Espionage

Scarecrow and Mrs. King – If Thoughts Could Kill

  • Title: Scarecrow and Mrs. King – If Thoughts Could Kill
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Thursday takes us to 80s Washington, D.C. and the unusual partnership between a housewife and a spy. Mind-control is the subject of “If Looks Could Kill.” When an agent (Herb Mitchell) has a breakdown and begins shooting up the Agency, Lee (Bruce Boxleitner) manages to stop him. Sent to the hospital for both his injured knee and overdue physical, Lee becomes the new subject of a former Agency scientist (Michael Fairman) now working at the hospital responsible for the previous agent’s behavior. Now he has his sights set on Scarecrow.

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The Old Man – IV

  • Title: The Old Man – IV
  • IMDb: link

Nothing goes exactly as planned for Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) in the fourth episode of the series. After arriving in Los Angeles, his business dealings in hopes of putting him in touch with an enemy of his enemy are stymied, Zoe (Amy Brenneman) discovers she has some leverage in the situation after all and makes an outrageous demand, and our super-spy is unable to talk Emily (Alia Shawkat) of getting on a plane with Harold Harper (John Lithgow) for a face-to-face meeting with the boogeyman of our story.

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The Old Man – III

  • Title: The Old Man – III
  • IMDb: link

The biggest piece of the third episode of The Old Man is to confirm the identity of Dan Chase’s (Jeff Bridges) daughter, not only as a living person (and not a hallucination like that of his ex-wife), but also reveal her larger role in the events that are occurring. It’s an interesting choice to make to reveal her identity so early in the series, and I think there was still plenty of mileage to get out of her being more of a nebulous character. That said, her conversation with Zoe (Amy Brenneman), even though it ultimately doesn’t convince her to hit the road with Dan, tells us everything we need to know about the Dan/Zoe relationship.

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The Old Man – II

  • Title: The Old Man – II
  • IMDb: link

Looking for a spot out of the way to rest up and heal, Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) makes an unexpected new friend in Zoe (Amy Brenneman), a beautiful if troubled woman renting out her guest-house to the spy on the run. There are several great scenes of the two of them together including the final scene of the pair in her kitchen which is set up earlier in the episode. Our spy on the run doesn’t tell her much about his life, although he does mention his wife. Now that a real connection between the two has been made, what happens to her when the government comes calling?

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The Old Man – I

  • Title: The Old Man – I
  • IMDb: link

An old adage for stories like these is how much trouble you can get into when you don’t let sleeping dogs lie. The opening episode of The Old Man introduces us to relatively normal looking Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) whose time in hiding has come to an end when an old file is reopened and agents are sent to find and collect the agent of the CIA who disappeared decades before. I’ll give the show credit in casting Bill Heck as a younger version of the character in flashbacks who fits perfectly into what the show needs (at least for this episode). While we see glimpses into the skills Chase had, he isn’t John Wick or Bryan Mills, he struggles with dealing with the far younger agents sent after him.

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