Emilia Jones as Maeve and Tom Pelphrey as Robbie in HBO's "Task."
Maeve (Emilia Jones) lost her father to the Dark Hearts and looked after Robbie's two kids.
Robbie (Tom Pelphrey) sees death coming in Episode 6 of "Task."
Dark Hearts gang member Jayson (Sam Keeley) and the gang's dangerous leader Perry (Jamie McShane) shoot it out with the FBI, trying to get their drugs back from Robbie (Tom Pelphrey).

Spoiler alert! We're discussing the big death in Episode 6 of "Task." Stop reading and watch the episode on HBO Max, if you don't want to know.

Soulful-eyed Tom Pelphrey has broken our hearts with another devastating TV death in "Task" Episode 6 (streaming now on HBO Max). We've been "Ozark"-ed again.

Pelphrey, 43, earned an Emmy nomination playing good-hearted but troubled Ben Davis in Netflix's crime drama "Ozark," who breaks his sister Wendy's (Laura Linney) heart in Season 3 and is ultimately killed.

In "Task," Pelphrey plays life-beaten Robbie Prendergast, who upends his and niece Maeve's ("CODA" star Emilia Jones) lives with a botched drug money robbery of the Dark Hearts motorcycle gang. Robbie's downward spiral ends in his death from a fatal knife stab delivered from Dark Hearts tough guy Jayson (Sam Keeley).

"I felt the same way about Robbie's death as Ben's in 'Ozark,' it's the purest form of tragedy," Pelphrey tells USA TODAY. "There's a beauty and an innocence to both Ben and Robbie that cynics would call naivete or foolishness. Both deaths feel surprising and inevitable at the same time. There's an innocent optimism that doesn't have a place in this world."

Jones says Pelphrey put life into the complicated "Task" character Robbie, who dies one episode before the series finale.

"Tom gave Robbie a big heart," says Jones. "Robbie could be hot-headed, angry, and make terrible decisions. But he was always looking out for what was best for his family."

Jayson had previously killed Maeve's dad/Robbie's brother Billy (Jack Kesy) – leaving a resentful 21-year-old Maeve, who had hoped to bust out of the deathtrap town, to raise Robbie's kids, Wyatt and Harper.

While "Task" takes place in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Pelphrey says creator Brad Ingelsby ("Mare of Easttown") wrote the story of Maeve and Robbie like a Bruce Springsteen song.

"It's like they're both working hard and this thing ain't working for us," says Pelphrey. "There's a righteous frustration and anger that comes from that."

Of course, this Bruce song gets sadder, like the best ones do.

Robbie Prendergast makes secret plans before his imminent death on 'Task'

Robbie's death seems foretold in Episode 5 after his desperate kidnapping of FBI agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo), the head of a task force looking into the drug robberies and resulting deaths. Robbie tellingly asks his hostage, a former priest, whether dying people were scared during last rites (sadly, they were). Still, Robbie continues to a wooded rendezvous point, purportedly to give a duffel bag of drugs back to the Dark Hearts.

The doomed Robbie lets Brandis free in the woods, and tosses the precious duffel bag over a cliff into a raging river.

Robbie and Jayson have a furious battle, but Jayson sticks the fatal knife stab before fleeing. Brandis watches Robbie die while speeding to the emergency room. However, unknown to viewers, Robbie has made other secret plans to help his family and punish the Dark Hearts after his death.

Off-screen, Robbie had trusted Shelley Driscoll (Mickey Sumner) to sell the drugs and give the money to Maeve and his kids.

"Everything Robbie did was to provide for and protect his family and kids. That was my constant North Star with this character," says Pelphrey. "Robbie realized where this was all going, long before the audience does. His (sacrificial) actions are the fulfillment of what I felt was alive in Robbie from the beginning. It would have been a disappointment to end this any other way."

After searching the river waters for many nights, the Dark Hearts track down the drug duffel bag, only to find it full of magazines. Meanwhile, grieving Maeve answers her door to find Shelley, who passes her a bag stuffed with cash from the drug sale. Robbie's leap of faith was well-placed.

Maeve, who used to run with the Dark Hearts, deals with the dual emotions of the dark windfall. There's the instant appreciation of her uncle Robbie, but she also knows the Dark Hearts won't stop looking.

"She knows this money isn't just happy days ahead!" says Jones. "She knows that people are going to be after it. She knows what's coming."

Quarry and no quarrels: Robbie's final moments are heavenly

The final shot of Robbie shows him happily floating in the quarry that the family enjoyed in Episode 4, one of the few family scenes of unfettered joy.

Shooting the enclosed quarry scenes was like being in a "secret garden, a magical place outside of space and time," says Pelphrey. "The quarry becomes a character, a metaphor for a state of being."

Robbie, who had fretted over people's dying moments before his death, found peace, if not heaven, after his death. There is a happy ending in Robbie's blissful face while floating in the water.

"It's like his state of being is heaven," says Pelphrey.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Task' stars Tom Pelphrey, Emilia Jones break down 'tragedy' of that Episode 6 death

Reporting by Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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