'The Bondsman' Certainly Wishes It Were 'Supernatural' Meets 'Justified'

Kevin Bacon is a journeyman actor with over 110 credits to his name, and he can be connected to just about anyone in the entertainment business. At this stage of his career, he capably plays either a grizzled character actor or a grizzled lead, and while he’ll never top his role in 1998’s Wild Things, he remains a charismatic (and, yes, still grizzled) screen presence at 66 years old, though he doesn’t play a day over 50.

In The Bondsman, Bacon stars as Hub Halloran, a bounty hunter. That premise alone could sustain a Kevin Bacon series for years. But alas, Hub has his throat slashed in the premiere. He returns from the dead to discover he’s now employed by the Devil himself, tasked with tracking down demons who have escaped from Hell.

That setup is serviceable enough: Each week, Hub must find and banish a new demon, typically possessing a resident of a dusty, one-saloon Georgia town (or whichever state Georgia is doubling for this time). A preacher gets possessed, then a cop, then a kid. If The Bondsman had leaned harder into its case-of-the-week format, it might’ve been a perfectly entertaining supernatural procedural.

But naturally, there’s lore — why the demons are escaping, what connects them — and a family subplot that takes up much of the runtime. Hub’s partner in bounty hunting is his mom, Kitty (the always exceptional Beth Grant), who fully supports his demon-hunting gig. He also has emotional baggage in the form of his ex-wife, Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles); their son, Cade (Maxwell Jenkins); and Maryanne’s current partner, Lucky Callahan (Damon Herriman), a career criminal trying to reform for Maryanne and Cade. Unfortunately for him, Hub keeps getting in the way; his murder in the premiere, in fact, is orchestrated by Lucky.

It’s not a bad show, but it lacks the personality and standout supporting performances that elevate other demon-hunting series like Wynonna Earp, Supernatural, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Created by Grainger David, The Bondsman doesn’t even have the low-budget charm of a SyFy original; it’s a little too slick, that Amazon sheen smoothing out the rough edges that might’ve given it more character.

What the show does have going for it is Kevin Bacon himself, who throws everything he’s got into squeezing some fun out of The Bondsman. A couple of country music numbers (Hub and Maryanne were once a duo) hint at a more offbeat, charming show hiding underneath. One almost wishes the series had gone further in that direction, instead of focusing so heavily on the ex-boyfriend (despite Herriman’s reliably solid work). The Bondsman wants to be a demon-hunting Justified, but it doesn’t quite have the goods, or Graham Yost pulling the strings. Still, at just eight half-hour episodes, it’s modestly diverting and a solid paycheck for some very deserving actors.