Task Episode 5 “Vagrants” ends on a heck of a cliffhanger. After weeks of watching Robbie Prendergrast (Tom Pelphrey) and Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) move on parallel tracks, the two men collide, twice, in the HBO series.

**Spoilers for Task Episode 5 “Vagrants,” now streaming on HBO MAX**

Robbie and Tom’s first meeting arrives mid-episode, when the FBI agent arrives at the Prendergrast home looking for Maeve (Emilia Jones) because her prints were found on the bucket that little kidnapped Sam (Ben Doherty) left by a warehouse last week. Maeve’s not home, but her uncle Robbie is, and he quickly sizes up the danger of the situation.

Robbie takes Brandis hostage, forcing him to drive out to the middle of nowhere. During the drive, the two men share a unique conversation about life, love, and loss.

“It’s one of my favorite scenes I’ve ever gotten to play as an actor. It’s so lovely,” Task star Tom Pelphrey told DECIDER, before explaining how much “trust” series creator and showrunner Brad Ingelsby gives his actors.

“What’s really beautiful about it is that the scene that Brad wrote is a very surface-level scene. They’re not talking about any of the important things that they’re actually thinking about. They’re not showing how they’re feeling about the things that are really happening. They’re having this conversation up here,” Pelphrey said, pointing at his head, “even though everything is happening down here.”

“As an actor, that’s heaven. That’s where you want to live.”

It was also episode director Jeremiah Zagar‘s “favorite scene in the whole show.”

“It takes away all the artifice of filmmaking. Like there is no there is no fancy camerawork. It is just two people in a car talking, two close ups, and I think that is the core of cinema, right?” Zagar said. “It’s just two close ups, watching human beings discuss things that we all wish we could talk about in such an intimate way. Two people that would never get a chance to talk otherwise about things that are so emotionally potent.”

“We were in a real car driving on a real highway and it was hot as hell, you know?” Pelphrey said, further breaking down the scene. “Everything was basically as real as it could get. And we were playing the scene in a rearview mirror. You know, I could get [Ruffalo’s] eyes sometimes and he could get mine. Other than that, it was just the sound of the voice and it was beautiful.”

“You know what it’s like?” Zagar said. “It’s like a campfire. You know, like when you sit at a campfire and all of a sudden there’s just a light between you and the person you’re across from and you can talk about things that otherwise you never would be able to talk about.”

Robbie eventually lets Brandis going, leaving the FBI agent in a park where he can easily call for help. However, Brandis and his task force don’t let up. They follow Robbie to a remote hunting lodge where the thief is holed up with a duffle bag full of money, waiting to rendezvous with the Dark Hearts.

The second face-off between Pelphrey and Ruffalo’s characters this week come in the final moments of Task Episode 5. So how does Task Episode 5 end?

Task Episode 5 Ending Explained: Is Robbie Going to Shoot Tom? What is Tom Brandis Yelling at Robbie Prendergrast?

Task Episode 5 ends with all three main groups of storylines about to converge by one woodland stream. Robbie has decamped to an old family hunting cabin to confront the Dark Hearts, the Dark Hearts are closing in on their prey, and Tom Brandis and his task force have arrived to secure the area and bring Robbie in.

In the final moments of this week’s Task, Tom finds Robbie readying himself by a stream. Tom yells Robbie’s name and points a gun at him, unaware that he’s leading the Dark Hearts right to them. Robbie is horrified to see the man there and for a few seconds, Tom’s voice is muffled as panic seemingly kicks in.

“Get on the ground! Do it!” Brandis yells. “Robbie! Get on the ground, Robbie!”

Robbie pulls his own gun out and points it at Tom. “Put the gun down, Robbie!” the agent says back. Robbie! Put the gun down!”

The last thing we hear or see is Tom crying, clearly, “It’s over!”, as the camera closes in on Robbie’s determined expression.

Next week’s Task will pick up exactly where Episode 5 leaves off, which is impressive considering the two episodes were directed by different people. Jeremiah Zagar hands the directorial baton to Salli Richardson-Whitfield for Episode 6, but both directors told DECIDER they worked closely together to make the transition seamless.

“It was easy to trust that we were going to be able to do that, and that Brad [Ingelsby] is there the whole time, unifying the story elements,” Zagar said, revealing that he and Richardson-Whitfield both shot versions of the end of Episode 5 and start of Episode 6. “So they do collide.”

“So that stuff that kind of overlapped,” Richardson-Whitfield said. “It’s very intermingled with some of the stuff that we both did, but it was more like a lot of discussion between the two of us to make sure that we just had the same vision.”

Task Episode 5 Twist: Who is the Mole? Anthony Grasso

Task Episode 5 “Vagrants” reveals that Anthony Grasso (Fabien Frankel) has been a mole working for the Dark Hearts within law enforcement this whole time! Kathleen McGinty’s (Martha Plimpton) ominous phone call last week was a red herring. In fact, Grasso not only stole Ray’s phone and gave it to the Dark Hearts, but colluded with them to set Cliff Browder (Raúl Castillo) up.

So what does it mean that Grasso is embedded within the task force as it’s heading towards a fight with the Dark Hearts? Nothing good.