Vagrants (Task)

The morning after Cliff's death, Robbie bursts into Ray's house to confront him for setting up the meeting at which Cliff was attacked by the Dark Hearts. Ray is absent, and Shelley reveals the FBI arrested him two days ago, raising the question of who actually set up the meeting with Cliff. Shelley offers to connect Robbie with someone who can help move the fentanyl, but Robbie is cautious about trusting her.

Perry and Jayson return to Jayson's house after disposing of Cliff's remains. While there, Perry secretly places a tracking device on Eryn’s car. He then visits Maeve, claiming he wants her father Billy's club jacket for an upcoming gathering at which the club's "fallen brothers" will be commemorated. She hides Sam in a shed, and Perry is unaware that Sam is there. Before he leaves, however, Perry notices a photo of Robbie and Cliff in the kitchen.

Robbie meets with Eryn. When she tells him Jayson came home that morning "covered in blood," Robbie realizes Cliff has been killed by the Dark Hearts and is overwhelmed with shock and grief. He leaves her to take the fentanyl to Freddie, who pretends to be interested but secretly alerts Jayson.

Alexander Jovanovic, the pedestrian who was beaten by Robbie, visits the FBI to help their sketch artist create a picture of Robbie. DNA analysis reveals that the bucket Sam left behind at the pond where the altercation between Robbie and Alexander took place belonged to a young woman named Maeve Prendergrast. Tom realizes that Billy Prendergrast, the murdered Dark Hearts member he was told about by Agent Easley, was Maeve's father and that she is somehow connected to the trap house robberies.

Tom passes this information to Grasso. Grasso, however, secretly meets Jayson to get Ray's phone back from him, revealing he is Jayson's informant within the task force and he provided Jayson with the phone so that Jayson could trap and kill Cliff. Grasso tells Jayson Sam is still alive. Jayson discloses that Freddie just called about a meeting Robbie wants in order to resolve the matter of the fentanyl.

Following Eryn by means of the tracking device, Perry sees Robbie driving away from his meeting with her. Perry confronts Eryn at the lake where she and Robbie talked and threatens her for lying to him; when she tries to flee, he accidentally drowns her while trying to prevent her from calling out to some nearby hikers.

Tom drives to Maeve's address to pursue the connection between her and those who kidnapped Sam. He finds Robbie there, pretends that he is working on the "cold case" of Billy's murder, and asks for a sample of Billy's DNA, playing for time because Grasso is on route to the house. Robbie becomes suspicious and holds Tom at gunpoint. He forces Tom to drive them away in his car before Grasso can get there. Both men drop their pretenses and speak frankly about their personal losses. Robbie orders Tom to leave the freeway and stop the car in an isolated patch of woods. Rather than shoot Tom, he begs Tom to do all he can to protect Maeve, then tells him to walk into the woods while he returns to the car and leaves. Maeve takes Sam to the police station and agrees to talk to Kath McGinty, but the interview is interrupted when Aleah and Lizzie report Grasso has called from Maeve's and said Tom's car is there but Tom is missing. Kath and the two task force members head out immediately in search of Tom.

After crossing the woods, Tom arrives at Locust Lake State Park, where he finds a number of families picnicking. He borrows a phone to talk to Emily and Sara, who are both delighted he is safe. He is later picked up by McGinty and the task force, and they drive to the last known location of Robbie's car, a spot near a remote cabin that once belonged to Billy. They arm themselves and walk off to search for Robbie. Robbie arrives at the cabin, unaware that the Dark Hearts, tipped off by Freddie, are coming. As Robbie stands by a nearby lake, deep in thought, Tom confronts him from a distance at gunpoint. He asks Robbie to surrender, but, unwilling to do so, Robbie raises his gun at Tom.

The episode was written by series creator Brad Ingelsby from a story by Ingelsby and David Obzud, and directed by executive producer Jeremiah Zagar. This marked Ingelsby's fifth writing credit, Obzud's second writing credit, and Zagar's third directing credit.^[1]

Ingelsby said that as he considered the real identity of the FBI informant, he picked Grasso "because he's sort of a lapsed Catholic who still wants to believe. He's almost always asking Tom, “Hey, convince me. I've left the church.” Maybe [the church] let him down in a way. That's what I always felt in Grasso—a guy that was striving to believe. But there's such a shame in him."^[2]

On the car conversation between Tom and Robbie, Tom Pelphrey explained, "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."^[3]

Jamie McShane explained that Perry had no intention of killing Eryn, adding "He tells her that he gave her a clean way out of her situation, and now they have to handle it differently. When he tells her to go, he's telling her that he's taking her back to confess to Jayson, who will find his own way to deal with her. When she runs away, he's trying to get her until he realizes that those kids are up [on the cliff] partying and playing, and Eryn is just screaming bloody murder. He tries to get her to be quiet while he's looking up at the kids, and he's just not fully realizing what he's doing. When it hits him, he's horrified, but then within that moment, the gangster mentality clicks inside."^[4]