Creator Brad Ingelsby on the ‘Task’ Finale

I need support to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me on the other line, unselfish with his love. It's Andy Greenwald. It's the nicest thing you ever said about me. Andy, we are recording this for Sunday night release.

After the task finale, we have a wonderful, nice, long, healthy, thoughtful interview with Brad Ingalls, be to share with you guys. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the task finale and the series finale. We assume, maybe series finale, maybe just season finale, who knows. And then we'll get into our interview with Brad where we got into a bunch of stuff from this last episode as well as how the whole thing made us feel, which was quite a bit.

It's great to see you. I really can't wait to talk to you about this episode and sort of the end of this season. Let me just start here. We'll start Brog it.

To find it satisfying. I found it insanely satisfying. I mean, I feel like it's worth noting, right, that like eight-hour time delay between us. I'm watching this show, these last few episodes, perhaps in kind of an emotional trans-Oceanic haze.

I'm willing to accept that maybe playing into it, but I found this show to be magisterial. I found it to be deeply, deeply affecting, deeply moving. I thought the ending was more or less no perfect in the way that it balanced fate, justice outcomes that were predictable and in ways that felt acceptable. And also some really, I think surprising moments of sacrifice and grace, especially in the very end moments of the finale.

So I'm really, really affected by the show and I'm excited to talk to you about it. I wish I could short the finale script and the finale episode like a piece of music because I think the things I felt like in the last 30 minutes, I have no doubt are somewhat shaped by my personal experiences and maybe where my head is at right now. And I think that that might be like an individual thing. I'm sure people could have critiques of certain aspects of the show and certain aspects of the finale.

But I think that there was some kind of beautiful musicality to the way this season ended and the way the CODA kind of took 35 minutes or however long it was after the last shoot out occurs. And you kind of get this look into what these people's lives are like after, after all the guns are done shooting and all the cuffs have been put on wrists and all that. And I just found it profoundly satisfying but also like deeply moving, the moment where Maeve and Harper are looking at Billy and Robbie's house for the last time and they're home for the last time and they're like, I'm worried I'm gonna forget all about this and it's just like you won't like I thought that too but you won't forget it. And it's just Inglesby has like a real affection for the people he writes about.

And I think you could say in some ways that does he cross out too much slack? Does he create sort of safety zones for these characters where maybe they don't have to deal with certain consequences or certain things don't happen? I don't know. I mean like at the end of the day I get to the end of the season and I just wind up feeling real gratitude for the show itself.

There's a couple of things I wanted to bounce off of you but what did you, you wanna? I just wanna respond to something specifically said which was you were talking about a moment that stuck with you of Maeve and Harper looking back on the house. The moment that stuck out to me is something that you just sort of alluded to which is the end of the previous episode. There's a phenomenal, I guess in a weird way that we didn't expect it coming between these two characters.

The closest task actually came to the heat diner scene between Tom and Grasso where he's like, I'm coming for you and he's like, Matt, me then, big dogs gotta eat kind of scene. We were on this podcast a week ago saying, oh, okay, so the show put one over on us two different ways. It's not actually a two-hander and that's something we talked about in you guys will hear it soon enough. But also maybe Grasso was the big bad at the end of the tunnel.

This episode, Grasso goes to visit his sister and we see him bantering with his nephews and we understand in beautifully drawn shorthand why he is the way he is, why he does what he does. And I find that to be very effective. I think that Brad writes from a position out of a judgment which is a theme in the series but one of Grace and giving people space to be fully alive. And again, this is something that we talk about when we at Brad on the line.

But I find his incredible thirst, similar to Tom's thirst for vodka in the first few episodes is thirst for life, for more life, for more stories, for more context, for more richness, for more reasons to be really, really compelling and really moving honestly in a way that a lot of television shows just aren't these days. And I'm not trying to do a drive-by on other TV shows. You can watch procedural that will give you definitive answers and you can watch prestige television shows that are awash in very heavy questions. But what this show does is kind of quest and hope in a way that feels very relatable, if not necessary, at this particular moment in time.

I thought we talk a little bit with Brad in the upcoming interview about God, which is sort of funny. Kind of a first for us. Did you not do that with the guy from Drug Church last year? I haven't gotten back to it.

But it's one of those things where I think it's a more useful reading of this TV show to think about it in almost these, whether you want to say biblical or mythological terms to imagine this is about, you know, these people were like kind of fallen and trying to redeem themselves. And if you want to look at the evil on this show or the heavies or the antagonist, they're not called the dark, they're called the dark arts for a reason. You know what I mean? Like there is a demon to an angel, you know, there is a counterbalance.

And I think it's a very useful way to view the show about, I think you would go into it and you'd be like, it's gonna be a gritty South Eastern PA crime epic about the drug trade and how it moves from writing through the cities and the bike gangs vying for control of different, and it's like, not that, you know what I mean? It's about parents and children. And it's about whether or not you can break cycles of misery and pain and being trapped in your own circumstances. And it's a version of religion that I find from my other kind of church across the street, maybe in Gladwin, like very, very compelling.

There is no room in the mythology of task for an actual God or an actual devil, because look at the shit we have to deal with here. It's not really worth wondering about eternal denation and hellfire when you can have the kind of experiences that Robbie and Tom have had in the last 18 months, right? And I think it's worth noting that for as much as Brad shows this in Maribees Town are set in Delco. Yes, that is very, very, very much true.

Maybe what's worth saying instead is, these shows don't go anywhere but Delco in Pennsylvania. There is nowhere else in the same way that I think, you know, Grasso expresses that view that maybe there's no place other than this. We get views of quote unquote heaven and it's a bunch of trees in Canada. We get views of hell in terms of other people's behavior.

But what the show is ultimately about is the choices we make right here. Right here happens to be, you know, in places like Radner, in other places where we spent birthday parties in our youth. So obviously we're a little bit predisposed to be vibing with it. But I think that it's a very compelling vision of just how we've got to do our best.

And the fact that it was so artfully evolved into, well, it's not even right. I was gonna say evolved into a show about one man's journey towards forgiveness. It was that from the beginning, Brad talks to us about that. But like the way that we came to accept Tom's journey as the primary focus of the show, I thought was just so subtly done and so artfully done.

