This story contains major spoilers for the season finale of Task, “A Still, Small Voice.”

Task‘s Jamie McShane, a peak “Hey, It’s That Guy” actor that you’ve no doubt seen on everything from Bloodline to Sons of Anarchy to Wednesday, got a well-earned moment in the spotlight this season as one of the biker heavies on HBO’s acclaimed crime drama. The series, created by Brad Inglesby and starring Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey as cop and robber respectively, quickly established itself as one of 2025’s best TV shows—a heartfelt meditation on grief and faith that also delivered one of the longest and most intense shootouts we’ve seen on the small screen in a while.

McShane’s Perry, a high-ranking figure in the show’s fictional Dark Hearts bike club, has been a looming threat for both co-protagonists, working to figure out who’s been robbing the club and exact vengeance before the police intervene, mostly because Perry’s protege and Delco chapter leader Jayson is on the hook for making the club look vulnerable. Task wrapped up its seven-episode run tonight with an appropriately bloody finale; McShane hopped on the phone with us to talk through Perry’s big moments in the episode and the season, stepping back into the biker world after Sons of Anarchy, and biting Mark Ruffalo.

GQ: I loved that Perry’s very last character beat is trying to warn and protect Jayson with his last breath, even as Jayson’s killing him.

Jamie McShane: That’s all Brad. When we were on set discussing it, Brad was like, “Even in his last moment, he’s trying to save Jayson.” When he was really tasked by the club to take Jayson out and he couldn’t do it, it’s like his kid.

I don’t know if you’re the type of actor to fill in a character’s backstory, but I’ve been wondering all season about the real nature of Perry and Jayson’s relationship. Perry puts his whole life and reputation on the line for Jayson. A lot of it’s implied, but I just wondered what their backstory was that made it such a strong bond.

Well, some of it was from me dreaming up the backstory. A lot of it was from Brad and what he said about where this relationship developed and how it developed. And then a lot of it was Sam Keeley and I, who plays Jayson. We just spent a lot of time together when we both arrived down in Philly, we spent so much time together and it really played into our characters. He’s a great, great guy, I really love him. And that came out in our relationship both ways for us so I thought that was pretty amazing.

What were some of the things that you, Brad, and Sam came up with that maybe wasn’t so explicit in the text of the show?

Well, I met Sam on a Zoom with Brad and everyone, and Brad was like, “Hey, when you get to Philly, if maybe you could hang out, get a coffee once or twice, that’d be great.”

Sam and I, we get down there, day one, we hit it off and we are just spending hours together hanging out. We’re going to different pubs, we’re playing pool. He had this idea to go shoot archery together at this little place in Philly. There was just a lot of hanging out and really discussing each other’s lives, our personal lives in real life, and then figuring out what was with the characters. And then by the time we got the set, it was pretty evident how close we had become.

Which then sets up that perfect twist of the knife with that being how Perry goes out.

Yeah, figuratively and literally. It is so brutal because when Perry killed Eryn, he didn’t mean to. He just wanted her to go back and face Jayson and fess up to what she’s been doing, and [Jayson] would deal with her. And then it’s that moment when Perry realizes that, “Oh my God, this is what I’ve done.” And then he’s just trying to figure out, how is this going to play out with Jayson? She’ll be missing, et cetera. And then when he finds out, it is just brutal, and how Sam played that was incredible.

There’s so much mythology amongst these characters, especially the Dark Hearts. There are a lot of scenes where the conversations carry the weight of the characters’ history together. Perry was a big part of that—even just saying, “Crazy Robbie,” the way you did that line reading carries so much implication with it.

That’s really, honestly, all Brad’s writing, and we get to put our spin on it. It’s just phenomenal stuff and what a privilege it was for all of us to get to work on it.

This show this is a little bit more layered than having good and bad guys per se, but to the degree that it does, you are one of the bad guys, but there was always a haunted quality I think that you were bringing to it, and a lot of regret, like you said, for example, when Perry kills Eryn.

Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. It was just an amazing character to get to develop. Brad was on set every day, so we would tweak things and then really all the development with Sam, it was just a dream come true as an actor.

I know these kinds of coincidences happen all the time, but I did think it was funny that you’re playing one of the heads of a biker gang here after having such a prominent part on Sons of Anarchy.

Except on Sons, I wasn’t a biker, I was an Irish gun runner. But yeah, there have been some parallels to it, definitely.

I mean you’re the guy who stole Jax’s baby, so you’ll always be prominent in Sons history!

[laughs] Yeah, I’m the guy that stole the baby!

I also wasn’t expecting a full-on fistfight between you and Mark Ruffalo.

Oh, that was great. Ruffalo is wonderful to work with, man. We rehearsed that for a long time, and Mark’s actually in real life, a very good wrestler. And then he did that movie Foxcatcher where he played the wrestling coach, and they really weighed in for him to do more wrestling stuff, which was better for his character, whereas my character is just a brawler.

And then at one point, as we’re rehearsing it out and we get to the point where he’s going to choke me out, I said, “Hey, can I bite him?”