Spy-thriller movies and TV series are a dime-a-dozen these days, so filmmakers in the sub-genre have to get creative to stand out. Luckily for writers Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine, a novel called The Old Man, authored by Thomas Perry, was there to be adapted. Following a 70-year old retired spy rather than someone in their prime was indeed, for lack of a better word, a novel approach. Then the producers at FX were able to cast acting legends Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow as the two leads, making the show even more notable. Everything was going well. And after watching its first five episodes, I thought I was experiencing the next great espionage series. Unfortunately, life threw The Old Man a massive curveball during its production, and the storyline struck out because of it. Huh, I don’t know where that baseball metaphor came from…

Jeff Bridges stars as Dan Chase, a recently widowed, retired CIA operative living alone in upstate New York (or maybe it’s Vermont). When an intruder with a suppressed pistol sneaks into his house, he’s forced to defend himself, thrusting the titular old man back into action. CIA agent Raymond Waters (EJ Bonilla) recruits FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, Harold Harper (John Lithgow), to pursue and capture Chase. It turns out that the two men once worked together in the CIA, specifically in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s. Back then, a young Chase (Bill Heck) grew loyal to a mujahideen leader named Faraz Hamzad (Pej Vahdat), but something happened at the time that still has implications on the present. What that is, and what Dan Chase needs to do to get in front of it, makes up the bulk of this show’s main plotline.

The Old Man’s first two episodes, directed by Jon Watts, are masterfully constructed. Patient viewers will appreciate how the show takes its time to establish Chase as a quiet septuagenarian who loves his two Rottweilers almost as much as he loves his daughter, Emily, who he only speaks to on the phone. Bridges is stellar in these beginning scenes, showcasing his ability to be both warm and ornery at the same time. This early acting, combined with savvy screenwriting, means that when the violence kicks into gear, it’s pretty shocking to witness. I mean, for the first twenty minutes or so, I kind of wished this guy was my grandpa. After he started killing… well I still wished he was my grandpa, but yeah, the dude’s scary.*

It’s at this point that the show brings Lithgow’s character into the story. As good as Bridges is, Lithgow might be even better, for the simple reason that his character talks a lot more. Harper isn’t a man of action like Chase; he’s a man of words, a strategist and a thinker. And like Chase, he’s given ample time to demonstrate to the audience who he is as a man. While Harper is seemingly an antagonist, given his objective to bring Chase in, he’s not really written as one. Steinberg and Levine were smart to humanize him early on, showing him to be a caring husband, grandfather, and mentor. His mentee, FBI agent Angela Adams (Alia Shawkat), views him as a father, and all his other subordinates treat him with unwavering respect. Wait, I thought from the trailers that he was the bad guy? At this point in the series, I was unsure of who to root for, which was a pleasant surprise. I was certainly curious to see how this would play out.

With Chase now on the run, he’s forced to go into hiding in Pennsylvania, renting a guest house from divorcee Zoe McDonald (Amy Brenneman). Right away, Bridges and Brenneman exhibit an awkward but believable chemistry. Their characters are both older and single, making their loneliness and sudden connection all the more believable. It was a bold decision to pivot away from tradecraft this early in the proceedings, especially in favor of romance, but I really liked it. Not only were Chase and Zoe amusing together, their conversations helped introduce some of the series’ most thought-provoking themes.

That’s the thing about The Old Man, it’s not really a spy thriller, despite how it was advertised. At its core, the show is more of a drama, and a philosophical one at that. When Zoe discusses her divorce with Chase, she mentions how she’s still not sure if she was the villain in her marriage, even though she was definitely wronged. Eventually, she concludes that whoever’s the villain is a matter of perspective, rather than something set in stone. When she said that, it really made Chase think, and it really made me think. It was at that point that I realized I was watching a series with something to say, so I switched my brain mode from low to high and prepared for more, and oh did I get it.

After those conversations, I began to understand that the nature of good and evil was at the core of this series. And then I started to appreciate why Harper played the part of the villain in one scene, only for Chase to take on that role in the next, in the moments I allowed myself to see him that way. In fact, throughout the season’s seven episodes, there’s never really a cut-and-dry main good guy or bad guy. Instead, there are only individuals seeking opposing goals, and something about that rang true to me. Not only that, it challenged me to consider my own perspective on what’s good and what’s not, and how my viewpoint might differ from someone who, say, lives in the middle of a warzone surrounded by Soviet invaders. If you’re looking for something that’s more mentally stimulating than action-packed, The Old Man might just be your next show, at least for its first five episodes.

If you’re unaware, Jeff Bridges was diagnosed with lymphoma in the middle of production, approximately five episodes into shooting. It was during his cancer treatments that he contracted COVID, which very nearly killed him. So, it goes without saying that the series had to be put on ice until he recovered, and even after that, that he’d still be too weak to complete the original ten-episode order. As a solution, the writers filmed what they could without Bridges, and then rewrote the season so that it ended on episode seven rather than ten. All of this is completely understandable, but man, does it affect the final product.

Well, there’s no point in sugarcoating it: I thought episodes six and seven were terrible. The ruminative, deliberate pacing from the first five episodes disappears in favor of a brisk, less thoughtful approach. And compared to the first five episodes, these two installments are ten minutes shorter, which wouldn’t be a negative if their stories were presented in a fluid, explanatory manner. However, a lot happens in these two episodes that goes unexplained, like how some people know exactly where other people will be at certain moments. Also, it would be an understatement to say that the finale’s ending was anticlimactic. It didn’t really have an ending at all, at least not one with any noticeable form. In the end, the writers weren’t able to effectively condense the story, failing to overcome the hurdle life put in their way.**

Regardless, I still very much enjoyed The Old Man. Jeff Bridges is fantastic in it, and kicking the butt of not one but two illnesses in order to resume this series only serves to boost his legendary status. John Lithgow is equally top-notch, if not better, in a role that requires the actor to flip-flop between good guy and bad guy, all the while exuding decency. The rest of the cast is superb as well; I didn’t even get the chance to talk about the hitmen, who are excellent. Where The Old Man falters is in its storytelling, as it establishes a pace and tone, only to ditch them in its final two episodes. Sure, cancer and COVID messed it all up, but I can only judge what I watch, and what they chose to do just didn’t cut it. FX has already renewed this show for another season, and I can only hope that the writers will fill in some gaps before returning to the story they originally wanted to tell.

If I had to score it, I’d give The Old Man a 7/10.

Notes:

* The primary action set-piece in episode one was my favorite of the series. Watching Jeff Bridges hold his own against a guy half his age was incredibly satisfying, and the actors’ dedication to making it believable was on another level. I loved how tired and vulnerable Bridges’ character got throughout the fight, completely selling that I was watching a man well beyond his prime years.

** The timeline of this series also got screwed up in the last few episodes. At one point, two characters take a train-ride from Tunis to coastal Morocco, a journey that would take multiple days even if it were possible, which it isn’t since the Algerian border is closed. It seems the writers knew this trip would take multiple days because afterward they had a character refer to the time right before said trip as “the other night”, but then an episode later, another character refers to that same day as “yesterday”. This is just one example of many of how this season got sloppy toward its end.