SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “Vagrants,” Episode 5 of “Task,” now streaming on HBO Max.
Amidst the backdrop of violent robberies of drug houses in Philadelphia, HBO’s “Task” revolves around a group of field agents spearheaded by the FBI who are all on a mission to find a missing child. As Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) inches closer to uncovering who is behind the burglaries, the task force is challenged by Perry Dorazo (Jamie McShane), one of the leaders of the Dark Hearts motorcycle gang, who is also trying to find and kill whoever is responsible for robbing the local trap houses. With the FBI and the Dark Hearts both searching the Delaware County suburbs of Philly, each side finds themselves in a game of cat-and-mouse to find the culprit.
While the Dark Hearts have discovered that the man they’re looking for is Robbie Prendergast (Tom Pelphrey) — an unassuming garbage collector, not only responsible for the deaths of multiple gang members, but for kidnapping Sam (Ben Doherty) — Episode 5 follows Perry as he investigates the Prendergasts’ house for answers. As Perry begins to put together loose ends to uncover Sam’s whereabouts, he questions his own judgment after he murders Eryn (Margarita Levieva) — the wife of Jayson (Sam Keeley), his close confidante and surrogate son — in the lake near the woods, after he discovered Eryn lied to him.
McShane spoke with Variety about staging the shocking drowning sequence, on-set injuries while filming Episode 5, and working on Season 2 of “Wednesday.”
Perry visits the Prendergrast house in Episode 5, where he reunites with Maeve (Emilia Jones) after her father’s death. From Maeve’s perspective, she believes that Perry may have had something to do with her father’s murder, even though she doesn’t know that he was not involved in it. How do you imagine that Perry perceives seeing Maeve after all these years?
Even if she suspects Perry, he had nothing to do with Billy’s death. Perry didn’t even know about her father’s murder, and I don’t think he really gave that much thought when he showed up to the family’s house. He’s just there to see what’s going on, and he’s shocked that she’s such a big kid already. Even though he’s talking to her, he’s also doing his typical thing of trying to find further information to where Sam could be.
Throughout the season, Perry and the rest of the Dark Hearts look down on the task force as they’re trying to find Sam. The FBI has their own way of dealing with crimes in the town, similar to how the Dark Hearts have their own techniques. With these two rival groups, who is better at keeping things clean?
The Dark Hearts have their ways of getting stuff done and finding things out that’s going to be quicker and more effective in a way than the FBI. It depends how you define “clean,” because for legal purposes in the show, the ones who do that are the task force. But if someone needs something or someone to be taken care of, or to prevent something from coming back around, that would be the Dark Hearts.
After Perry kills Eryn, he lingers around her body in utter shock. Even though Perry is the type of leader who can kill anyone with no remorse, in that moment, it almost feels like he regrets killing Eryn — especially because of how much he views Jason as a member of his family.
Perry had no intention of killing Eryn. He tells her that he gave her a clean way out of her situation, and now they have to handle it differently. When he tells her to go, he’s telling her that he’s taking her back to confess to Jayson, who will find his own way to deal with her. When she runs away, he’s trying to get her until he realizes that those kids are up [on the cliff] partying and playing, and Eryn is just screaming bloody murder. He tries to get her to be quiet while he’s looking up at the kids, and he’s just not fully realizing what he’s doing. When it hits him, he’s horrified, but then within that moment, the gangster mentality clicks inside.
What was it like to shoot Eryn’s death sequence, especially since the whole scene takes place in the woods and in the lake?
That was a brutal shoot. As soon as I tried to get up from the water, which is on all sorts of loose rocks, I went down hard, and I snapped a tendon in my finger on the first take, and I couldn’t straighten my right ring finger. They called the medic and they took me to the emergency room, because they had to see if it was broken or not. After every take, I literally had to pull my finger out and hold it. I went to Texas to film “1923” after working on “Task” where I had to shoot guns the whole time, and my finger was still messed up.
On the last take, when Perry is walking away after floating Eryn’s body out, I didn’t want to go back to where I’d fallen, so I went to a deeper area. I forgot that they told me not to go that way, and while the cameras were still rolling, I smashed my left shin on a jagged rock. So by the time I got out of there and got to urgent care, I’m walking in with my pants rolled up and my legs bleeding, and the nurses were like “Oh, you’re here for your leg,” and I told them “No, I’m here for my finger, but you might as well check that out too.”
Earlier this year, you returned to your role as Sheriff Galpin on Netflix’s “Wednesday.” Between that role and your part as Perry, they’re two incredibly different performances that you filmed around the same time. What is that experience like as you were jumping between the two?
I was so fortunate to get both these roles. Working on “Wednesday” was interesting, because we filmed in Romania for Season 1. With Season 2, they filmed in Ireland. Even though I’m not in a lot of scenes, it was enough where they had to fly me back and forth between shooting on “Task.” Luckily, my beard looked the same on both shows. After I was done working on “1923,” I went back to Ireland [to film “Wednesday”].
It was so incredibly fun to be back for Season 2, but I will say that “Task” is the best show I’ve ever done in my career. It was absolutely fantastic to be a part of those two shows.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
