The penultimate episode of Task brought the guns-blazing firestorm everyone had been anticipating—and some deaths that we’d surely all hoped would never happen. After a season of buildup, the Dark Hearts, the FBI task force, and Robbie Prendergrast all converge in Bushkill, and a melee, naturally, ensues. There are knock-down, drag-out scuffles, shots fired in every direction, and heart-pounding three-way chases over bridges, hills, and vales. But it ends up being a Pyrrhic fight with losses all around and no real victory for anybody: The task force fails to apprehend Jayson Wilkes and Perry Dorazo, Robbie doesn’t get the revenge he was looking for, and the Dark Hearts lose track of the fentanyl they were after. The greatest losses of all are, of course, Robbie himself and Lizzie Stover—arguably the show’s most beloved characters, both big-hearted dreamers prone to making a few messes along the way. They’re killed by the Dark Hearts—Robbie stabbed by Jayson in a very Mountain vs. Oberyn–style fight, Lizzie mowed down by Jayson’s truck as he and Perry make their retreat.
Tom Brandis’s makeshift task force is disbanded—and put under investigation—after the climactic showdown and its succession of failures. But even if the Robin Hood of Delaware County has been brought down, the task force’s work isn’t really done. The rat in their midst, one Anthony Grasso, is still a free man (in body, if not in spirit). Jayson and Perry are on the lam. And the fentanyl is still in the wind: By the end of the episode, the Dark Hearts discover that Robbie’s duffel bag was stuffed with newspapers, not drugs—he knew all along that he was walking into a trap, but he stepped into it anyway to get one last chance at taking Jayson down.
There are plenty of loose ends left to tie up in next week’s finale, and “Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing, There Is a River” sets up what could happen next: Aleah and Tom have formed their own covert task force to expose Grasso; Jayson is still looking for his missing partner, Eryn (not to mention his missing fentanyl—TBD on which he’s actually more worried about); Maeve now has the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, hand-delivered to her by Shelly Wilkins. We can see all the chess pieces on the board, but it’s anyone’s guess how the rest of the game will play out. So, in the spirit of good detective work, here are 12 predictions about what will go down in the finale—starting, of course, with our most far-fetched theories.
12. Maeve will take her fentanyl money and book it to Robbie’s dream Canadian island.
It’s clear that Maeve has had enough of life in Delaware County, working at a kids’ arcade, gagging down Ree Drummond recipes, parenting two quasi-orphans, and living with the regret of everything she hasn’t accomplished in her 21 years. Earlier in the series, she told Robbie how much she resented him for trapping her in the only life she’d ever known. Well, she finally has the means to get out, thanks to the big duffel bag of cash that Robbie had dropped on her doorstep. With the Dark Hearts possibly after her now in search of the drugs, it seems like it’s time to finally leave Delco.
Maeve told Robbie she doesn’t even know what there is outside of Delaware County, but he might have harped on about those Canadian islands long enough to plant the seed of an idea in her mind. And if the heat is off Bartosz now that Robbie’s dead, she may even have a ride across the border. But what should she do with Harper and Wyatt? I have an idea in mind …
11. Tom will retire from the FBI and start a bird sanctuary–cum–foster care center.
Tom has seen too much shit, and you get the sense that, after holding a dying Robbie in his arms, he doesn’t have the will to keep at this job anymore. But he’s gotta see out this last case, starting by bringing Grasso to justice. If he succeeds there—and somehow manages to escape any ensuing hailstorms of bullets unscathed, again—I have a good idea of what his retirement plan should be. In this episode, Tom brings Sam Nance home with him rather than let him stay in a juvenile detention center that’s been repurposed to house foster-care kids. What better way to honor his late wife, Susan, than to foster more kids without a home? Once Emily moves out, he’ll be creaking around in his big house all by his lonesome; why not bring in some siblings for Sam? Harper and Wyatt could be some good candidates if Maeve sets off for parts unknown with her new fortune; Tom’s daughter Sara and her baby might as well move in, too.
And to sweeten the deal, Tom can foster some birds, too—his real passion. After all, he and Sam share a love of chickens; why not get started by bringing Gertie and the rest of the Prendergrast roost to the Brandis house?