Well, it's the twist of the show, isn't it? It's the twist of the show. And yet it still had one last card to play with the Sam business. Yeah.

Which I think I didn't see coming. And I think that's interesting because you and I really, really vibe with the way that Brad think was the right television. I think we probably both and then the other viewers probably were like, oh, I see maybe there's a gross over redemption arc of sorts brewing here. I think last week I was patting myself on the back for saying, oh, Sam's gonna get adopted by Tom.

I wish I'd seen it sooner. I also felt confident, even though it was quite stressful, that Harper was not going to catch a stray. Like in this world, there are certain rules. Like awful things happen.

Sure, I did not think that was gonna happen. So I felt comfortable watching it. The one thing that I did not think was going to happen, and I wanna know your perspective on this, whether it is because of my pre-imagined rules of television or my pre-imagined rules of the television of Brad Ingalls be, which I clearly got wrong. I did not see that we were heading towards the great gift that Tom is giving to Sam is letting him go.

I did not expect that. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect this being a show. I thought this was a show about two guys on opposite sides of the law, you know what I mean?

And then I thought it was kind of like us. And then I thought it was a show about criminal organizations and law enforcement organizations being undone by moles and people working across purposes to them. And it then became about a guy who learns to forgive his adopted son by letting his other adopted son go have a life free from everything that kind of has any connection to his damaged parents and the incredibly traumatic way that he came into his adolescence. It breaks the cycle.

Yeah. Right. And it's the same thing with Maeve and Harper going off to I guess Canada or wherever they were six hours north or whatever. Well, they go somewhere else, but they don't go somewhere else in this lifetime and by this lifetime, I mean our lifetime of watching the show, like it's off screen, it's beyond history, it's over.

Yeah, it's such an interesting thing, it's such an interesting thing, this idea that he would let him go in a way. And I think there's something profound about the fact that Tom's ultimate, except it, Tom's ultimate journey is not just towards sobriety or making amends or whatever. It is actually accepting life with the son that he has. I think that's kind of a powerful thing because even the most, I don't know, empathetic viewers probably like, what a beautiful thing to have a second chance.

But Sam was, Tom was Canada, right? Absolutely. He has to say, and yeah, unfortunately, like many of us, he has to say in the United States. Let's talk really quickly about the crime stuff.

Let's do it. Because I personally liked it. It all falls into place in a way that I think some people find a little convenient where multiple times in the last couple of episodes, everybody is converging on the same place at the exact same time. It's true.

A lot of the, let's just say like narrative rushing attack, where it's like, let's hand the ball off so that we can get three yards, is progressed by, we've triangulated his cell phone, or a source told me that Shelley is doing this. And it's like, who's the source? And what are you talking about? Did you find it too convenient or did you find it to be exactly what was supposed to happen?

Because it's got to happen to have like the desired effect of for the characters. Well, I think the best case scenario in crime fiction or subject you and I are very passionate about is when you feel that inevitability of page turning, of plot advancing, but it also feels thematically relevant to the material that we're dealing with. So conceptually, the idea that you cannot escape these perpetually repeating systems of violence or fear of pursuit of money or whatever the case may be, you simply can't escape them. Everybody's living on top of each other in this place.

That's one of the themes of the show, the idea that everything, literally the chickens shut out dirty, come home to roost, is baked in. I mean, it was made evident the moment the show revealed that Maeve is not only the daughter of Billy who was in the dark arts, but was sleeping with Jason's wife and everyone in the dark arts, remembers Maeve and Crazy Robbie. Like it's not that far-fetched at that point to me. Yeah.

That said, I am a proud leather jacketed member of the Soft Arts. And I proudly tell you on this podcast, proudly tell you on the podcast that there was a part of me in the previous episode where when Maeve sees the bag of money and I was like, thank God, we won't see Maeve in the finale because I worked out. Right. Yeah.

I was going to blow up and maybe space a little bit when they were just like, just hide it in the one place, Perry definitely seen you hanging out. For what it's worth, that was fairly good advice from her Norm Corfrent. Oh, she's a writer die. Was there an impression?

Yeah. Yeah. For what it's worth, I thought that was a pretty savvy read of the situation because I think you and I do do the entertainment we consume have definitely spent considerable amount of Malcolm Gladwell hours just wondering how we might respond in certain situations or like what the only good thing to do if blank is, you know, and head on a swivel that one. I thought it was a good plan.

What do you think about my idea of free time before everything goes wrong and we do a spin-off show of Perry and Jason, but it's like waiting for Godot. It's just like they're stuck in that cabin, making different trout preparations. First of all, I'm in London, so I have to say waiting for Godot. Sorry, just FYI.

Yeah, I know it's I'll let you get away with it once. The second thing is a great poll by you. I thought of a difference, and it's recent entertainment. I got real mountain head vibes.

Yes. From that, that I feel like if this had had had like a two-hour runtime, there could have been a lot of similar, like, we are going to kill a guy in this house kind of comedy antics, but that is a well-traveled, owning knife. I will say that. It is.

And I just want to say for any motorcycle gangs that are listening, I would recommend that if you have like chains not to put your initials on them. That was like, that is a really smart call. You know, I think in this day and age, granted, we live in a surveillance state, perhaps we can find you in other ways. But, you know, if it's it didn't take a lot of thinking through to find who's PD who might be in the dark hearts.

Huh. I mean, it may have been, as they say over here, over-egging the pudding of beer, because I do think when they pull her body from the quarry and she has a bike chain, like, again, I feel like it was a relatively short path. Yeah, I personally just liked the idea. And I was okay with the idea that everybody sins.

You can't watch the way. They're all following them around. Jason was going to find that out. You know, Jason, Harry on some level was, I think, okay with him finding it out.

Yeah, because obviously he has like this father-son relationship with Jason. I just want to say briefly with the Grasso thing, I had kind of in my head if we didn't get a backstory to why Grasso was doing this. Sort of written a departed style. Grasso is always like a child of the dark hearts kind of friends, lifelong friends with Jason.

Although I don't really know if that's a very rewarding relationship. I mean, Jason doesn't strike me as a kind of guy who has lifelong friends. Like I think we all could imagine what he was like on the playground. I guess Jason being able to play Halo with maybe, but like as soon as you kind of introduce any outside of influences, I think it's pretty bad.

