HBO’s Smash Hit Crime Thriller Series Resurfaces on Streaming Months After Its Season 1 Finale

3 hours ago 5

Jamie McShane in uniform looking at someone in Task Episode 2.

Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.

For reasons unknown, he enjoys analyzing box office receipts, giant sharks, and has become known as the go-to man for all things Bosch, Mission: Impossible and Christopher Nolan in Collider's news division. Recently, he found himself yeehawing along to the Dutton saga on the Yellowstone Ranch.

He is proficient in sarcasm, wit, Photoshop and working unfeasibly long hours. Amongst his passions sit the likes of the history of the Walt Disney Company, the construction of theme parks, steam trains and binge-watching Gilmore Girls with a coffee that is just hot enough to scald him.

His obsession with the Apple TV+ series Silo is the subject of mockery within the Senior News channel, where his feelings about Taylor Sheridan's work are enough to make his fellow writers roll their eyes.

HBO’s gritty crime thriller Task just pulled a full “you thought I was gone?” moment. Months after its Season 1 finale wrapped up, the seven-episode Mark Ruffalo–led drama has quietly climbed back onto streaming charts, turning into one of those rare post-finale glow-ups that basically proves the word-of-mouth was real all along.

When Task debuted, it didn’t roll out as some loud, blockbuster-style HBO event. Instead, it built its audience the old-school way: episode by episode, with mounting tension, morally murky characters, and Ruffalo delivering one of his most locked-in performances in years. The show follows a federal task force as it hunts down a sprawling criminal network, but what really hooked viewers was how personal and psychologically brutal the whole thing felt.

By the time the finale aired, Task had become one of HBO’s most critically praised new series of 2025. But like a lot of prestige shows, its real second life didn’t start until people began discovering it late. Now, in early 2026, that slow-burn reputation has paid off, with viewers circling back, bingeing it for the first time, or rewatching it knowing how everything ends.

Is 'Task' Any Good?

Collider's Carly Lane reviewed the series and stated that Ingelsby’s Task lived up to the pressure of following Mare of Easttown by delivering a darker, more sprawling crime saga driven by grief and revenge. Anchored by Ruffalo and Pelphrey, the HBO thriller balanced an FBI manhunt with an intimate look at two broken men spiraling after personal loss. Rather than a traditional whodunit, the show let viewers see both sides of the law, turning it into a bleak character study about how trauma fuels violence. While sometimes uneven in pacing, its powerful performances and emotionally brutal finale made it deeply affecting and hard to shake.

The series' penultimate episode, written by Ingelsby and directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield, is a masterclass in tension, as multiple parties converge on a remote area and the resulting showdown is deadly to a nigh-cataclysmic degree — the sort of hour that no one will ever be the same after witnessing. For all its high-intensity action, it's in the show's quieter moments where Ruffalo, Pelphrey, and the rest of the talented ensemble cast leave a lasting impression, emotional ripples that reverberate long after the initial impact has faded.

Task is streaming now on HBO Max.