Collider argues that FX’s two-part series The Old Man is a fitting modern companion to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, presenting both as stories about the troubled return home after war. The article says the drama exceeds its apparent action-thriller premise by focusing on loss, displacement and a universal desire for homecoming.

The series follows Dan Chase, played by Jeff Bridges, who lives in hiding in upstate New York after events connected to the Soviet–Afghan War. He has lost his wife to Huntington’s disease and is largely estranged from his daughter; the article compares his isolation to Odysseus being stranded on Calypso’s island, and notes influences from Homer’s epic and Apocalypse Now.