'Task' Episode 2 Recap & Ending Explained: Did Maeve Abandon Sam?

In the first episode of Task, we were introduced to two people on opposite sides of the “crime” spectrum, Tom and Robbie. Tom was an FBI agent who was assigned to head a task force to bring in a trio of robbers who were going around hitting drug dens that belonged to a biker gang known as Dark Hearts. In his team were Aleah, Elizabeth, and Anthony, and they were given a dilapidated house to use as their headquarters. Since they had no idea how the trio functioned, they were unable to prevent a shootout and kidnapping. Speaking of the trio, it comprised Robbie, Cliff, and Peaches. Robbie and Cliff were garbage collectors by day, while Peaches worked as a handyman, and at night they became robbers. They got all their intel from someone named MZ, and although the hits looked random, as mentioned before, it was clear that they were targeting one particular gang. Things went wrong during their latest robbery; the inhabitants of the drug den bit the dust, as did Peaches. And in this process, Robbie and Cliff orphaned a kid named Sam. Since Sam had seen their faces, they could either kill him or let him live and risk getting identified by him. Robbie went for the second option. What were the consequences of that action? Let’s talk about the second episode and find out.

Spoiler Alert

Robbie Lies to Sam

Jayson Wilkes, a senior member of Dark Hearts, wakes up to the news that Warren, Derek, and Joanne have been killed, and Sam is missing. He knows that it’s the same crew that has been targeting his gang all this while, but he clearly can’t prove it. Jayson knows about Peaches’ death, but the gang hasn’t been able to identify him yet. As long as they can’t identify him, Robbie and Cliff, and their loved ones, can enjoy some level of immunity. Jayson assumes that the attackers had prior knowledge of the “shipment” that was in that house. That can mean only one thing: MZ is someone who works in Dark Hearts and is getting back at the gang by secretly ordering hits on them. So, Jayson calls for a team meeting to talk to everyone about this ongoing situation. Speaking of Sam, he is in Robbie’s room, sleeping peacefully. Robbie hasn’t broken the news to Maeve, Wyatt, and Harper, because he has been doing a “swell job” of being the father figure of the family, and adding another kid to the mix is going to complicate the situation even further. So, he keeps Sam in his room until everyone has left. Once everyone is gone, Robbie and Cliff try to chalk out their next steps. First of all, their contact, MZ, isn’t responding to any of Robbie’s texts. Secondly, there’s no cash in the bag that they stole from that house; it is full of uncut fentanyl. And thirdly, Sam is hungry. 

Coming back to the fentanyl, though, the main issue here is that they have to sell in order to earn their cut. And no random person can sell drugs of that quantity on a whim. There’s a tight-knit network of buyers and sellers. They know where that bag of fentanyl came from and where it was supposed to go. The moment Robbie and Cliff enter the market with it, they will be flagged and punished for trying to butt into a business that they have no business being in. More on that later, I guess. For now, Robbie focuses on taking care of Sam and spinning a tall tale that his parents have gone away for a few days to look after his sick grandmother, leaving him in Robbie’s custody for the time being. Sam is just a kid, so he seemingly buys the narrative; what other option does he have anyway? When Maeve returns home with Wyatt and Harper, Robbie spins a version of the story that he told to Sam; he says that Sam is Dale Larson’s son, and Dale has asked him to look after Sam until Dale returns from Dover, which is where Sam’s grandmother lives. Robbie tries to be unspecific, but that only ends up making Maeve suspicious about the deal between Sam and Robbie.

The Task Force Analyzes the Dark Hearts

Even though the authorities don’t find anything substantial at the crime scene, Tom tells his task force to collect every bit of data that they can and convene at their HQ with all the details. Meanwhile, Tom and Anthony head over to Peaches’ girlfriend, Kaylee’s house to talk to her and her father, David, about what they know about the deceased individual. Shockingly enough, Kaylee reveals that she met Peaches online, and she moved all the way from Ohio to Pennsylvania without learning a thing about Peaches or who he fraternizes with. That’s why when Tom and Anthony start talking about the circumstances in which Peaches was found, Kaylee has a full-on meltdown, which compels David to ask the officers to leave. On their way back to their headquarters, Anthony learns how Tom went from being a priest to an FBI agent, and pulls his leg about religion, crime, and more (it’s a pretty hilarious scene). That’s followed by yet another hilarious scene at the headquarters, where Tom asks Anthony to round up everyone for a status meeting, and Anthony walks in on Elizabeth, lost in her own world with her headphones on, and gives her the shock of her life. 

Also, the expression on Elizabeth’s face at the sight of a dead body in Tom’s report about the Dark Hearts is pretty funny as well. I know that the whole cast is amazing, but Alison Oliver just got promoted to my favorites after this episode. Going back to the plot, Anthony gives everyone a basic idea of what Dark Hearts is. He talks about Jayson and how he was recruited by Perry Dorazo, one of the 12 national leaders who make up what’s known as the Mother Club. They used to peddle heroin and cocaine, and, as we’ve seen earlier, now they have shifted to fentanyl. In addition to all that, Anthony informs the task force and the audience that fentanyl sales are handled by the Dominicans. Freddy Frias oversees the business in Philadelphia, while Dark Hearts takes care of the rural communities that fall between Lancaster County and New York. Anthony points out that these guys run a very tight ship. Therefore, if there’s a leak, it’s someone in the inner circle of these guys. To learn more about this, Tom tells Elizabeth to set up a meeting with Joe Easley, an expert on East Coast biker gangs, and hope to get an idea of who this informant could be or maybe infiltrate Dark Hearts by posing as a budding biker. Of course, the FBI isn’t the only one conducting a mole hunt; Dark Hearts is doing the same as well, and their top two targets are Breaker and Shane.

