'This ain't Texas, but it's chainsaw massacre time.' Photos: Handout
Everything is better with (Kevin) Bacon, from arty-cheesy slashers like MaXXXine to Marvel holiday specials and now... even the Apocalypse.
In The Bondsman, a new brisk and brutal action-horror series created by shorts/commercials director Grainger David, the "Six Degrees of..." man plays reprehensible bail bondsman Hub Halloran.
He is such a "selfish @$$h**e", as one character observes late in the season, that we meet him in the first episode just as he is about to get his throat sliced open from ear to ear.
We won't have to settle for a Bacon substitute for the next 7.9 episodes, though – faster than you can say R.I.P.D., Hub is brought back from the dead by no less than (a thus-far-unseen) Lucifer.
Why? Well, because demons have recently started escaping from aitch-ee-double-hockeysticks and Hub's skills as a skip-tracer are needed to send them back (in fact, Hub himself was sent "downstairs" briefly after being murdered).
'You are done! No more diving board. Where you going, pal? Sorry ... I just can't resist quoting Die Hard.'
Sounds simple, but Hub's baggage complicates things. He can't get over ex-wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles, of the country & western duo Sugarland and recently seen in The Exorcist: Believer), who is being wooed by "reformed" criminal Lucky Callahan (Damon Herriman, Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood's Charles Manson), who in turn (not exactly a spoiler) is the one behind his murder.
Plus, there's the big question of why Hub was damned to begin with, something his mother and "business partner" Kitty (Beth Grant, Pushing Daisies, Donnie Darko) wants to know but claims she doesn't.
Each episode of The Bondsman clocks in at just about a half-hour, making this a breeze to binge.
There is a rough "demon of the week" structure, with an underlying pattern to the escapes. These escapees are tough customers, but conveniently dispatched by a means usually reserved for a different breed of screen monster.
So between jobs, we get Hub trying to win Maryanne and their son Cade (Maxwell Jenkins, Lost In Space) back, Lucky trying to finish him off, Kitty bending the law to help her son, and Midge baking pastries.
Wait, who? That would be Midge Kusatsu (Jolene Purdy, neighbour Beverly from WandaVision and another Donnie Darko alumnus), a home baker turned recruiter for supernatural bounty hunters like Hub.
She also gets her little heart-tugging back story, featuring the seemingly ubiquitous Jay Ali (Daredevil S3, NCIS: Hawaii, Magnum P.I., Carnival Row, among many others) in an off-the-wall departure from his usual roles.
They forgot to tell Maryanne that no one is ever safe on Apocalypse Idol.
The Bondsman works because of the terrific dynamic among all its major characters. Bacon gives us a winningly complex lead who consistently fails because of his conviction that he is trying to do the right thing (even when blind drunk and homicidal). It's an interesting counterpoint with his rival/nemesis Lucky, who shares that same drive, although the character grates on the nerves after a while.
Grant is the show's emotional anchor, as a mother willing to go to great lengths to protect her son; though from a moral standpoint, there's a point where her love doesn't extend.
The thread running through most character arcs and situations in the show is that the road to THAT place is paved with good intentions, though there is little time for preachiness.
This shortness of time (half-hour episodes, remember?) is most sorely felt when it comes to the show's assortment of demons, which end up as mostly underdeveloped ciphers.
Sure, the season's Big Bad is a pretty big deal, but before you can say "primordial she-demon", it's cliffhanger time – and one heck of a note on which to end a season.
All eight episodes of The Bondsman Season One are available to stream on Prime Video.
Summary:
Why'd they have to associate endless torment with country music?
