The Old Man is only in its second season, and yet sadly, it’s already past its prime.

Despite beginning strongly, Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine’s FX adaptation of Thomas Perry’s novel began to lose steam toward the end of its initial run, and that deterioration continues at an increased clip during its sophomore outing, which premieres Sept. 12, whose story habitually sidelines its marquee stars Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow in favor of less interesting supporting players and ho-hum conflicts that are a far cry from what the show originally promised. Tangled and turgid, it makes so many miscalculations that it proves a creaky shell of its former self.

Having agreed to team up in order to find their surrogate daughter (Alia Shawkat)—whom one knows as Emily and the other as Angela—former CIA spook Dan Chase (Bridges) and FBI counterintelligence director Harold Harper (Lithgow) sneak into Afghanistan, where the kidnapped Emily (let’s stick with that name for now) has been brought by her biological father Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban).

Decades earlier, Dan and Hamzad’s wife Belour (Leem Lubany) fled Afghanistan with Emily, whose real name was Parwana, and now Faraz wants her back. Turns out, however, that once he has her, he does little more than speak cryptically about his pain and sorrow while refusing to pose the questions that she knows he wants to ask. For her part, Emily is stunned by this revelation about her true roots, and almost instantly forms a deep emotional bond with Faraz and her native........

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