But Grasso has a very, I guess understandable. You know, I needed to move my mother into a nursing home. I needed to buy a house. This is the right podcast.

Sure. And not in itself, you know, you can't forgive him for like Lizzie getting killed basically because of his actions. But you know, at the end of the day, he's given this sort of a narrative that makes a little bit more sense as to why he would betray his fellow law enforcement. But would you think of Frankel in his performance and the sort of Grasso arc here?

I do want to say I just before I forget, before we move on from the Perry and Jason and Aaron and other all, like, I think that, you know, sometimes people throw around when they're talking about a show, they're like, oh, well, it's just because it's HBO. It's blank and often they're like, it gets a pass because of the starry actors or just even the way that it's shot. Yeah. The moment that stood out to me is like, why this is an HBO show is the fact that they had the resources to do a splinter unit to film police divers retrieving Aaron's body.

Yes. Like that is something in a script that nine out of 10 networks and streamers are like, do you need it? Like we, there's no one. They found Aaron's body and she has Perry's chain in her hand and we're just like, exactly, or you do it in the morgue or something.

Like it's an exterior shot. It's a location shot. There's no one in the scene that you know and unless Margarita was really just, you know, lay flat for a couple hours. So, but it's worth it.

Like that's the time. That's worth the spend. Yes. To, I said this last week, I'll say it again, I owe Suckerson Cole an apology.

I was not familiar with your, the true extent of your game. I think Frank, Fabian Frank was incredible on this show. I think he was completely believable and he was completely alive in the character. I think that he was playing the version that we saw in the kitchen with his sister the entire time.

I, it's sort of an abstract comment to make, but especially because often actors don't know what's in future scripts. Now, I think all the scripts were written for this. So, it's possible that he knew the backstory, but it's very rewarding as a viewer when you feel like the actor has been playing something that holding a card and makes sense. Yeah.

If you track it through the performance that he has people that he thinks about that motivate him. I thought the performance was really vulnerable in a way that I thought was really, really affecting. I thought the way that he delivered the before the bullet star flying speech about how he's going to turn himself in. It tracked to me.

I love the explosion of like, I don't know how you did this for 20 years. Like I can't, I guess. My stomach's all messed up and I was like, I fly to London seven times in a year. It's like, it's basically the same thing.

I'm going to go turn myself into the embassy. What embassy? Well, Wind Horse figures. I don't know.

I heard there's a nice land up in Canada. What do you think of it? He was great. And it's just really, the idea of making an emo vulnerable sweet rat is a really cool wrinkle on that storyline.

You know what I mean? There's other versions of this show where the twist is that he's been the bad guy the whole time and he runs Fent in Philly or something. And it becomes a little bit more demonic. It just felt like it felt consistent and in tune with and in the same key of the rest of the characters' journeys, even if it didn't feel like the most pipe hitting hard-ass crime shit that we like.

There are tropes that are real for a reason and some of our favorite shows, including in certain ways this one like fall back on them, whether it's just the mole or the villain with the one the killy-seal of emotion or whatever the case may be. But there's a tendency, I think, in the TV shows that you and I like the best that brings an almost journalistic sensibility in like, not in the sense of like Seymour Hersh under covering WMDs, but like Joseph Mitchell or other New York writers being like, what's your story, man, on the street? There's such a deep, deep, well of curiosity within the writing of the show that in real life, I was about saying real life, people aren't just pure evil, but maybe I'm sorry to reconsider that phrase. But generally, people are the main characters of their own stories and they have reasons for what they do that are not entirely Machiavellian.

And it's difficult and sometimes not warranted to find space for that to be given voice in cop shows, crime shows, the TV shows that move the needle or get us talking week to week. I'm very grateful when we see that. And so whether it's Jason having real anguish over the discovery of Aaron's body or whether it's Kathleen Downing opioids with white wine at 10 AM, everybody has a little bit extra and they found the room for it and they fought to have the room for it and kudos to HBO for giving them the room for it. It made it a richer experience.

Martha Plimpton as the tool for this shit, Captain is, that's also an HBO hall market. It's like, hey, let's get this incredible performer to do something that we've never gotten to see her do before and watch her slide into it. She's been in city, little bit movies for most of her life. She has been in some, but I think.

There's no, and just to put a bow on it, there's no better avatar for the type of humanity that we're talking about here than Mark Ruffalo. Do you remember the way people talked about him when you can count on me came out? So that movie came out, he was relatively unknown. And anyone who saw that movie or anyone who read about movies fell in love with him.

It's such a deep and intense way. Not necessarily because he was the character that he played in that movie and he played him brilliantly, but because it was just watching an x-ray of someone's emotional system. He's completely alive second to second with the kind of emotions that usually just pass over people's face like fucking wind going through the weed and gladiator. And this isn't necessarily his best performance, but at least in my recent memory, it's the most Mark Ruffalo performance since then.

Because the other thing you and I didn't see coming was it wasn't just about the steady drum of his humanity. As a backdrop to all the crime shit, it was all building towards his scene of forgiveness and his speech. And we talked about that a lot about that. We don't need to break it down again.

We can talk about that because we get into the last shot, we get into the speech. A lot of stuff with him. It's just incredible shit. I'll talk to you next week.

It's great seeing you. Wait, I got you on the record for one more thing about this. We asked Brad about it, but do you want more tasks? At the end of the mirror, we were like, why can't we have more of this?

And I think they went a little bit down the road and I don't know the details. But I feel like the takeaway was he would have to top the first one. So maybe we just leave it alone. I want more Inglesby, Delco stuff.

I am very open to ruffle it like Tom takes McGinty's job when she retires and runs a new task force or whatever. I do think that one of the things that is amazing about Mayor and Task is the completeness of the story. I want to leave Tom in that bedroom. I don't want him to then be like, Emily's been kidnapped.

I think that's legit. I want my own version of that story. I feel the same way about Mayor, honestly, for as much as I love it. I'm like, the things that happen in Mayor are the craziest things that would ever happen in somebody's life.

