and Sarah asked her parents to leave Ethan’s “war zone,” lest they be caught in the crossfire. They refused to give up on him, which led Sarah to cut communication with them. And then, Susan died, and Sarah never got to make up with her mother, which explains why she has so much more hatred for Ethan.

What makes Emily feel worse is that this disdain might extend to her, too. She wonders what the Brandis family would have been like if they hadn’t adopted her and Ethan. She imagines they would have been happier. She expresses how grateful she is that they adopted her and her brother, but also reveals that being grateful is the only way that she is allowed to feel. Her grief, rage, anger, sadness, and all the other emotions are not allowed to come out because grateful is all she is supposed to be.

Tom Shares His Concerns About the Mole With Kathleen

Plagued with the thoughts of a mole walking amongst them, Tom talks to Kathleen about how much she really knows the three officers in the task force. She assures him that proper vetting was done for each and every one of them. She also expresses her disbelief over the fact that someone from the team is feeding information to the Dark Hearts, while pointing out that information has a way of trickling down. It could be a lower-ranked officer they don’t know about, rather than someone working closely on the investigation. She tells Tom to go forward with the trap laid out for Cliff. When he leaves the office, she makes a call, telling the person that they might have a problem.

Egged on by the desire to get to the bottom of the truth, now that there is a clock ticking on Jayson, Perry finds Shane and confronts him about the sudden shift in his behaviour that has been reported. Shane comes clean, revealing that he hasn’t been the same since Billy died. When Perry says that Billy got what he deserved because he was skimming money from the gang, Shane reveals that that was not why Billy was killed. He reveals everything, from Billy and Eryn’s affair to Jayson finding out and calling Billy to the lodge, and how he mercilessly beat the guy to death. This is also news to Perry, which makes him angry, because it means his protege had been lying to him.

A flashback takes us to the time when things were relatively good. At the quarry, Robbie and Billy hang out and have fun with their kids. Robbie’s wife is also there, but only in body. She seems to have withdrawn within her mind, and that’s a concern for her husband. Robbie discusses his condition with Billy, revealing that she said she felt suffocated in their marriage and retreats from any form of intimacy. Billy advises his brother to let his wife go because no matter how much he tries to hold on to her, she is already gone. And then, Eryn shows up at the quarry, which makes Robbie and Maeve concerned because they both know how doomed their relationship is.

Robbie Lands in a Tricky Situation With Sam

Robbie, Cliff, and Sam hang out at the quarry, where Sam catches a fish. His happiness is dialled down when Robbie reveals that they are going to cook the fish later. The boy also says that he is ready to go home now, and Robbie tries to assure him that he will talk to his parents and see what can be done about it. Before that, they need to go meet Bartosz. Meanwhile, Perry finds Jayson and punches him in the face for lying about Billy’s death to him. When he calms down a little, Jayson tells him that their informant came through, and Cliff is coming to the park that night. He also reveals that Eryn had planned to leave him and was going to take the kids with her, which is why he did what he did.

Robbie, Cliff, and Sam reach Bartosz’s place, but only Robbie goes in to talk with him, while Cliff and Sam stay in the car. While Cliff falls asleep, Sam slips out of the car and finds a stream where he throws the still-alive fish he’d caught earlier and lets it into the water. A man notices him and asks him where his parents are. At the same time, Robbie comes back and finds Sam missing. While he and Cliff look for the boy, the man almost dials 911 to report the boy without any guardian in sight. When Robbie shows up and takes Sam with him, the man questions if he’s the boy’s father. Robbie says yes, Sam says no, and the man becomes even more suspicious. He quickly takes a picture, which leads Robbie to throw his phone away. He beats up the man before Cliff shows up and stops him.

Maeve Gives Robbie an Ultimatum

As they prepare to leave for the park, Grasso asks Tom why he became a priest. They have a brief chat about how Tom thought he could be closer to god because of it, and then he steers the conversation towards a different thing. He asks Grasso about the vetting process, where the detective mentions that he and Aleah were vetted for sure. Interestingly, he doesn’t mention Lizzie. Meanwhile, Emily prepares the statement for her brother when her friends and colleagues at the ice cream offer her a vodka shot and invite her to a party.

Before leaving for the meet at the park, Robbie tells Maeve about his plan for Canada. She calls him out on it, pointing out how dumb it is. He says that he and Cliff will go first, and then she can come with the kids later. However, she refuses to leave her life behind and is not ready to uproot the kids either. When Robbie says he cannot live without his kids, she points out that he should have thought about it before he started robbing gangsters. She ends the conversation with an ultimatum where he needs to come clean about his crime and the situation with Sam, or she goes to the cops.

Perry visits Eryn, where he confronts her about her affair with Billy. She doesn’t deny it or the fact that she was ready to leave Jayson. This leads Perry to the point where he wonders if she is the mole, helping the robbers to make Jayson look weak and having him kicked out of the club. He offers her to come clean and even promises to have her and the kids settled somewhere far away where Jayson won’t find them. But she vehemently denies any involvement in the matter. At his house, Robbie has a dance with his daughter, Harp, who tells him that she has a feeling that something bad is happening, and she wonders if her father is planning to leave, just like her mother did.

The FBI’s Trap for Cliff Doesn’t Work Out as Expected

As the cops set up the park for the meet, Aleah is greeted by an officer who talks about how great a shooter she is and how she is missed back at the old unit. Lizzie expresses her admiration for Aleah being great at this one particular thing in her life, which she herself has not found any such thing, following which they briefly discuss having nicknames. Elsewhere, Robbie and Cliff split up. The plan is for Cliff to meet with the party, give them the sample of the fentanyl, and only when he sees the money is he supposed to call Robbie to bring the rest of the stuff. Robbie waits outside a diner while Cliff drives to the park.

At the park, Grasso notices a car coming towards him, but there is no confirmation of who the driver is or how many people are inside it. Worse, the car takes a couple of rounds but doesn’t stop. Eventually, a call is made to intercept the car, but it turns out that it has a couple who are looking for their dog. Meanwhile, Cliff drives to a different location where he is followed by Jayson and other gang members. They attack him and force his car off the path. Cliff’s last call to Robbie is to run, and by the time Robbie reaches the location, it is too late. At the same time, Tom’s suspicion deepens because the foiling of a seemingly perfect plan to capture Cliff means he is right about a mole, and he needs to find them ASAP.

Grasso and Lizzie go to a bar for drinks, and he wonders why Cliff doesn’t show up. She says that he was never going to show up because Ray gave them the wrong information. As Lizzie’s song starts to play, she invites Grasso to the dance floor, and they end up kissing and almost having sex at Lizzie’s place. The only reason they don’t go all the way through is that Grasso doesn’t want to have sex with her on the same bed that she slept on with her ex. Meanwhile, a drunk Emily is brought home by Leo, her friend from the ice cream shop. While she pukes, Tom shows up and makes Leo leave. Her gets his daughter back to her room, and she thanks him and expresses how grateful she is for all that he has done for her. She confronts him about the conversation she overheard, which leaves Tom speechless.

At the gang’s base, Cliff is brutally beaten for information. He has the gun, which is the same one that was used to kill the Nances. Despite the torture, Cliff doesn’t give up anything, so Jayson suffocates him to death. Later, Perry finds a picture from 2017 where a gang member named Ramrod has the same gun that was confiscated from Cliff. The picture also has Maeve, which means that she is going to be visited by Perry soon. Meanwhile, Tom receives a picture of his own. Aleah calls him and tells him about the report of an altercation where a man took a picture of a boy who is clearly Sam. The picture also has Robbie in it, but luckily, his face is covered, so Tom can’t identify him just yet.