10. Aleah will give up a life in law enforcement and open a woman-only shooting range.
If it’s discovered that Tom and Aleah are running a covert operation to expose Grasso, they could both very well be out of a job. And after the corruption and brutality Aleah’s witnessed on this case alone, it may be a relief to get out of the force. But there’s no way she’d give up her true calling: shooting guns. I could see Aleah opening a shooting range called Bullseye, complete with Lizzie’s patch as its logo, to teach other women the art of marksmanship from Pennsylvania’s best. I’d go!
9. Grasso will find religion.
My initial prediction was that Grasso would follow Tom’s example and become a man of the cloth. But if he manages to survive the next episode (which I highly doubt; more on that below), he’ll quite possibly end up in prison, making his path to the priesthood a little more difficult. (While the Catholic Church has accepted reformed criminals into the priesthood, the “good moral character” requirement might mean they’d draw the line if multiple people died because of your crimes. But God does forgive, so who knows!) Grasso grew up Catholic, and all season long, he’s been particularly interested in Tom’s past as a priest—and perhaps will be even more so now that he feels his immortal soul is at stake. (Plus, his aversion to desecrating Lizzie’s “marriage bed” is evidence that he still holds some religious precepts near and dear.)
In their conversation in Episode 6, Grasso asks Tom how forgiveness actually operates. Are all your sins really just washed away when you confess them to a priest? Confession, Tom answers, is a thing that’s meant to make humans feel better, but forgiveness is real, and it’s given freely by God when it’s asked for. It’s unlikely that Grasso will forgive himself for his sins as readily as God would, but he also isn’t quite prepared to confess them—at least not to this former priest. If he does make it out of Task alive, he’ll probably spend the rest of his time on earth trying to earn God’s forgiveness, starting by rededicating himself to the life of a good Catholic altar boy.
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8. Tom will throw out his Phillies cup.
I won’t hold my breath on this one, but we’ve mostly seen a clearheaded Tom since things really heated up on Task. He turns down a Yuengling when Grasso offers one (although he might just not be in the mood to drink with a rat), and when Emily confronts him about the alcohol he downs every night from his Phillies cup, he grabs some OJ instead of the Tito’s. It’s probably harder to get drunk every night when you have to be at a stakeout the next day, but even when the task force’s work ends, I think his experiences over the past week or so could shake him back into sobriety (especially if he’s playing dad with young, impressionable Sam Nance).
7. The Dark Hearts will show up at the Prendergrast house looking for the stolen fentanyl.
We’ve seen just how determined Jayson is to secure those drugs—he disobeyed Perry’s orders and opened fire on Robbie (not to mention an FBI agent) just to get that elusive duffel bag back. His position as a Dark Hearts captain is hanging in the balance, and he likely believes that getting the dope back (and killing the people responsible for stealing it) will get him back in the mother chapter’s good graces. (I guess he hasn’t realized that he’s probably already lost his job by getting a bunch of his members killed and the rest of them put under FBI surveillance.) After Jayson and Perry discover that the fentanyl was never in Robbie’s bag, will they try to find it at his house? Or will they realize that he wasn’t dumb enough to leave it lying around for them to find? Perry told Maeve that she’s still family—but that didn’t matter much when it came to Eryn, and Jayson clearly doesn’t take those ties all that seriously either. Perhaps a disagreement about whether to go after Maeve could lead to …
6. Perry and Jayson will have a final showdown.
Jayson is still trying to figure out what happened to Eryn. With his crack team of dirty cops and Dark Hearts on the case, I’m sure they’ll find her body soon enough—and, perhaps, trace her killing back to Perry. (I wonder whether he ever took that tracker off the bottom of her car.) Tensions are already running high in their cabin hideaway; there could be a rock fight between mentor and mentee if/when Jayson finds out that Perry was the one who killed Eryn. He already murdered Billy over her; it doesn’t seem like he’d hesitate to do it again.
5. Grasso will try to exact his own form of revenge on Jayson and the Dark Hearts.
No one’s more torn up over the death of Lizzie Stover than me Anthony Grasso. And he should be beating himself up, frankly, because her death was only the consequence of his own actions. As Tom spells out for him (like Grasso didn’t know it already), if he hadn’t been feeding intel to the Dark Hearts, she never would have ended up in Bushkill, standing in the way of Jayson’s truck that day. Tom and Grasso both know the truth, but Grasso can’t say it out loud (yet), or he’ll bring his whole police department down with him.