I don't know if you want to do season two of that. Now, that being said, it's right there to have Mayor and to have Winslet and Ruffalo in a show together and to do a crossover of some kind. And if this is like a Delco crime universe, you know that we'll be the first ones in line. But I think you're right that maybe the actual way to do it would be Freddie is still the guy doing the drugs because for as much as the word, during the rise of the prestige television era, there's a lot of talk about novels and books on TV or whatever.

David Simon saying each episode is a chapter. Not the whole book. Okay. Task and Mayor are novels in a way that I really, really appreciate it.

Obviously resonate with us. And part of the beauty of a work of fiction at length, right, is that the characters can go on journeys that have like symmetrical or complimentary arcs. And what's beautiful to me about Task and many things is like Robbie's story is rich, profound. And as you said, complete.

It's also, you know, fine. I mean, he's dead. Yeah. So I'm kind of talking myself into agreeing with you because they did it.

They, if I could quote a dormant podcast, they stuck the landing on this. Let's get into our interview with Brad Inglesby and Andy will be back later this week to chat with me. I'm sure. Thanks everybody listening for our task stuff.

It's been really fun talking about it. Bring well, I'll see you later this week. Do you want to say overdoest or homeowner one more time? No.

Andy and I are so honored to welcome Brad Inglesby, the bard of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the creator of task, the writer of task. One of Andy and I's favorite shows of the year. And you've just watched the finale if you were here because we are going to be talking explicitly about stuff that happens in the finale and the season of task. Brad, thank you so much for joining us.

Oh my God. I'm honored to be here guys. I always love talking to you. I want to, first of all, I just got to say I found myself like pretty emotionally overwhelmed by the finale and very unexpected ways.

I went into the show really, you know, obviously like expecting this amazing prestige kind of crime drama. And I think I walked away with something much different. And I wanted to kind of ask you about why did you do this show and what were the things that you were kind of working out. Because obviously you like this kind of stuff and you love like crime TV, crime stories.

But it felt like there was something much deeper at play here for you. Yeah, I think I really started with, you know, the Tom's character, Tom and the journey of forgiveness and that and that to me, and it goes back to Mary guys. I really, really can say that Mary was a story in my head from the earliest, earliest seeds was about a woman who wasn't going to confront the death of her son and quite literally has to go up to the attic at the end. And that to me was what that story was about.

There were a lot of other developments along the way and it became a who'd done it. But that to me was really interesting. And the same for task. It really started with Tom Brandes.

I had gotten into this idea of a caretaker and how hard it would be to take care of a child with a psychiatric disorder. And I started to go down that road and ask out what question my faith and my ability got a bet every day. And so that was really what I was interested in. And then exploring how that character in some way, in this case, interacting with Robbie in the task force, has to let go of the anger that he's been holding inside and has to forgive his son.

And that to me was like the simplest seed of a story. And that was my interest in it was a guy who lost his faith at the end, passed to come back. And I always felt, which I don't know if you, I hope it resonated with you, but I always felt like at the end of the story, his act of faith was letting Sam go, that he allowed Sam to go and he had faith that he was going to be okay. And that was his act of faith at the end was letting Sam go and believing he was going to be okay.

It wasn't that Tom was going back to church and kneeling at the altar or saying that or any of that. It was his act of faith was having a belief that Sam was going to be okay. He wanted to keep Sam, but he had to let him go. So that's what really started the story for me.

And then I had to fill in all the other action beats and flop beats along the way guys. And I'm very impressed by that because my mic wasn't really working. I haven't spoken yet. So thank you for the show and thank you for joining us.

I'm interested to hear you say that your relationship to the show was Tom's journey. And I think that one of the things that was really rewarding and surprising about watching the series week to week was the slow reveal that this really was Tom's story. That what we thought was a two-hander ended up being a one-hander, if you will, that the log line that we got excited about. This is Heat and Philly.

A, wasn't really in downtown Philly. And B, wasn't really about two guys running toward each other. It was about one guy moving forward. So since you've known that from the beginning, I'm curious what your log line was when you spoke to Mark Ruffalo by joining the cast and you talked to Tom Helfry.

How did you communicate the show to them in a way that you could tell us now that we've seen it all? Yes. Well, look, I did say to them, listen, it's a collision course of these two guys. But I always knew when Robbie was going to die.

And I said that what I always felt strongly about was that a part of Tom's own journey to releasing the anger was meeting Robbie and seeing Robbie's sacrifice, realizing in the end when he sees the picture that calf gives him. I was like, oh, wow, he did have a plan. He knew what he was doing going up there all along. He wasn't going up there to get away.

He was going up there as a sacrifice in some way to better his family. And so I always said that to those two guys. I never shied away from the collision course. And I do think, and look, I also say this, on the page, it was probably more Tom's journey on the page.

But Tom Helfry was so good that, and I also tell you another story, he was so good that I got done editing the sixth episode and it always ended with Maeve, Maeve, and I thought, wow, we're missing something with Robbie. We have to give him a moment of triumph or something. And then I went back into the dailies and we found this random little eight second clip of him laughing. I think Jeremiah, our director was all camera, making a joke or something.

And it's why that episode ends with Helfry instead of Amelia, because I just felt like the audience had become so attached to him. And look, it's the same problem I had with Edin in there. On the page, Edin's character was good, but it wasn't that good. I'll be honest.

And Edin came in and was so charming that when we got to editing the fifth episode of Mayor, I went, dude, we're really in trouble. An audience is going to hate us. They love this character so much. And I felt the exact same way about Robbie.

He was a very compelling character on the page, but Tom just elevated this character. And he was really in everyone's heart. And so I think sometimes, Andy, and you're a writer too, you know this, that an actor is able to bring out a character in ways you can't expect or predict. And Helfry really did that.

And so it's one of those worries that I had when I actually watched the episode 6, it's like, Tom, it's such a compelling presence. What is an episode without him going to feel and look like and how are we going to carry it through? And it's why I hope that ending sequence in a courtroom and the stuff with Maeve, that there's still enough of that emotional investment and attachment to carry the audience through. It's also a testament to Mark Ruffalo's performance and just the innate humanity and humility that he brings to every performance because you watch this for a few episodes and you're like, well, this isn't a movie star performance.

This is like the bass drum, like the heartbeat of the show. And then it's only when the snare drum drops out of the mix that you realize that that's been keeping you alive the whole time. And you somehow coaxed that performance, you encouraged that performance or he just found the rhythm to realize that the star of the show has been here the whole time. The main character has been here.

