As sourced by Deadline, Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, House of Cards) is set to join Mark Ruffalo (I Know This Much Is True, The Kids Are All Right) on HBO’s critically acclaimed crime drama Task. The second season will feature Ali as seasoned and well-respected DEA Agent Eddie Barnes who encounters conflict when his team meets Ruffalo’s character’s unit.
mxdwn previously reported on the series’ renewal by the network – Task premiered for 11.2 million viewers and amassed four million first-night viewers for the first season finale, ranking the series as one of HBO’s fastest growing debut seasons ever.
The first season of Task saw Ruffalo as Agent Tom Brandis leading a task force into investigating a string of violent robberies against stash houses. Via Deadline, Ruffalo will make a comeback as Agent Brandis with a new task force and objective in the upcoming season, but the strenuous nature of the situation will begin to blur who exactly their target actually is.
Listed by Deadline, confirmed executive producers include Jeremiah Zagar (We The Animals, Hustle), Ron Schmidt (House of the Dragon, Watchmen), Ruffalo, and Paul Lee (Bodkin, Dickinson) and Mark Roybal (No Country for Old Men. Doubt) for wiip. Creator Brad Ingelsby (Run All Night, Our Friend) returns as EP, showrunner, and writer. Joining as co-EPs are Karen Wacker (Friday Night Lights, Mare of Easttown) and Nicole Jordan-Webber (The Lost Bus, Echo Valley).
While Task may be now set for renewal, it was originally billed as a miniseries by HBO. However, Deadline reported that sources close to the series said the initial plans were for something similar to Mare of Easttown – Ingelsby’s other one season HBO successful crime drama – but Ingelsby and Ruffalo felt that there was still a story to tell with a potential second season arc. In the end, after the first season’s amassed positive numbers and success, both would return well on their way to making the second season a reality already.
(Potential Spoilers Below)
Although, per Deadline, the network and Ingelsby concluded that they would need a replacement for Ruffalo’s season one co-star Tom Pelphrey’s (Guiding Light, Ozark) character after his death in the finale. The praise of their performance together raised expectations and goals for season two, leading them to bring in a familiar face that had assisted in relaunching HBO crime dramas prior. After the first readings and meeting with Ingelsby, Ali was set to join the cast – this time, as a rival on the same side of the law as a foil to the prior Pelphrey’s hard-knocked criminal.
Ali’s credits, via Deadline, include Netflix’s highly successful and critically acclaimed Leave the World Behind (2003) with Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman, After the Hunt), Universal’s highest grossing film of 2025 Jurassic World: Rebirth with Scarlett Johansson (Match Point, Scoop), and the highly anticipated MGM Studios and Amazon thriller Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother; written and directed by Bassam Tariq (These Birds Walk, Mogul Mowgli) and set to debut this fall.
Deadline reports that Ali is repped by CAA and Sloan, Weber and Dern, Offer, and Cognition.