I know I’m slacking when my dad finishes a show before I do. Both he and I found The Old Man to be an interesting premise with the always entertaining Jeff Bridges, only it took me two and a half years to finally watch the first season.
To be honest, I didn’t know much about the plot, but it seemed dark and mysterious, so I was willing to give it all of its seven episodes. When it first started though, I was a little skeptical when it started bringing in the middle east. Politics are not my thing. And while it was a bit about that, it was mainly about the presumed identities Bridges’ character has had to assume over the last thirty years to keep his family safe. That means he never really spent time with his daughter beyond a certain point in her life, and that also means he was always looking over his shoulder.
We’re treated to plenty of flashbacks to get the whole story of where present-day Dan Chase is at right now. Back thirty years ago he was a CIA operative who found himself in Afghanistan fighting off Russians with a very powerful and influential quasi-leader, Faraz Hamzad. Though we get glimpses of Hamzad at work, he is talked about throughout the series with great fear and he feels like a very ominous presence throughout the whole first season. But I suppose that’s fair since he is likely responsible for the current threats in Chase’s life. Hamzad wants Chase dead, but Chase is more spry than he looks because he takes out many, many men sent after him over the course of these seven episodes.
One of those frenemies happens to be the assistant director of counterintelligence Harold Harper, who back in the day helped Chase with the Afghans and also helped him escape with Hamzad’s wife later on. All of this new activity in Chase’s life would be detrimental to Harper’s own if it gets in the wrong hands, so he tries to handle the matter himself. The only thing is, Harper has been played for a very long time by Chase. It turns out Chase’s daughter, Emily, has been working at the FBI as Harper’s protégé and stand-in daughter for as long as any of them can remember. She is essentially a mole, but she is able to help her father get ahead of the chaos coming his way.
There is a bigger reveal at the end that is kind of crazy, and I am glad I know there is a second season available because I would have been so mad and impatient with that ending! Yes, technically things came to a certain close, but it feels like there is still so much left to get answers for. Apparently FX was confident that they’d give a Jeff Bridges-led show a second season. And lucky for me, that second season just finished airing. I have no clue if we’ll be left with more cliffhangers, but I sincerely hope not. The land of television is still really unstable and I’d hate to have an unfinished story at the end of it all. John Lithgow as Harold Harper is the standout for me here, but the show is expertly crafted. Stay tuned for more!