If he can’t confess, then he might just try to take justice into his own hands. After all, he should still be able to make contact with Jayson, who’s been making liberal use of his phone while he’s hiding out. He could reach out to arrange a meet under the pretense that he’s passing along intel about the FBI’s investigation. Jayson obviously doesn’t know that Grasso’s under investigation and is no longer a reliable source. Once Grasso gets him alone—or, at least, alone with Perry—he could try to right the wrong of Lizzie’s death. If he has to go to prison (or, you know, hell) for being a snitch, he might as well make the stay worthwhile. But he could be stymied in his efforts if …
4. Tom and Aleah will trail Grasso to his meeting with the Dark Hearts.
Tom promises Grasso that he’s out to get him, and it seems like a mistake to doubt a promise from a priest. Tom recruits Aleah to help prove that Grasso was the Dark Hearts’ mole, and the next episode will likely spend plenty of time on their efforts to apprehend him. Obviously, while they’re both on leave, they don’t have access to their computers, criminal databases, phone-tapping tech, or other investigative tools. What they do have? All the time in the world, plus a trusty pair of binoculars: Tom and Aleah’s best hope of catching Grasso will be good old-fashioned surveillance. If he does meet up with Jayson and Perry (or, alternatively, with his no-good boss Chief Dorsey), they’ll be hot on his trail.
I do doubt, however, that Task would set up a second bloody showdown between the task force and the Dark Hearts—surely Brad Ingelsby will have another trick up his sleeve for the finale. Maybe Tom and Aleah will just observe a meeting from afar, gathering enough evidence to turn Grasso over to the internal investigation that’s already underway. Or maybe they’ll intervene in time to get Grasso to turn himself in rather than try to have some kind of face-off with Jayson (who has a winning track record so far in one-on-one fights). Whatever happens, I’m just hoping for some heart-rending dialogue on par with what we’ve already seen between Tom and Robbie or Tom and Grasso. I don’t care what anyone says as long as I cry a lot and my heart grows two sizes.
3. Grasso’s boss will try to off him.
It became clear in this episode that Grasso’s dirty work was just a symptom of a deeper rot in the county police department. Grasso’s boss, Chief Dorsey, visits him at home to tell him he’s under investigation—and to warn him that he won’t be able to cover up his tracks as easily this time around. When Grasso keeps bringing up his responsibility for Lizzie’s death, Dorsey tells him to forget all about it, holding his head under a sink faucet like he’s a puppy who got caught eating a flip-flop. It’s a minor punishment for now, but if he gets the sense that Grasso’s feeling guilty enough to confess, he’d probably prefer to take him out rather than let the whole police department go down with him.
2. Emily will go on a date with her Rita’s Ice coworker.
We had to get a low-stakes prediction in here somewhere! It was refreshing to see Emily act like a crushed-out teenager rather than a parentified daughter for once. I hope we get to see her at Leo’s magic show, finally letting go of the weight of the world for the sake of this sweet, insecure mophead. “You big into God, or?” sure won me over; I hope Leo manages to charm Emily, too.
1. Tom will finally visit his son, Ethan—and ask him for forgiveness.
If there’s any prediction I feel certain about, it’s this one. The weight and possibility of forgiveness has been a running theme in Task. Understandably or not, Robbie didn’t choose a path of forgiveness, and I don’t think Grasso will ultimately choose to forgive himself, either. But Tom might see all these failures and earn the knowledge that he needs to forgive his son and himself. Tom tells Grasso that, in front of God, nothing is really unforgivable. Maybe the events of the next episode will convince him that there is a God who can forgive him—or, more likely, the loss he’s seen and the families that have been broken up will convince him to salvage what’s left of his.
For the sake of my own ego, I do hope that one or two of these predictions come true on Sunday night. But for the sake of great TV, I’m hoping to be surprised and delighted (or horrified, its own kind of delight) by the events of Task on Sunday night. Buckle up: one last time into the woods and quarries of Delaware County.