I would always say to Mark, it's such a humble performance. I think if you look at the early episodes, he's really letting everybody else shine. Allesin's is all of her humor and Kathleen and Martha. He allows them to shine in a way.

And like you said, he's sort of almost very quiet in those early scenes. And then only then does he rise up. I think only when I always said that I think he's only activated really when he thinks he's going to die. And he says, I need to call my son.

And I think if you look at his performance after that point, he's way more active in a way that we haven't seen. That's a turning point. When he thinks he's going to die, he then says, I have to call my son. I have to say something to him.

And that's the turning point. And every scene with him after that, he's more activated. He's more aware. He's more present.

And so that I felt like was a turning point in his character in those moments with Robbie when he's starting to feel like he could die. He starts to get activated in a way that we haven't seen before. Yeah, it's awesome because I think a different performer, well, I'm guessing, but I think a different performer might be like, I need to do something pretty cool in these first few episodes. And I don't know if he did this on purpose or if this is just a trick of the light and I noticed it or what, but like I feel like I may have even mentioned this to you when we did the event a couple of weeks ago, he acts the first half of the season up through five really with very heavy eyelids.

Like his eyes almost closed and it's like his eyes open after. And even the last shot of this show is him looking up and finally seeing like life again. I don't know if he was like, I have that in my back pocket. I'm going to break it out to the last shot of the series, but it worked.

I was like, holy shit, I can't believe this just happened. No, he said, you know, I also think he acted with like just the, you know, I always especially in the early episodes, the field of the world on his shoulders, the way he walked around. And like he was able to bring all of that trauma and guilt and regret and pain into those scenes. And so every scene, even when he was, you know, even when it was a procedural scene, you felt all the family stuff on him.

And that's what's so great about the release. I think at the end is that it's sort of he's able to let go of all that stuff. And as an audience, we've experienced it with him just in the way he walks around, interacts with people. And so I'm really glad you felt that way at the end that there was some kind of release or letting go or, you know, I think that's what we intended it to be was there.

I wanted it to be a hopeful ending. Yeah, I mean, I was so I wanted to ask you about six and seven, but especially the mechanics of some of the more crime fiction, genre aspects of it, because I think one of the things that was liberating about watching this was letting go of, you know, being a little bit of a granular realist about everything and like what is the exact kind of like procedural doctrine these guys should be following and almost feeling like this was more like a bunch of people that were not in control of their own lives and something was pushing them to these locations and having them collide. And how much do you let what do you want to say about human life dictate the crime stuff and how much do you let the crime stuff dictate what you want to say about humanity? It's always it's always the I'm always interested in a group of characters.

And then the crime is just an excuse. It's just an excuse to get them together. I mean, true. And I think every time I get to writing a procedural scene, I cringe and go, Oh my God, what can I do to possibly make it interesting?

Like these scenes kill me. I hate procedural scenes. And if you look at task in particular, I think my remedy is always to add some humor. You know, Martha Plimpton.

So they're getting these procedural beats, but they're always a laugh or a joke because I'm really I hate to say this, I'm really not interested in the procedural stuff. I mean, I shouldn't say that I know an audience needs to follow a story and you need to move the ball down the field. But I'm really, really interested in the way these people interact and the way an incident changes their life or situation, how they react in the face of suffering, how they react in the case of Tom in the wake of losing his fate. Like those are the things that get me out of bed every morning.

The procedural elements, I'm telling you, they're always hard to write. And yet I know there's a need to have them. But the thing that gets me excited and the reason I got into this business was to write, I wanted to write characters. I wanted to understand how they interact with each other, how they respond in the face of losing someone they love.

Those are the things that get me excited. And the other stuff is just an excuse to spend time with them. And I really truly feel that way. And I think that's why what you're getting at is that even we have those procedural scenes, like they're quick and fast and we don't go into the computer screens or laptops or cell phones, we almost just like, I'll just quickly smash the clue that gets us to the next scene that's interacting with these people I care about.

We get it. You love the beauty of the poetry of the game. You're not an exesan, oh, it's got you. Like Kevin Pizzoulo.

You're just like the assortment player. The only thing you're under for doing references was seven minutes and Andy. You don't need to get them to run in the same direction or in opposite direction. So a lot of the conversation about the season, obviously, circles themes of forgiveness, where penance comes up specifically in this finale.

Tom does not judge Rasso. He leaves that for himself to do. He forgives Ethan. But Brad, you're the creator of the show.

And inevitably, you doled out some justice, especially in the finale. Some fates felt like you're balancing scales. Aaron's bodies are covered. Perry dies in the water as well.

Those were surprises. The dark hearts did not get forgiven. I would say that. Yeah.

That's a heavy loss. I guess the specific question is in the role of creator and judge, jury and executioner, why is Rasso left alive? Why was it important for you to give him that arc and even to give him the chance to understand him or this episode via the introduction of his sister? Yeah.

Well, I thought that scene was really important. And that was one that we had planned. And Lily Kay came in as a wonderful actor. And she and God bless her.

She came in, did one day of work. And that scene was always in there. Because one of the things we talk about a lot on set is, hey, we don't have to agree with the decision these people make. We don't have to agree with Rasso or Robbie.

But I feel as a writer, it's my responsibility to understand why. And that's what that scene with Rasso and his sister did, I think, was to at least understand why, how he got in this situation in the first place. And the shame he feels about his decision. And I think one of the things my uncle, he was a priest and he would hear confession.

And one of the things he said to me was, I'd be in the booth and the same people would come every single week. And they would say, I cursed at my mom or I lied to my spouse. And he would say, you know what, I'm not going to give you any penance. I'm going to talk to God on your behalf.

I don't want you to worry about these things. I'm going to talk to God. And when they came back every single week with the same sins, it was they wanted to be penance. Right?

And the shame was so overwhelming and corrosive. And I grew up Catholic and it's still something I deal with. And I feel like I was exploring a bit of myself in Graso and trying to just understand things. I think that's a part of his journey along the way.

He's asking Tom these questions along the way. He wants to believe again. He wants to have a faith. And I think what I was getting at with Tom is that almost the worst punishment that Graso could have is to have to deal with it on his own.

