The Old Man season 2 takes too long to get going

It’s complicated having three dads, particularly when they’ll do anything to get you back. Life was never easy for The Old Man’s Angela Adams/Emily Chase (Alia Shawkat), who became an FBI agent after her CIA agent dad Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) put her in the custody of his former handler Harold Harper (John Lithgow) to go into hiding decades ago. But this season sees her reeling from the revelation that she was actually born Parwana Hamzad, daughter of Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban), the Afghan warlord Dan worked with during the Soviet–Afghan War before absconding with his wife. The family drama takes up most of the first half of The Old Man season two, which still delivers some of the show’s signature brutal fights but not enough satisfying mystery.

After spending most of season one at odds, Dan and Harold team up to try to rescue Angela/Emily, who’s been kidnapped by the biological father she doesn’t remember. Their scenes incorporate all the aspects of a classic two-hander, with Dan settling back into the harsh realities of operating off the grid in Afghanistan and sniping at his partner for the limits of his contacts. Harold primarily frets about how little he actually knows about his surrogate daughter and how she might process the trauma of her experience. Each wants the other to see them differently, with Dan complaining that Harold views him as a dumb thug and Harold trying to prove he’s tough enough for the mission, even if he does require more frequent pee breaks.

As much as Dan wants to appear to be able to seamlessly slip back into his old role, he’s also despairing about his past crimes coming back to hurt him in the worst way possible. Everyone is in over their heads, including Hamzad, who has made some very powerful enemies looking to capitalize on his moment of personal weakness. The writers take great care this season to soften his image to be more in line with Dan, a dangerous man with plenty of blood on his hands who is still capable of love that overrides all logic and survival instincts.

The show’s version of Afghanistan is beautiful and haunting, perhaps best embodied by a cemetery near Hamzad’s compound where generations of his family have been buried after dying in the numerous wars of conquest that have scarred the country. While Hamzad and Parwana are overwhelmed by the complex emotions of their reunion, Hamzad’s sister Khadija (Jacqueline Antaramian) tries to navigate the personal and political fallout with quiet strength.

The first two episodes work well to show the converging journeys that the characters are taking in Afghanistan, but episodes three and four move too slowly to unfurl this season’s intrigue. Season one was driven by the mystery of who Dan was, why he found himself in so much trouble, and Angela/Emily’s complicated role in that story. With that largely established, all that’s left is who’s messing with Hamzad and why, as well as the more intriguing but mostly sidelined question of what exactly Harold’s ex-wife did that makes her so dangerous.

Portraying the relatively tranquil life Hamzad has been able to grant the people under his protection compared to the brutal scheming of the Taliban is important to laying out the stakes, but there are a few too many new characters introduced in a show that was so efficiently lean last season. Omar (Artur Zai Barrera) does good work goading the main characters as Dan and Harold’s ambitious local contact, but Pawana’s cousin Tarik (Amir Malaklou) feels indistinct. When talking about his experiences in America, he speaks in the same oddly theatrical cadence Shawkwat uses, which is presumably meant to show their similarity but just makes the scene feel artificial. It’s also hard to be nearly as engaged with the series when neither Bridges nor Lithgow are on-screen given how engrossing their performances are, with Bridges seeding deep vulnerability in his growling killer and Lithgow humming with determination under deep anxiety.

Things finally move along once the action shifts back to the United States and the fourth main character of season one, Dan’s hostage-turned-girlfriend-turned-asset Zoe McDonald (Amy Brenneman) comes back into play along with his adorable and occasionally terrifying Rottweilers. Dan and Zoe’s relationship provides a stark contrast with that of Harold and his wife Cheryl (Jessica Harper), as Zoe has pushed herself further into the world of secrets while Harold has tried and largely failed to leave his espionage work at the door.

The Old Man’s grueling action sequences remain top-notch, leaning into the fact that its main characters are mostly old men to remove any slickness and instead just emphasize the brutality and suddenness of conflict. A knife fight is mostly determined by the element of surprise while an attempted strangulation turns into an explosion of emotions. The show is never gratuitous, often focusing on a character’s reaction as they hear what is happening rather than on the shooting itself. And a scene where Dan tortures a killer for hire just shows him methodically picking his tools before transitioning to how the other characters try their best to ignore the dark reality. A shot of him washing his hands and Harper preparing for the grim work of cleanup is all that’s necessary to establish what has happened and how everyone feels about it.

Shows taking half a season to move past buildup and get to the meat of their plot is unfortunately common in today’s TV landscape, and hopefully the back half of The Old Man will deliver more of the twists that made season one so compelling. (Only the first five of this batch’s eight episodes were screened for critics.) But the misstep is especially striking considering this season overlaps with the latest round of Slow Horses, another thriller about old spies dealing with past mistakes and one that never wastes a second. Maybe those failed spies can teach The Old Man some new tricks.  

The Old Man season 2 premieres September 12 on FX