Maeve Tries To Get Rid Of Sam

Jayson is getting an earful from Perry for putting their whole establishment on the FBI’s radar. In order to buy some time and fix this whole mess, Jayson highlights the fact that they have a way to get back at the trio that killed their people. As mentioned before, since Robbie and Cliff have fentanyl, they’ll need to sell it. They’ll go to Freddy for that. Jayson and Perry will have to negotiate with Freddy to prove that that fentanyl belongs to the Dark Hearts if they want to get paid. However, once that’s all done, they can nab Robbie and Cliff and make them pay for their trespasses. Here’s the thing: I don’t think that Robbie going after the Dark Hearts is as random as it seems. You see, there are two moments where the editing exposes this connection: firstly, when Robbie talks about working with Sam’s father, and secondly, when Joe talks about Jayson killing a guy named Billy. 

I think Billy is the name of Robbie’s elder brother. The official narrative is that Billy went missing—or at least that’s the story that has been sold to Maeve. Robbie knows the truth, though, and is slowly chipping away at the Dark Hearts for killing his brother. Here’s another clue: when Sam says that his mother’s name was Joanne and his father was Derek, Maeve says that she knew them. Of course, we don’t get to learn “how” she knew them, because that’s the moment she learns that the FBI and every other law enforcement authority has been looking for Sam ever since he went missing. Maeve knows that this is Robbie’s doing, but instead of waiting to confront him, she takes him to the local trade center, abandons him there, and then dials 911 in the hopes that someone will come pick him up. That move sort of backfires on Maeve, because instead of waiting in the mall, as he was instructed to by Maeve, Sam finds his way back into her car, thereby leaving her no option but to take him back home. It’s funny that Robbie was planning to do the same thing, but Maeve actually went ahead and did it. Maeve failed, but I think Robbie would have failed to abandon him at a random spot too, because if he was that cruel, he would have shot the kid when he first saw him at the drug den.

The FBI Almost Gets Sam

Ahead of the “family meeting” between Emily, Tom, Sara, and Matt, Emily is seen going to her therapist to talk about how she feels about Ethan’s hearing, and that she is of two minds when it comes to making a statement that may or may not sway the judge’s verdict in his favor. On one hand, Emily feels that prison won’t improve Ethan’s mental health, and on the other, she’s afraid that if he is freed, he’ll do something even more drastic than the act that got him into jail in the first place. On that note, we are taken to the family meeting, which goes disastrously because Sara turns out to be racist. Yes, she is well within her rights to be upset about the fact that her foster sister is thinking about writing a statement that’ll set their foster brother free. However, the way Sara says “Ethan killed my mother” and “Emily is helping her brother” makes it clear that she doesn’t see Ethan and Emily as her siblings. This causes Emily to leave the house and prompts Tom to give Sara an earful about how sorrow is no excuse for bigotry. Tom says that he misses his wife, and he is sad about the fact that Ethan’s mental disorder led to such a fatal mishap. He accepts that he feels lost when it comes to figuring out if he should forgive Ethan. That said, what he tries not to do is use his state of confusion to make things difficult for Emily, who is processing things in her own way. That’s what empathy looks like. Usually people like Sara—who is undeniably hurting—will claim that what they are doing is the truest expression of grief. However, if you are causing pain to everyone around you because you are grieving, that’s not grief; that’s hatred, which you’re expressing under the garb of grief. 

Anyway, at the end of Task episode 2, Tom goes out to get Emily, but is forced to respond to get to the mall, along with the rest of his team, where Sam was “abandoned.” Tom does cross paths with Maeve, but since she has hidden Sam in her car, Tom labels it a prank call—much like all the other “tips” they have been getting about the trio’s robbery case—and moves on. If they would have just searched Maeve’s car, they would have found Sam. Although Tom fails to get Sam, he does manage to locate Emily all curled up in a baseball park and takes her home. As for Maeve and Sam, when they get back home, where Robbie is waiting for them, Maeve tells him that he has doomed the entire family. Well, Robbie has not only doomed his family, but everyone else connected to them. The first casualties of Robbie’s actions are David and Kaylee. When Jayson learns about Kenny Pollard, which is Peaches’s real name, he and his gang go to Kaylee’s house to terrorize David. It’s a dead end because they know nothing about Robbie or Cliff. However, if this is how Jayson is reacting to someone who is tangentially related to the robbers who killed Warren, Derek, and Joanne, and abducted Sam, what is he going to do when he actually gets his hands on Robbie, Cliff, and their respective families? I suppose we’ll find out in the next few episodes.

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