The second season of The Old Man takes too long to get going

It's complicated having three dads, especially when they do everything to get you back. Life has never been easy for The Old Man'Angela Adams/Emily Chase (Alia Shawkat), who became an FBI agent after her father, CIA agent Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges), left her in the care of his former handler Harold Harper (John Lithgow) to go into hiding decades ago. But this season she is shaken by the revelation that she was actually born Parwana Hamzad, daughter of Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban), the Afghan warlord with whom Dan worked during the Soviet-Afghan War before fleeing with his wife. The family drama takes up most of the first half of The old man Season two, which still features some of the series' typical brutal fights, but doesn't offer enough satisfying mysteries.

After being at odds for most of the first season, Dan and Harold team up to rescue Angela/Emily, who has been kidnapped by her biological father, whom she has no memory of. Their scenes involve all the aspects of a classic two-person movie, with Dan again grappling with the harsh reality of being deployed in isolation in Afghanistan and lashing out at his partner for their limited interactions. Harold is particularly concerned 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. Dan complains that Harold thinks he's a dumb thug, and Harold tries to prove he's tough enough for the mission, even if he has to pee more often.

As much as Dan wants to appear to be able to slip seamlessly back into his old role, he also despairs at the prospect of his past crimes coming back to haunt him in the worst possible way. Everyone is overwhelmed, including Hamzad, who has made some very powerful enemies who are looking to capitalize on his moment of personal weakness. The writers are working hard this season to soften his image to better suit Dan, a dangerous man with a lot of blood on his hands who is still capable of love that defies logic and survival instincts.

The series' version of Afghanistan is beautiful and haunting, perhaps best embodied by a cemetery near Hamzad's estate where generations of his family were 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 do a good job of showing the characters' journeys together in Afghanistan, but episodes three and four move too slowly to reveal the intrigues of this season. Season one was driven by the mystery of who Dan was, why he got into so much trouble, and Angela/Emily's complicated role in that story. With that largely resolved, all that remains is the question of who is messing with Hamzad and why, as well as the more intriguing but mostly irrelevant question of what exactly Harold's ex-wife did to make her so dangerous.

The depiction of the relatively quiet life Hamzad was able to provide for the people under his protection compared to the brutal schemes of the Taliban is important in driving home the stakes, but it introduces a few too many new characters in a show that was so efficient and lean last season. Omar (Artur Zai Barrera) does a good job egging on the main characters as Dan and Harold's ambitious local contact, but Pawana's cousin Tarik (Amir Malaklou) comes across as inarticulate. When he talks 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 seem contrived. It's also hard to get nearly as invested in the series when neither Bridges nor Lithgow are onscreen, given how compelling their performances are, with Bridges bringing deep vulnerability to his snarling killer and Lithgow humming with determination despite deep fear.



Things finally move forward as the action moves back to the United States and the fourth main character from season one, Dan's hostage turned girlfriend turned asset Zoe McDonald (Amy Brenneman), comes back into play along with his adorable and sometimes terrifying Rottweilers. Dan and Zoe's relationship stands in stark contrast to that of Harold and his wife Cheryl (Jessica Harper), as Zoe has ventured ever deeper into the world of secrets while Harold has tried, but largely failed, to leave his spy work behind.

The old man's grueling action sequences remain top-notch, relying on the fact that the main characters are mostly old men to remove any slickness and instead emphasize only the brutality and suddenness of the conflict. A knife fight is driven mostly by the element of surprise, while a strangulation attempt becomes an explosion of emotion. The show is never gratuitous, often focusing on a character's reaction to hearing what's happening, rather than the gunfight itself. And a scene in which Dan tortures a hitman just shows him methodically picking out his tools before moving on to the other characters doing their best to ignore the dark reality. A shot of him washing his hands and Harper preparing for the gruesome cleanup job is all that's needed to show what happened and how everyone feels about it.

The fact that series need half a season to get beyond the setup to the core of the plot is unfortunately common in today's television landscape, and hopefully the second half of the The old man will deliver more of the twists and turns that made the first season so exciting. (Only the first five of this season's eight episodes were shown to critics.) But the misstep is especially glaring considering that this season overlaps with the last round of Slow horsesanother thriller about old spies who have to deal with past mistakes, and one that Don't waste a second. Maybe these failed spies can teach The old man a few new tricks.

The old man Season 2 starts on September 12th on FX