HBO’s ‘Mare of Easttown’ Replacement Will Have a “Completely Different” Cast for Season 2

Lade Omotade is a News and Features Author at Collider, covering everything from casting announcements and streaming trends to behind-the-scenes stories and the cultural impact of today’s biggest film and TV franchises. Since joining the team in 2024, she has written more than 1,000 news stories, with her work also cited by outlets like AOL and IMDb.

It’s been a year since HBO renewed its best new crime thriller for a second season following such an outstanding debut. Originally a limited series, it premiered on September 7, 2025, to critical acclaim, and now holds a near-perfect 96% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. The hit thriller also received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and dominated HBO Max’s charts throughout its Season 1 run.

Set in the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia, the crime series follows an FBI agent leading a task force to stop a string of violent robberies orchestrated by an unsuspecting family man determined to change his family’s fate. In November 2025, the network announced that a second season was on the way and over the past few months, the cast has grown, with several fan-favorite stars also confirmed to return.

Task, starring Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey, will be back for a second season, possibly in 2027, though there’s no premiere date yet. Meanwhile, series star Martha Plimpton recently offered a promising update on the new season’s filming status, via TV Insider. According to Plimpton, Task is now in production in Philadelphia. “I’m here now. I’m here in Philly,” she said. “We’re shooting it now. We’re in the middle of it.” Plimpton plays Kathleen McGinty, FBI Supervisory Senior Resident in Charge and boss to FBI agent Tom Brandis (Ruffalo), and is one of the few returning cast members.

Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours.
Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from
the encounter.

Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you
completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the
conversation is.

• Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He
  never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
• You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve
  is exactly the door he would knock on.
• The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence.
  It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
• He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.

Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is
after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.

• The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence
  against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
• He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool
  you would normally reach for.
• His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend
  the rest of your life proving him wrong.
• He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.

Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work
out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.

• Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from:
  a mind the equal of the hero’s, pointed the wrong way.
• You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he
  has already built the room.
• This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs
  the game to be worth playing.
• It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.

Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that
is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.

• Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the
  answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
• You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no
  interest in how capable you are.
• No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences
  quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
• Call it. He will wait.

Who Stars in ‘Task’ Season 2?

• Image via HBO

• Image via HBO

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• Image via HBO

Image via HBO

Image via HBO

Image via HBO

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Image via HBO

• Image via HBO

• Image via HBO

• Image via HBO

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• Image via HBO

Image via HBO

Image via HBO

Image via HBO

Image via HBO
 

Image via HBO

Created and written by Brad Ingelsby, who also helmed fellow Pennsylvania-set series Mare of Easttown, Task is a 10/10 crime masterpiece with no bad episodes. Season 2 is expected to uphold that excellence, and its newly announced cast additions already offer promising signs. Mahershala Ali was tapped to star in Task Season 2 earlier in March, followed in May by Harry Melling, Adam Nagaitis, and Aminah Nieves. Édgar Ramírez joined the cast the next month, and Julianne Nicholson was later announced to be reprising her Mare of Easttown role, confirming that the two series share a universe.

As for returning cast members from Season 1, Plimpton noted, “other than Mark and Mark’s two children [played by Silvia Dionicio and Andrew Russel], the cast is completely different this year.” She also described the new Task additions as “a whole array of extraordinary actors,” adding that Season 2 “is just so rich and complicated and complex.”

Task streams on HBO Max. Stay tuned to Collider for its Season 2 premiere date.