FX's The Old Man

Cafe Society
1

Have been watching FX’s The Old Man on Hulu. It stars Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, and Alia Shawkat (Maebe Funke from Arrested Development). Acting is great with this cast. Season 2 was just released a month or so ago.

Bridges plays a former CIA agent who 30 years earlier sided with Afghan rebels during the Soviet/Afghan war against his superiors orders. At some point he went into hiding, but the chickens have come home to roost and he is trying to stay one step ahead of the CIA and the FBI as they seek to bring him in.

Highly recommend. I’m currently near the end of Season 1.

2

I thoroughly enjoyed S1. I’ve found S2 slow.

3

There are a small number of posts about it in the “Series you have recently watched…” thread. I’ve watched it since the beginning and liked it well enough. Alia Shawkat deserves to be a bigger star than she is.

4

Agree. S2 has been a slog. Have the writers changed? Those monologues are tedious. They were renewed for a third season and I’m just invested enough to keep watching

5

I’m a fan of the author, Thomas Perry. And I read the book. Season 1 more or less followed the book’s plot. Season 2 does not. I watched episode 1 of season 2 and said forget it. By the way, I would heartily recommend both this book and any others by Perry.

6

One thing’s for sure: Chase has to be one of the most (if not the most) badass characters that Jeff Bridges has ever portrayed.

7

Very slow. And the monon daughter “I will just stay here to get killed or captured & raped by the bad guys, because a little boy held my hand”! :roll_eyes:

And why does Bridges talk like he is chewing tobacco?

8

Okay, season’s over now and much more makes sense. Nice to see Angela/Emily embracing her own personality and coming into her own as a power player. You do get a sense of “every time I try to get out, they PULL me back in” vibe from Chase though.

This is a great show and I’m really enjoying it. I really hope it gets renewed (it hasn’t as of today). Supposedly the show runner has called it a three-act play, so it seems like Season 3 would be the last regardless. It’s done really well for Hulu, so I would expect they’ll greenlight it, but everybody is cutting back, so who knows? It would suck to have it end now though.

My personal guess is that Bridges has dentures and they’ve impacted the way he speaks.

9

Overall I liked it, but really it’s questionable in it’s ending. The tiny little village is holding onto the mining area? And the world was gonna look the other way while a Russian cartel slaughtered them and took it over, but everyone’s too chickenshit to make a play for it themselves?