It's almost worse than death in a way for Graso, is to have to live with the consequences of his actions. I'm not going to let you up with help Graso. I'm not going to give you. I'm going to let you sit with what you've done on your own.

And I think that's something that I learned from my uncle is that the people, they were always beating themselves up. It didn't require him to have any penance or dull out any pen. They were doing it themselves way worse than any penance he could give them. And that really resonated with me.

And I felt like that was something Graso, who I felt grew up in the Catholic Church in South Philly, had that experience, that institution that he felt had let him go or let him down. I felt like that would be a punishment worth. I think it would be worse than him actually passing away in that last scene. It's just that he has to go along with his life and deal with the consequences of what he's done.

You know? I want to ask you specifically about Catholicism because while I may recognize the Delco accents, that is not a church I'm familiar with, certainly growing up in. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about your experiences like young Brad, if you will, like where there are elements of growing up in the church that excited you or surprised you or intrigued you in the same way that the comic books maybe you were reading did or books. Like is there something that lit you up with questions or the size of the world or the beauty in the world?

Because I just love to hear your thoughts on X. It's baked into the show in a way that's fascinating. It really is. I mean, it was something that, you know, that was the one role my father had.

He wasn't a disciplinary man. Like if you're going to live under this roof, you have to go to church every week. I don't care if it's Saturday night or Sunday morning, you are going to go to church. And so it was such a part of my upbringing.

And what I loved about the church was the compassion, the inclusivity of the Bible. And yet what I couldn't understand, it just felt so inconsistent to me, right? That there were passages that I could understand as being this all merciful God. And then there was Job and this, you know, and then there were other passages that I couldn't make sense of like, how can that exist and that exist?

And I don't think I've ever gotten the answers. But I always say to my uncle and there's a great quote by a rabbi. I think it's Herschel. I may have mentioned it to you guys before, but he said, I'm close to the God when I'm asking the questions as opposed to when I think I know the answers.

And that has been my journey is I don't know, I don't have an answer. But there are so many things I love about the church and so many things that make no sense to me. And I think the older I get, you know, there's a distance between those things. But I feel like I'm always on the journey.

And that's why I meet with my uncle all the time. So there were so many things about the church and he died. I love, oh my God, this, there's a sense of kindness. Take the poorest among us and bring them in and care for them.

And then there are other passages I would read and go, wait, but that doesn't seem like the same person. Right? And that's the magic and the torturous nature of the Bible. It's all interpretation.

I could read a passage and think one thing. And it's actually a quote we used in Mary. I think in the opening episode, the priest says, our idea of God, it tells us more about ourselves than it does about him. I think that's so true.

Like I want to believe that God is all merciful. And so that's how I think of it. But I have a lot of friends and my father has a different view of things. And so it just always really intrigued me.

And there are so many things I love about it and so many things that still to the day make absolutely no sense to me. But I'm on the journey always. I love to ask the questions. I think in asking the questions, there's a reward there.

To keep it. If you did find the answer, would you announce it on the watch podcast? Yeah. That would be great for our numbers and our lives.

I don't mean to keep it on God Corner, but I wanted to mention to you that one of the things that early in the season, we got an email from a viewer who talked about Richard Moore to us in this email. And I bought falling upward and started reading it and was obviously struck by the heavy use of the word task in the opening passages of it. And frankly, like, we're writing about storytelling, but also this idea of the two tasks in life and the two halves of your life. I thought served as like an incredible lens through which to view the series.

I wanted to know if you could talk to me a little bit about roaring, whether or not like that was kind of like a structural thing or was it just a reference because obviously a character brings it up. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question.

But I mean, I really know Roar. I really know his work and it was recommended to me by my uncle. I really know his work through the universal Christ, which was my experience with Roar. And I think I know what you're getting at.

There's like the task of understanding your place. Yeah. Like I think you don't get your identity and then you have to figure out what fills up your identity. Yeah.

It's like, you know, I think the reason we put Roar in there is because it's a conversation I've had with my uncle a number of times. And this idea of Christ is being almost like the love that exists between people. And that's always really interesting. As a kid, I was taught one thing.

There's this guy in heaven who's waiting to judge you, the ultimate arbiter. Right. And what I found so appealing about Roar was, what do you say? What if that's a very myopic way of you and God?

What if it's a much more inclusive, inclusive Christ? Mm hmm. You know, and that it's almost sort of the love force that exists between all these people. And I just found that to be such an interesting idea and it's something that I've had many, many conversations about with my uncle.

And I really think it's sort of how he views God now. And he was raised in the church that believed, hey, if you sin, you go to confession and there's someone keeping track in heaven and you're going to have to face that person eventually. And so I've always been eager to learn about other ideas of God and see how it's how it's how it's, I don't know, lines up with my ideas over the years. And so it wasn't that task was born out of Roar.

It was more that my experience with Roar, you know, was something I felt that Tom would have excluded as a character that I really felt like just given his identity as a priest. And I always felt he was a very inclusive and progressive priest. I felt like, oh, that's something that he would have read. He would have read Richard Roar.

He would have listened to his things. And so it felt like it was in the zone of what Tom would listen to. And so that's why I put Roar in there. And so it wasn't as if task was born out of Roar, but it did feel like I felt strongly that Tom would know Roar's work and be and be someone that read his books.

I don't say either way, the best art is the art that makes you read other stuff and go look for other stuff. So I just thought it was really cool because the finale to me was as much about kids as it was about the characters that were having gun fights and go in jail. And you wind up at the end with Ethan, Emily, these very, like obvious shots of these people, Sam and Maeve and the kids, all starting kind of like a second half of their life in some ways. And I just thought it was really fascinating that even with, you know, Robbie going down and Lizzy going down and the dark hearts going down and Grosso's going to prison and all these people, but there is this like reverse at the end of the episode.

Yeah, well, I think that was like, I'm really glad you said because it was so important for me to have, it was really important to really give the kids a voice. And that was something that like, and I can tell you, there were many times just to give you a peek behind the curtain where I felt like, you know, we could have in the edit, we could have gotten rid of some of those scenes, you know, that Emily with the guidance counselor and you know, just little scenes like Harper asking Maeve about the day. And there were so many little scenes that, that it, if I would have submitted the episode to HBO, they probably wouldn't have missed it. And I felt like if we're going to talk about the actions of the fathers, well, we have to give voice to the kid that have to be a part of it and they have to speak with honesty.

