SERIES REVIEW – Despite feeling like an adaptation straight out of a graphic novel, The Bondsman is actually an original Blumhouse creation streaming on Prime Video. Kevin Bacon stars as Hub Halloran, a grizzled bounty hunter whose career takes a macabre turn after he’s brutally killed and inexplicably resurrected. Instead of chasing down bail jumpers, he’s now employed by the Devil himself to track down demonic fugitives on the loose.

Hub’s new profession immediately cranks up the gore factor, introducing a quirky assortment of characters along the way. Among them is Lucky (Damon Herriman), Hub’s irritatingly smug rival who happens to be his ex-wife’s current flame, complete with an embarrassingly exaggerated Boston accent. Then there’s Hub’s unconventional new boss, Midge (Jolene Purdy), who moonlights as a soul collector for Hell while running her cozy home bakery. This twisted blend of grotesque humor and dark fantasy evokes shades of AMC’s Preacher, itself an adaptation of Garth Ennis’ beloved ’90s comic. Though The Bondsman creators Grainger David and Erik Oleson (Daredevil, The Man in the High Castle) have crafted an original narrative, their influences are unmistakably rooted in comic-book storytelling.

A Dead Hunter Walking: Bloody Humor with an Identity Crisis

Initially, The Bondsman embraces the delicious absurdity of Hub’s resurrection and career shift. After setting the stage across the first few episodes, the series quickly adopts a “monster-of-the-week” formula, where Hub hunts down everyone from possessed priests to satanic cheerleaders. The show finds its sweet spot whenever it fully commits to morbid comedic moments—such as Hub casually lighting a cigarette from his still-open throat wound shortly after waking up entombed in concrete, courtesy of Lucky’s goons.

Unfortunately, with only eight half-hour episodes to tell its story, The Bondsman races through setup to payoff without giving viewers enough time to comfortably immerse themselves in its delightfully twisted world. Hub, a second-generation bondsman living with his cynical mother, Kitty (Beth Grant), quickly ropes her into his supernatural misadventures. Kitty’s casual acceptance of her son’s resurrection provides a genuinely funny dynamic as they team up to reel in hellish escapees. But the series soon widens its circle of confidantes, diluting its appeal with bland side plots—particularly Hub’s lingering attachment to ex-wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles, The Righteous Gemstones). A half-hearted subplot involving their shared musical past feels awkwardly shoehorned, and Maryanne remains disappointingly shallow as a character, never evolving beyond a symbol of Hub’s nostalgic regret.

Generic Demons and Pixelated Nightmares

While Hub’s new gig gives the series its title, The Bondsman tries just as hard to invest viewers in Hub’s personal struggles—his abandoned artistic dreams, his complicated redemption arc, and the sins that made his soul a bargaining chip for Satan. Unfortunately, this narrative angle saps much of the sharp-tongued humor that made the early episodes enjoyable. Nearly every episode title references a specific demon, yet these creatures seldom rise to memorable Buffy-style villains, instead coming off as bland, CGI-heavy caricatures. Their human hosts—corrupt cops, teen bullies, and occasionally even children—feel just as thinly sketched, and the show never truly explores the moral ambiguities it hints at.

The lore of The Bondsman is deliberately vague, which wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if the show maintained its breezy and sardonic tone throughout. (Why does Hell send its instructions via fax? Because the Devil is old-school, and it looks suitably creepy in a retro-cool way.) But the narrative stakes escalate too rapidly, transitioning abruptly from simple supernatural fetch quests to cliché “save the world” territory. Bacon’s rugged charisma carries the show initially, perfectly suited to his role as a washed-up, sarcastic antihero, but even he can’t keep this uneven ride from sputtering to a halt. The Bondsman kicks off with plenty of promise, but by the season’s end, Hub’s rusty old truck has definitively run dry.

– Gergely Herpai “BadSector” –