HBO has expanded the Season 2 cast of Task, adding Rose Rollins as a new series regular and Carol Santiago in a recurring role. Rollins will play Evie Barners, the deeply devoted wife of Eddie Barnes, while Santiago will portray Ana Salazar, an expectant mother and a friend to Maria.
The additions land as viewers look for the next turn in Brad Ingelsby’s crime drama, which is set in the working-class suburbs outside of Philadelphia and returns to the world that made Task one of HBO’s more closely watched series. Ingelsby, who created the show from an original idea after working on Mare of Easttown, is back as writer, showrunner and executive producer, with Paul Lee and Mark Roybal executive producing for wiip.
Rollins and Santiago join a cast that already includes Mahershala Ali, Julianne Nicholson, Harry Melling, Adam Nagaitis, Aminah Nieves, Edgar Ramírez, Martha Plimpton, Silvia Dionicio, Tim Blake Nelson, Jharrel Jerome, Brían F. O’Byrne, Bethlehem Million, Kevin Dunn, Andrew Russel, Alaíde, Rocío Guzmán, Regina Nava and Stephanie Sigman. In Season 1, Tom Brandis formed a task force to track down a crew of masked robbers in the Philadelphia area, a pursuit that seemed straightforward until the robbers were revealed to be led by a working-class family man.
That shape-shifting setup is what gives Season 2 its edge. Tom Brandis takes the helm of a new task force, but the deeper the operation goes, the less clear it becomes who is actually being hunted. That is a sharper kind of crime story than a simple manhunt, and it is the sort of turn Ingelsby has used before to keep a case from becoming a routine task.
What remains unconfirmed is the one detail many viewers are watching for: when Season 2 will premiere. For now, HBO has put new names on the board and left the release date off it, which means the cast expansion is the clearest sign yet that Task is moving ahead, even if the finish line is still out of frame.
