THE OLD MAN S1E3 😊

PREMISE

Forced to flee, Chase finally tells Zoe the truth about his past, but it might be too late.

EPISODE MVP

Alia Shawkat– There are two major revelations in the third episode of this series. Perhaps the biggest one has to deal with the character of Angela, played by Shawkat. A revelation so huge that the focus of every scene involving the CIA pursuing Dan Chase points directly back at Angela and how she’s responding and observing things. There’s a wonderful scene towards the middle of the episode in which she almost blows director Harold’s entire mission simply from her emotional involvement in the proceedings. Shawkat finds a way to have very impactful scenes with every major character in the show in this episode, and it is a welcome change of pace from the Director Harold / Dan Chase tug of war.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

FLASHBACKS- The flashbacks were a major hindrance of the first episode of the show, but I did understand that they were going to become really important as the show went on. The major revelation that comes through these flashbacks may have been easy to predict for some. However, the flashbacks have now become an interesting subplot to the main story even though we do figure out what ends up happening.

E.J. Bonilla– I got to admit, I kind of thought Bonilla was overdoing it the first two episodes. He was a bit too animated, borderlining on overacting honestly. For some reason, there is a much more subdued performance this episode as opposed to before. I can’t explain why. But he didn’t annoy the s*** out of me this episode, and that’s worth noting.

LINE OF THE WEEK

“Literally everyone hates him. You know how a 4-year-old asks a simple question, and you give them an answer, and they ask “why?” And then you answer it, and then it’s “why?”, “why?”,”why?”,”why?”,”why?” Until you’re explaining the nature of reality? That’s him.

-Angela-
(Explaining the personality of Raymond Waters perfectly)

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

THE FIGHT SCENE- I wouldn’t say that this fight scene was poorly done. But the context in which it ends doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Considering the fight scene that ended the first episode of this show, this one is clearly subpar given the build up to it that we had.

There’s really nothing about the fight sequence that looks dynamic. It’s a hundred different fight scenes that you’ve seen on network television, and it’s quick as hell. I can only believe that there’s future altercations for Julian and Chase to have in these upcoming episodes, but maybe it would have been best to save their oncoming SmackDown for then instead of giving us this grocery store sample size right now.

JULIAN IN GENERAL- Julian, the assassin character, is introduced to us through the very opening of the show. And by the end of the episode the way that character is handled it kind of felt like they were going to give him a lengthy backstory but then decided not to. I do appreciate how they hyped his skill set up at the end of the last episode. But maybe it would have been best if they left it at him being this nameless unstoppable force instead of this 5 minutes worth of backstory showing what human side he has.

Showing a backstory of this character deviates from literally every story subplot that have been introduced to us so far. They’re only four more episodes of this show left so I think that’s what he’s going to become. But I think they had this character in mind for something else entirely and quite possibly ran out of time to do so.

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Though I do believe that Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow are strong enough performers to carry all seven of these episodes by their lonesome, it’s good that they don’t have to do that, because as this episode shows, the supporting characters are very strong, and the future flashback sequences may show some bigger revelations than the ones that we had in this episode. Maybe.  

THE OLD MAN IS STREAMING ON HULU NOW. NEW EPISODES EVERY THURSDAY