Samuel L. Jackson has played almost every kind of character during his long career. But 2022’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey gave him a role that audiences rarely get to see him play. The six-episode Apple TV series stars Jackson as the titular Ptolemy Grey, a 91-year-old man whose dementia has left him struggling to remember his life. When his nephew Reggie (Omar Benson Miller) is killed, Ptolemy is left without the person who had been looking after him.
Fortunately, Ptolemy’s situation changes when he’s offered an experimental treatment by Dr. Rubin (Walton Goggins) that can restore his memory. While the medication restores his ability to think clearly, it also gives him a limited amount of time to find Reggie’s killer before his condition becomes worse. The result is a show difficult to describe in a single sentence, which may be why nobody talks about it as much as they should.
The sci-fi twist changes the murder mystery
This is not a typical whodunit
Most murder mysteries give the person doing the detective work an advantage that helps them find the truth. But Ptolemy is not suddenly given a new skill that makes him better at investigating Reggie’s death. Instead, he is given access to information that was already inside his own head. This changes the way Ptolemy approaches the investigation.
He has spent years losing pieces of his own history, so solving Reggie’s murder also means figuring out which parts of his past are actually relevant. Once his memories return, he has to decide what to do with all the new information rather than just using those memories to identify a specific killer. The series also makes Ptolemy’s past part of the broader mystery.
His relationship with his uncle, his marriage, and every experience he has ever had all become relevant once he can access them again. His investigation therefore keeps moving between the murder he wants to solve and the life he’s trying to understand. That gives the story a different kind of urgency because Ptolemy knows that his restored memory is temporary, so he can’t spend months following every lead.
The treatment also gives the series a way to ask what Ptolemy should do with the time he has left. Finding Reggie’s killer is important, but with his memories restored, he can also protect the people who are close to him. That’s what makes the sci-fi element useful. Because without it, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey would still have a murder to investigate, but the story would lose its personal stakes.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Ptolemy at different points in his life
Jackson gets to play a very different kind of character
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey also gave Jackson an opportunity to showcase his acting range. At the beginning of the series, Ptolemy is not the kind of confident, forceful character audiences normally expect to see Jackson play. Due to his dementia affecting his ability to understand what’s happening around him, he’s dependent on other people for even the most basic things.
But Jackson has to make Ptolemy feel like a man who still has a strong personality underneath the confusion, even when he can’t always access it. Once the treatment starts working, Ptolemy remembers more about his life, but the series does not treat his younger self as a completely different character. Instead, Jackson gets to show how the same person has changed over decades.
The BFI‘s review was one of many that talked about how Jackson brilliantly differentiates between Ptolemy’s different stages of life, from the vulnerable older man to the more confident and idealistic versions that emerge with his memories. The twist is that the restored Ptolemy is not without flaws, as his memories include good experiences, painful ones, and decisions he might even regret.
It’s a more complicated performance than simply showing the effects of dementia or playing an older character who becomes younger in spirit. Jackson has to make the different versions of Ptolemy feel connected, even when they behave very differently. That is a massive reason the series works as a showcase for Jackson and why his performance received so much praise.
The real story is Ptolemy and Robyn
The mystery isn’t the only reason to keep watching
Robyn (Dominique Fishback) is introduced after Reggie is killed and eventually becomes Ptolemy’s caregiver. She is much younger than him and has her own problems, so their relationship doesn’t begin as a simple partnership between an experienced detective and a young assistant. She needs somewhere to go, while Ptolemy needs someone he can trust.
Ptolemy also gives Robyn guidance and stability that she hasn’t had in her life. Robyn, meanwhile, gives Ptolemy something that his restored memories can’t – someone who knows who he is now. Eventually, the choices Ptolemy’s makes for Robyn become part of the same question as the investigation, which is: what can he accomplish with the limited time he has?
This dynamic also helps explain why the series has been overlooked. A Samuel L. Jackson mystery sounds straightforward until you realize that the detective is an elderly man with dementia, the clues are buried inside his own memories, and the person helping him solve the case is a teenager who becomes just as important to the story as the murder.