And we have to see the impact these actions have on the kid. It's just so important. And so that was something we really, really were constantly trying to keep in the show. So I'm really glad that resonated with you.

And I thought one of the most meaningful scenes in the show was when Emily said like, all I'm ever supposed to feel is gratitude. I'm never allowed to have an honest emotion. I'm just supposed to feel one thing all the time. And God forbid I feel something else.

I'm not grateful anymore. And that was one scene that I really was like, we have to keep this in the show. It speaks to what the show is really about. And I know the plot stuff needs to be there.

But in the end, it's my hope that the aggregate of all these little things that we're trying to keep will have an impact at the end of the show. So we really, really, really wanted to keep the kids scenes in there. I think they're incredibly rewarding and they're incredibly important. And like a moment ago, you talked about how you're torn between the pros of the investigation and the investigative beats and then like the poetry of the deeper meaning.

But let's make this a trinity. I don't know if you've ever heard of that in the way you've been before. But like, I think the third piece is what you're talking about, which is that every time you sit off on a journey as a writer, what I'm really responding to is that the car just swerves like a misaligned whatever towards more life. And I find that so rare in the way TV as maybe say, so scenes do get cut.

And sometimes I feel like it's almost like it's like an extra course and a meal that like you can't help but introduce Sarah the daughter. And oh, we don't like her. Oh, but now she has a backstory and now she has empathy and now she has nuance. And now we, she's a part of the fabric of the show.

Like I think one of the most, if I may like Brad beets of the finale is that the fucking magician kid is now babysitting. Like it's, it feels good, you know, to see the depth of this. And I wonder, there's sort of like two parts of the question. I know, lovely moment.

And I think you guys, that actually means a lot to me because I like there are battles we have and I'm so, it makes my heart warm that you guys like I picked up on the magician being their babysitter. But I just wonder if like in your writing, like do you trace that to some like in a curiosity advice you were given once? Are you just a misaligned chassis that's driving off the road? Like do you digress in your office, like giving us these writing backstories that we don't even see?

I wonder how you calibrate that interest. Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's always like, you know, one of the things that I like to say early in the process is why everyone needs to earn a seat at the table. Everyone needs to be here for a reason. And it can't just be a funny line or a funny scene.

Like if we're going to have Leo, he needs to pay off in some way. If we're going to have Sarah, she needs to pay off in some way. And so, and it's important to me that that payoff is unexpected. It's, you know, it's, oh, we thought you were one person and then we learned a little bit more like you were saying and the oh, we hate Sarah.

She's so nasty in the second episode. Well, and we learned a little bit about her. We understand her a little bit more and suddenly we look at her a little differently. And so I love just trying to, I love trying to understand or expect what an audience expects and then subverting it in some way.

That isn't cheap, but subverting it in some way that feels earned and surprising. And it is important to me that at the end of the show, I could make a case for every character having been in the show. Well, they weren't there just to give us a laugh. You know, it was like Leo was there and the reason I love Leo is because what I always said was important about him and why we fought to keep him was he lets us see Emily as a kid.

Every other scene she's just working. She's taking care of that. Yes. She lets, he gives us access to what she might look like if she was at normal team not dealing with all this crisis.

She smiles, she giggles, she gets drunk, she throws up, she gets asked on a date. Like it allowed us the glimpse of side of her that is what could have been of this family. And so I really want to be able to say at the end of the show, everyone had a reason. They all gave us something.

And it's really important to me that I can say that at the end. And sometimes they do lose a bit in the editor or the payoff isn't what you imagine. But I really try and I think it comes from a love of human beings. I really like, I really love these characters so much.

And I wanted more scenes with Aliyah. I wanted more scenes with Alison and Lizzie. And ultimately I didn't get to have all those scenes. But if it was up to me it would have been like 18 hour show.

And everybody seems like Lizzie and Aliyah hanging out and getting to know each other. I love that. I feel like you're triggering Chris. You keep saying more Alison for you.

I'm watching him because Chris is one of the only ones that I was in. She was just too beautiful for this world. It was too, it was, it was what it is. I don't think I could handle it if she found out Crossout was the mole.

But like Brad legitimately, you have Amelia and you have Alison and you have Fabian and Mary. None of them are, they're not just not from Delco. They're not from the United States of America. And yet these are three of the greatest, I don't even know the word, in habitations of people that we have all met or known that I've ever seen on the screen.

The only question is how. And yes, they are amazing actors. But if you could just talk about like the initiation process, the hazing, like the moment behind the monitors when you saw Alison do that scene at the bar that Chris is now tearing up thinking about it, it feels like some sort of like wizardry. Well, listen, you know, as you said, a lot of incredible talent there.

But I think a couple of things and I think we talked a little bit about this when I was on the panel with you guys is, you know, after we hire the actors, we immediately bring in the dialect coach who's there who they all know and she's just wonderful. And so that process starts really, really early. And we usually identify one person or one voice really that an actor can attach to. And Amelia was able to, I forget her girls name, it was a woman from Ridley and Alison had one too.

And the other thing I think is so important guys is like, we shoot the show here. So Alison is here in Delco. She's driving around to bars. She's going Fabian and they're going to bars.

And I think, you know, I can't quantify how that, how that, you know, how much that means. But it means a lot. And so it's a mix of incredible talents. And like, I mean, I mean, the crazy thing is that all three of them could speak in the Delco accent and prefer like a South Philly thing.

And then the minute you said cut instantly go back into British. And that was Kate's gift to it, just instantly go back. And I don't know if it's a part of their training, but it is a gift. And you know, I can bring them into Delco.

I can drive them to the bars or get them set up with people I have. But I think I just am always amazed at the ability to switch on and off that quickly. I don't know. I mean, I love, I love them all.

Now that he's come out of retirement, I would love to see Daniel Day-Lewis in one of these shows, but not not turn the switch off. You know, I just feel like I'm being a guy from Philly all day. Also, I just, I'm just watching, well, your answer, I'm just watching Chris. And I just feel like there's like the gears are turning, but like there are intimacy coordinators now on like sexy movies and like could there be a regional coordinator.

