{"id":51058,"date":"2022-06-15T01:14:18","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T01:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/why-jeff-bridges-shines-in-fx-spy-series-the-old-man\/"},"modified":"2022-06-15T01:14:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T01:14:18","slug":"why-jeff-bridges-shines-in-fx-spy-series-the-old-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/why-jeff-bridges-shines-in-fx-spy-series-the-old-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Jeff Bridges shines in FX spy series &#8216;The Old Man&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--columnist inline-module--author\">\n<div class=\"inline-module--author__img\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It&#8217;s a shame that Jeff Bridges waited so long to star in a TV series &#8211; because he&#8217;s terrific in \u201cThe Old Man,\u201d premiering Thursday, June 16 (10 pm) on FX.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Old Man&#8221; unfolds over seven episodes, allowing creators \/ writers Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine adequate time to unwrap a rich, absorbing, densely plotted narrative jam-packed with turns and surprises (the series is based on Thomas Perry&#8217;s bestselling novel ).  That Bridges shot the series amidst life-threatening battles with cancer (Non-Hodgkin&#8217;s lymphoma) and COVID gives his performance an added edge.<\/p>\n<p>Bridges, 72, stars in the multi-layered spy drama aided by an A-list cast including <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AmyBrenneman?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\">Amy Brenneman,<\/a> John Lithgow, Joel Gray and Alia Shawkat.  It&#8217;s the first regular series role in his long acting career, which includes a 2010 Oscar (&#8220;Crazy Heart&#8221;) and dates back to the syndicated series &#8220;Sea Hunt&#8221; (1958-60), starring his late father, Lloyd Bridges (and in which Jeff appeared a handful of times).<\/p>\n<p>As the series opens we meet Dan Chase (Bridges), a creaky, crusty, 70something who lives alone with his two devoted Rottweilers, Dave and Carol, and putters around his house in upstate New York while dealing with the nagging, everyday effects of older age (frequent nighttime trips to the bathroom) and more serious issues &#8211; including a memory that&#8217;s not what it used to be.  He&#8217;s concerned about his cognitive issues of him;  five years earlier, he watched his late wife di lui, Abbey (Hiam Abbass), battle advancing memory loss and dementia as she succumbed to Huntingdon&#8217;s disease, a progressive brain disorder.  He also has a creeping feeling that he&#8217;s being watched, though he assures his grown daughter di lui, Emily, that he&#8217;s just fine\u2026 but he&#8217;s not.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-5.jpg?resize=1024%2C682&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) talks to the local cops after killing an intruder who broke into his house.  He's wearing a bathrobe and an undershirt;  the two policeman have their backs to the camera.\" class=\"wp-image-22650118\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-5.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-5.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-5.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><figcaption>Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) talks to the local cops after killing an intruder who broke into his house.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">photo: Prashant Gupta \/ FX Netwo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That much is clear after he shoots and kills an intruder who breaks into his house (with help from doggies Carol and David), staging the scene and telling the local cops that it was self-defense, and that he&#8217;s going to stay with family members .  \u201cThey found me,\u201d he tells Emily over the phone;  we eventually learn that the break-in was part of a bigger plot, that Dan isn&#8217;t really Dan Chase, but a rogue CIA agent who went off the grid in 1987 and disappeared after killing people on behalf of an Afghani warlord, Faraz Hamzad , following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  His nickname of him there: &#8220;The Beast Who Eats Everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dan&#8217;s past also includes his dealings with Harold Harper (Lithgow), who, in the &#8217;80s, was the CIA&#8217;s chief of station in Islamabad;  he knew of Dan&#8217;s work di lui with Hamzad and was complicit in covering it up.  He&#8217;s now the FBI&#8217;s assistant director of counterintelligence and fears, with good reason, that his knowledge of what went down in Afghanistan will destroy his career of him &#8211; and maybe even claim his life of him as Hamzad seeks his revenge of him.  &#8220;There&#8217;s no limit to the damage he&#8217;ll do or the things he&#8217;ll destroy,&#8221; Harold says of Dan. &#8220;This is not someone to underestimate.&#8221;  Shawkat plays Harold&#8217;s devoted prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Angela Adams, with EJ Bonilla as Waters, the CIA operative tasked with securing Dan &#8211; and who&#8217;s skeptical of Harold&#8217;s intentions by him.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-6.jpg?resize=1024%2C682&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Jeff Bridges and Amy Brenneman as Dan and Zoe.  They're sitting at a restaurant table and looking lovingly at each other.  There's a rose on the table between them\" class=\"wp-image-22650146\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-6.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-6.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-6.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><figcaption>Dan and Zoe (Amy Brenneman), who&#8217;s divorced, go out on a date after Dan rents a small house from her while he&#8217;s on the run. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">photo: Prashant Gupta \/ FX Netwo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dan hits the road and ends up, for now, in rural Pennsylvania, renting a place from Zoe McDonald (Brennaman), a divorced mother of a teenaged son who&#8217;s battling her own demons (and her vindictive ex-husband).  Zoe and Dan strike up a friendship that could grow into more\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Bridges, as mentioned, is solid in the lead role;  he emanates a tangible world-weariness combined with the killer instinct that&#8217;s such a big part of his history di lui while simultaneously (and unashamedly) adjusting to the realities of his ongoing health issues (often with dark humor), colored by his aforementioned real- life maladies.  Lithgow is Lithgow &#8211; he&#8217;s good in whatever he does &#8211; and Shawkat and Bonilla (\u201cBull,\u201d \u201cUnforgettable\u201d) add two strong, believable characters to the mix.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Old Man\u201d will travel down many different roads, with surprises and revelations lurking around every corner.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script>    .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a shame that Jeff Bridges waited so long to star in a TV series &#8211; because he&#8217;s terrific in \u201cThe Old Man,\u201d premiering Thursday, June 16 (10 pm) on FX. &#8220;The Old Man&#8221; unfolds over seven episodes, allowing creators \/ writers Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine adequate time to unwrap a rich, absorbing, &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/why-jeff-bridges-shines-in-fx-spy-series-the-old-man\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Jeff Bridges shines in FX spy series &#8216;The Old Man&#8217;<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10],"tags":[21556,21546,21687,9069,14,14220,12953,13500,21688,20252,21689,939],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-old-man-jeff-bridges-1-1.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}