HBO will have its hands full this 2026 awards season as Mark Ruffalo's critically acclaimed new series Task will return for a second season. HBO confirmed the highly anticipated news during a press presentation. Set in the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia, four-time Oscar nominee Mark plays an FBI agent who is given the challenge of heading up a Task Force to put an end to a string of violent robberies led by an unsuspecting family man.
Task premiered on September 7, and it's been such a success that it would be silly for HBO not to place its focus on the series for the 2026 awards season, especially for Mark and Tom Pelphrey, who have both been praised for their dedication to the project, and would make strong contenders for Lead and Supporting Actor nominations in the Emmys' Drama Series categories."
Mark will return for the second season of the show, which also starred Tom, Emilia Jones, and Martha Plimpton, and has become one of the network's fastest-growing debut seasons.
"We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have HBO's unwavering support of Task from the very first script onwards, throughout production, and during their extraordinary launch of our first season to audiences. They are an unmatched creative home. On behalf of the entire Task team, in front of and behind the camera, I am honored and excited to get back to work on a second season of our show," said Brad Ingelsby, the creator and showrunner.
"While some relentlessly grim series can be too depressing to enjoy, Task keeps its story fast-paced, and its characters complicated and redeeming enough to avoid that pitfall," wrote USA Today for its review, while British magazine Empire praised "Task’s compelling characters, patient writing and undercurrent of emotion".
Brad is also the brains behind the Emmy-winning series Mare of Easttown with Kate Winslet. The Academy Award-winning actor, famed for her roles in films such as Titanic and The Holiday, made the switch to TV to play Mare Sheehan, a detective in a small town who begins to investigate a murder – all the while attempting to keep her family and life around her together in one piece.
Task is not a sequel to Mare of Easttown, although viewers have noticed a similar tone between the two shows.
HBO has also renewed two new comedy series for second seasons, The Chair Company, from Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, and Rachel Sennott's Gen Z love letter to Los Angeles, I Love LA, which stars Rachel and Josh Hutcherson as well as comedy favorite Jordan Firstman, plus Odessa A'zion and True Whitaker.
The divisive comedy follows a tight-knit friend group getting together after years apart, subsequently navigating the complexities of ambition, relationships, and how time changes us all.
The streamer has also confirmed a fourth season for Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon, and in a surprising move, a renewal for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which doesn't premiere its first season until January 18, 2026.
Based on George R.R. Martin's Dunk and Egg novellas, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows the adventures of the naive but courageous Ser Duncan the Tall, and his squire, Egg, unlikely heroes who live a century before the events of Game of Thrones.
House of the Dragon, set 200 years before the original series and about the Targaryen family's civil war, returns for its third season in summer 2026. Season four will debut in 2028.