Just like smoke one cigarette outside of Bad Brother like one of these guys. And like just to help keep him focused, you know. I got you Chris. I got you covered, man.

You know, we was this is a good opportunity to ask you about this where, you know, it's a really show. It's broadly a Delco show. I think that when I talked to people about this series or before it came out or when the trailer dropped the one with G&R in it, like there was this anticipation, at least I had this anticipation, it's like, oh, this is like an urban thriller like this is we're going to get and it is pastoral, you know, like most of the, I would say second half of the season is in the woods, you know. And all of the most important moments happen in nature.

Yeah. Aaron's death, Sam's swimming lesson, you know, Robbie's quarry jump and obviously the huge shootout up at the, at the summer home, the cabin, like that is an element of Philadelphia that I don't think people really know is that like you go down a block and you're in the middle of the forest. Yeah. But you talk a little bit about exploring the more rural parts and then also working with Jeremiah and Sally because I feel like they really leaned into the natural beauty of the city but also like the poetry of like seeing wildlife, seeing foliage, seeing like all this stuff.

Yeah. So it's funny because I would always say like, Hey, it's a Delco show, not a Philly show. Like I think, you know, I think there were like so many of these log lines I think were written and it was like, it's Philly. And I was like, Oh boy, if people come into this thinking it's going to be like a urban thriller.

Like you said, Chris, this is going to be a huge disappointment. But I always felt like, you know, again, it was born out of character. Truly, I can, I'll be honest and say I never really started saying I want to make a show about about the woods in Delco. And in the same way I never wanted to tell a story about vagrants in the fifth episode, it was born out of, Oh, my uncle is the next priest.

He's a bird watcher now. Right. It starts with a character and grounding that character in, in, in a way I can understand and then out of that character, only out of the character, am I taking the themes and stretching them? And the same with Robbie, I felt like, okay, who is this guy?

He's a trash man. He kind of lives out in the woods. He has a quarry. He's swamming with his brother.

This was their place of heaven that's been snatched away from them that he's always trying to recreate in some way. And so it was only out of that idea, Chris, that all the wood stuff came into play. And I think I'm always operating out of, out of a place of character. You know, again, I truly never said to myself, I want to, I want to make a show that's out in the woods.

And it was like, where would Robbie go that I believe? Oh, we have a little, like a little swimming hole where him and Cliff would go, oh, that's cool. Oh, it's a place of lost heaven. Well, that's where Aaron could die later.

Right. So everything is born out of me trying to understand a character in a very granular way. And then only when I have that character in my head, then I'm stretching all these themes out. Like that's where the vagrant came from.

Oh, what if Tom saw this bird? It wasn't supposed to be there. Oh, now I can use that as an entry point for him to bridge the gap between him and Robbie. And then I could use it again.

And then it was the same with Robbie. Oh, I love this quarry. I can bring the quarry back. Oh, that's where he used to go with Billy.

Oh, that's where Aaron goes to me. Right. And so I think when you're starting from a place of character, all those other elements kind of, it's like a snowball. They start to come into you, but it's all coming out of the character.

You know, I rarely start from the place of, oh, I want to tell a story about this place. I always say, I want to tell a story about this guy or this girl. And then what's their life like? And how do I use those things?

Yeah. But I do have a question about the place specifically because this was true in mayor as well. But it's something that I kept noticing and thinking about while watching task was you and Jeremiah and Sally's camera specifically really showcased the relative age of this part of the country, right, compared to certainly where we live in California and that the houses and the towns and the streets have a certain look that is almost unchanged. So like Ray and Shelley's house in California, like 1.2 million.

Like that's a beautiful house. You know what I mean? Not that I've been killed. She went and done some things.

But it's like fentanyl. Just press it up a little bit. That's the way to Shelley. But just knock it on these connecting walls and you've got it.

But what's changed is that, you know, to go back to the Richard Worth content of the vessel, right? Like people are still yearning for communities, they're living in homes, but now there's fentanyl and now the middle class has been destroyed. And there is a, your camera doesn't flinch from showing that contrast. And you know, you, in between making the series, I think you moved back home full time and you live there now.

So just what you feel, or if you feel like a responsibility to this place, how to depict it, how to, and how you choose to depict it. A hundred percent. And it's, you know, it's, you know, honestly people say, oh, did you have a, like a tough time doing a follow up to mayor? I said, yeah, because I'm telling another story about Delco.

It's not that I, I feel the, you know, there's obviously the burden of mayor, but also it's just a responsibility. I have to live here. I have to walk these streets. I have to, I have to bump into these people.

So it's incredibly important to me. And I think what, you know, truly what I, the most important thing to me when I write these stories about this place is that I hope that people here appreciate them. And I think what I'm always trying to do is give a voice to a very specific community of people that I don't think we often get to see on screen and to, and to show the kind of, that's the heroism of, of the day to day life here, right? Like, when I always admire, and it's really the character of Robbie is like, I just love this idea of he's living a life he never imagined in some ways hasn't asked for, but he's getting up every day.

He's going to work really early in the morning. He's doing a job. He doesn't love out of a sense of duty. And like, I've always, that seems really simple, but I've always found that to be like incredibly heroic.

Like, I'm going to get up. I'm going to tie my shoes. I'm going to go to a job I don't love. I'm going to work with people I don't like.

I'm going to do something for the course of the day. I really don't want to be doing it. And I'm doing it because I love my wife or my kids and I want them to have a better life or at least a life that's a little bit, a little different. And like, I just always loved that idea.

And I've always just, I've always found that simple idea incredibly heroic. And I've also always thought those lives are as complex as other life that get depicted on screen. And I always want to try to give those lives the dreams and the fears, the anxieties and the complexity and the layering that I think they deserve. And so it's really important to me that I can give a speech here in Delaware County and not have, you know, and not get up and get, you know, in some way harassed or like, I want people to feel proud of these shows.

That is incredibly, I think it's probably the most important thing to me, truly the most important thing to me is I want people to feel like I've honored this place and that the characters do justice to them. That's really important to me. I was wondering, you know, some of my favorite moments of this season of the series was moments that were unexplained or moments where I feel like you didn't override it. And the thing that kind of haunted me was Aaron looking up at those kids partying up on the ledge.