Jensen Ackles’ fans were recently dealt a devastating blow when Prime Video announced it would not be moving forward with another

season of his crime thriller series, Countdown. However, Ackles is due to star in another show that just got an exciting update, one that will

hopefully help ease the blow of Countdown being cancelled. Ackles has been tapped to reprise his role as Soldier Boy in Vought Rising, a

 

 

prequel series to The Boys set during the 1950s during Vought’s rise to power. Ackles will star alongside The Boys Season 2 veteran Aya Cash, who will be reprising her role as Stormfront in the prequel show.

 

 

THROUGHOUT THE SEVEN episodes of HBO’s Task, the show has presented an abundantly clear thesis statement: No situation, and no person, exists in black or white. Even in a crime thriller television show—one with protagonists and antagonists built in—the show has taken the time and care to make sure that all of its characters feel like real people, with real motivations, and real emotions, all of whom

 

 

exist not in the lightness or darkness but in the shades of gray that exist in the middle. Sometimes we see that exemplified in our two protagonists, Tom (Mark Ruffalo) and Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), who live on two sides of the same coin and are just trying to care for the people that matter to them with the hand they’re dealt.

 

 

 

Other times, that’s our supporting characters, where even villains like Perry (Jamie McShane) or Jayson (Sam Keeley) or heroes like Lizzie (Alison Oliver) or Aleah (Thuso Mbedu) are given real, demonstrated reasons to do what they do and act the way they do.

But perhaps the most nuanced and interesting character in all of Task is Anthony Grasso, played by Fabien Frankel. Grasso is given the most substantial arc of any character in Task, first introduced as a loyal member of Tom’s task force, then shown to be a charming, charismatic guy, one capable of a fling that could evolve into romance with the recently-divorced Stover. It’s a charming relationship between a pair of charming characters—and one we were particularly moved by while watching.

But the other shoe soon dropped: Grasso is an informant for the Dark Hearts, revealing confidential information in exchange for a payout. And his behavior eventually gets Lizzie killed during the big shootout sequence in episode 6. Grasso is torn up and guilt ridden, and rightfully so. As Grasso crawls little by little toward redemption in Task’s episode 7 finale, we see him wracking with guilt as he moves through his own life, including a super lived-in relationship with his sister, Frankie (Lilli Kay) and her sons.