Task S1 E5 "Vagrants" Review

Writing is complicated and confusing, more so for some than it is for others, but especially when you're forced to check when you last published a blog post to get your inner clock back. In case you don't know, I have epilepsy, and just recently ended up going for yet another useless ER visit, because if one of you freaks out and calls 911 when I have a seizure, I'm required to go to the hospital and more often than not stay there until an ungodly hour of the morning. Luckily, I've yet to have the police called on me, and so, I'm watching Task to fill what I hope and pray is not an emotional need to see that happen. Tom and Robbie, the show's featured cop and robber, are both brilliantly acted, complex characters on opposing sides of the law, and time is running out for one or both of them. Another thought playing on repeat in my mind is how their time running out may affect those around them, those close to them, the other characters in Task that the show has so painstakingly developed and humanized.

Vagrants is the first episode of Task in which the consequences of its characters' actions catch up with them in full. The beauty of this show's emotionally and philosophically diverse cast is that you never know for sure how each of them will be punished or rewarded for what they've done, justly or not. However, not everyone in this task force wants to escalate an already-red-hot police investigation, and maybe that's for the wiser. I'm interested in seeing how this show develops its interpersonal conflicts going forward, especially since it's not a morally simplistic game of cops and robbers anymore, though was it ever? This show is starting to hit closer to home for its characters than ever before, and I am interested in how each of them responds to their grief and anger.

There is a real sadness in seeing the horrible things many of the characters have brought upon themselves finally come to pass, even if so many of them are broken and even awful people. The rubber of disordered good intentions has met the road, with some problems arising from forces beyond these characters' control, but most from their own selfishness and hidden agendas. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but not everyone in this show feels that it's right to go to the lengths that some of the other characters do, some of them out of pity, others for the sake of their own hidden motives. There is something incredibly unsettling about watching a basically tragic show about two men on opposing sides whose lives have dealt them both a bad and broken hand, and ultimately, Task believes not in bothsidesism but rather a genuine, uncomfortable humanism, and this really sells its entire story for me. I got a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach by the time this episode drew to a close, a feeling born of the realization that not every complex, rich, personable character in this show can survive.

Rarely has a character-driven drama ever grown so real to me in so few episodes, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad - the tragic.

Romans 7:14-25