Emilia Jones on Maeve and Jayson’s Fight, Keeping the Money

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “A Still Small Voice,” the series finale of “Task,” now streaming on HBO Max.

Throughout HBO’s “Task,” Maeve Prendergrast (Emilia Jones) is the audience’s eyes, after she discovers that her uncle, Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), is involved in a cat-and-mouse chase with both the FBI and a violent motorcycle gang called the Dark Hearts after killing two of the group’s members, and then kidnapping their son Sam (Ben Doherty) in the wake of their deaths. It’s Maeve who has to watch over Sam, knowing that at any given point, either the Dark Hearts or the FBI might find Robbie.

After Robbie dies in Episode 6, Maeve finds herself at a standstill in processing the loss of her uncle, while also simultaneously figuring out how to survive with her niece and nephew after Robbie’s death. In the final moments of the penultimate episode, Maeve receives the bag of money that Robbie had been trying to hide before his death, giving her the opportunity to make a new life if she is able to get away from the Dark Hearts.

With the realization that the Dark Hearts are coming to find her, it’s down to the wire for Maeve and the rest of the Prendergrast family to hide the money, and get as far away from them as possible before it’s too late.

Jones spoke with Variety about Maeve and Robbie’s family dynamic, how Robbie’s death affects Maeve throughout the series finale and staging the final fight scene with Jayson, the Dark Heart final boss (Sam Keeley).

Robbie dies in Episode 6, and in the episode’s final moments, Maeve is given the bag of Robbie’s money at her doorstep. She realizes she’s the only person who knows the whereabouts of what the Dark Hearts are looking for, and leading into Episode 7, it’s a lot that she’s grappling with.

Maeve has always been so clever, so the minute she has the bag of money in her hand, she’s like, “Who’s going to want this?” She knows that people are going to come after her and the kids. But, at the same time, she’s just happy that Robbie’s plan worked out. It’s a moment of very mixed emotions for her.

How does Robbie’s sacrifice change the way Maeve feels about him?

For a long time, Maeve was torn between feeling resentment towards Robbie and feeling so much love towards him. She’s had to pick up the pieces and be the strong adult figure in the relationship. When you first meet Maeve, she’s just so tired of picking up the pieces and cleaning up the mess that Robbie makes. At the end of the show, when Maeve realizes that Robbie sacrificed himself with this plan, and it worked out [because] he wouldn’t stop until it was successful, she has a lot of respect for him and she just knows that no matter whatever Robbie did, he was always thinking of other people. Even when he’s being questioned by Tom [Mark Ruffalo], Robbie’s like, “Please keep Maeve out of it.”

Robbie really does have a heart of gold, and I think that’s what Brad [Ingelsby] does so well with the moral ambiguity. The bad guys can have good hearts and the good guys can have bad hearts. The scene with Grasso [Fabien Frankel] when he gives her the warning is a really good moment for his character, because it shows you that for all of his flaws, he’s learned from his mistakes. Same with Tom, and how he lets Maeve keep the money at the end.

There’s a scene in the first episode where Robbie and Maeve are talking on the porch, and we get more insight as to their family dynamic after her father’s death. There’s generational trauma that has been deep inside Robbie, and now Maeve. So how does her family’s past affect the decisions she makes throughout the season?

She hasn’t had the time or space to really mourn the loss of her father, and she’s been pushing it deeper and deeper inside of her and blocking it out. The scene on the porch that you mentioned is a really important scene for Maeve, because it’s the first time that she really says what she’s feeling. No matter what you throw at Maeve, she takes it, because she’s tough. It’s the first time for Robbie when he realizes that there’s this 21-year-old girl standing in front of him asking for help after she lost her father. That’s why Robbie’s death is so hard for her to deal with, because Jayson killed her dad and her uncle.

The finale has a final showdown at the Prendergrast house, where Jayson has discovered that Maeve has the bag of money hidden somewhere. What was it like staging that final scene with Sam Keeley and the rest of the cast?

It was exciting! I was crossing over with characters that I hadn’t really fully crossed over with before. We were all aware that it was the climax of the show, and there was immense pressure for us because we wanted to make sure that we could do it the best that we could. We did all of our own stunts, and it was so much fun and challenging because I was using my body in ways I’d never used it before. Sam is such an intense actor and throws himself in. It was really great to bounce off of. The scene after we’re in the chicken coop and Maeve gets away and Jayson grabs her back, I was really trying to run away, and he was really trying to grab me, and we just kept going on filming because the team wanted to let the scene play out for as long as possible.

There’s a scene where Maeve is looking at the money in the finale, where she says that Robbie would have wanted the family to have it so that they could have a better life. At the very end of the episode, Maeve and the kids have moved out of the house and are on their way to a new destination. What do you like to imagine that Maeve’s “better life” would be?

I hope that she can build a nice, comfortable environment for her and the kids, and give them the life that they deserve after such a hard start. I also really hope that she can kind of do things for herself for once, since she’s so young and her whole kind of younger years have been shouldering so much adult responsibility. I hope that with Robbie’s help and the money, she can really start to think about herself and put herself and the kids first, and they can have a really comfortable life where she doesn’t have to worry.

This is your first time working with Brad Ingelsby, so if you could return back to work with him on a future project, what genre would you like to see him explore next?

I would do anything for Brad. His writing is so authentic and nuanced, and he’s just so lovely. “Task” is a crime show, but with love, loss, family and forgiveness, and all of these relatable and intense themes, but, with a whole lot of action, so it’s a little bit for everyone. Every character has such a layered backstory, and if any Brad Ingelsby project was to come to me again, I would absolutely jump at the chance to work with him again.

I also learned that while you were filming “Task” in Philadelphia, you saw Olivia Rodrigo in concert with Fabien Frankel and some of the crew during your downtime. 

Oh my god, we did! You know what’s sad? Mark arranged the whole concert and got everyone the tickets, and he created a group chat and was like “Guys, we’re gonna go meet her after,” and then he had to work! Mark had to go film for “Task,” so everyone else got to go to Olivia Rodrigo after he had literally organized the whole thing! Fabien and I got all of the merchandise, and he had the purple sunglasses with the Olivia Rodrigo tour T-shirt. He’s such an Olivia fan, and he was singing all the words to “Vampire.”

“Task” is quite dark in places, so it was just so nice to go to an Olivia Rodrigo concert on the weekend and switch off for a second during filming. It was such a great experience.

This interview has been edited and condensed.