Warning: This post contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Task” finale.
The smoke has cleared as “Task” wraps up its seven-episode run… and all we’re left with is the sound of birds chirping.
Sunday’s finale dealt with the aftermath of last week’s brutal shootout, with Grasso trying to redeem himself for his role in Lizzie’s death by taking out Jayson — and taking a bullet himself. (Robbie’s niece Maeve got away with the money, too, after Tom looked the other way.) But the heart of the finale was really in its quieter moments, as Tom handed Sam over to a loving adoptive family and made a compassionate speech in court asking for his son’s release from prison, even though his son killed his wife. In the final moments, Tom sat at home and gazed out the window with a slight smile on his face as he listened to birds chirping outside.
So what should we take away from that understated ending? “It’s not that it’s over, you know,” Mark Ruffalo, who stars as Tom, told reporters at a recent press conference. “It’s that we can continue. Like, we can live on. Just in the face of that kind of loss, that kind of disruption of the family, somehow, we make it through. And we make it through with a modicum of grace and that we can keep going, and that we have the aid of nature.” He noted with a laugh: “Some people will say God stands for ‘Get Out Doors.'”
Ruffalo added that “it’s sweet that we end on the birds singing because the birds come out every day even in the midst of whatever — the rain, you know? And they’re there, and their song is such an affirmation of life. And if we can take from that, and if we can be present to that, then we’ll be OK.”
‘I Wanted It To Be a Hopeful Ending’
“Task” creator Brad Ingelsby tells TVLine that he’s “always hesitant to say what I want” the ending to mean because the true meaning “can be many things” to many viewers. But “I always felt like Tom’s emotional journey in the story was forgiveness. ‘I’ve got so much anger, anger, anger.’ And then he has to let go of the anger in order to forgive his son and, quite literally, get the house ready for his son to come home.”
So what Ingelsby wanted to convey in that final shot was that Tom is “nervous, he’s scared,” he notes. “And he sees something outside… It’s not like the actual spirit of his wife, but it’s the feeling of his wife that gives him the strength to carry on, knowing it’s going to be hard, but the ability to acknowledge the hard times and still carry on.”
After all the trauma and bloodshed that Tom has endured throughout “Task,” “I wanted it to be a hopeful ending,” Ingelsby adds, “and I hope that comes across in the ending images there.”
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