The Old Man Season-Finale Recap: Like Father, Like Daughter
It’s taken two seasons, but the women have finally taken over The Old Man. After “XV,” Harold Harper’s power-hungry ex-wife is holding him hostage, while Dan Chase’s newly moneyed daughter is coercing him into spy servitude. The question is, will we get the female-commanding season three we’ve patiently waited for? (As of this writing, FX has yet to announce a third season of The Old Man.)
“XV” may have been a disordered mess, but The Old Man definitely gave us a cliffhanger worthy of the name: After barely surviving a poisoning at the hands of Russian oligarch Suleyman Pavlovich, Chase must now help his daughter, Emily Chase (yep, she survived!), rescue Harper from Marion’s evil clutches. But there are just a couple of tiny problems with this new mission.
First, Chase technically owes his life to Marion (we’ll get into that). Second, the only way to get to Marion is for Chase to resume a toxic identity he buried long ago. Lastly, while Chase and Emily maintain an unconditional father-daughter love, there’s a new reality both need to confront. In addition to their unresolved issues stemming from, you know, Chase lying to Emily about her biological history, Chase must also accept Emily’s authority. As the person who now controls her family’s priceless mineral deposit, Emily is calling the shots, not him. So let’s unpack how we got here.
Three episodes after Chase, Zoe McDonald, Harper, and Cheryl Harper supposedly bore audio witness to Emily’s assassination; we’re shown the visual representation of what truly happened: Yes, Pavlovich’s armed mercenaries breached the room where Emily was hiding with her Afghan family. Yes, they killed several people, including her paternal aunt, Khadija. Emily initially survives by identifying herself as a Hamzad and using her negotiation training. Emily truly survives, though, because she is Dan Chase’s daughter. Sure, Emily’s counterintelligence and language training helped her earn her captors’ trust. But even she can’t help but foreshadow her violent nature during an exchange with a Russian soldier, mentioning that she’s always been willing to do anything to protect the people she loves.
What “no one ever noticed” was that Baba Ghor-Ghori 2.0 was hiding in plain sight: Just like dear old dad decades earlier, Emily killed a slew of Russian soldiers in cold blood. That’s how she (almost) single-handedly took back control of her family’s village, the Meshbahar deposit, and became one of the most powerful women in the world. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. But there’s still the matter of ensuring Dan Chase’s internal organs haven’t shut down yet, so let’s move over to that storyline.
In Hong Kong, Marion gets word from the enemy nations cartel that an American woman has wrested back control of the Meshbahar deposit from Pavlovich. Harper is relieved that “Angela” is alive, but there’s no time for a dance of joy. Now he needs to persuade Marion to do him one more solid: Tell the Chinese government to turn its back while Julian Carson slips into the cartel meeting site to obtain Chase’s location — and to assassinate Suleyman Pavlovich. She agrees, but Harper has to know this will come at a very steep cost.
So back in England, Zoe and Carson drive toward the cartel meeting site at a swanky cliffside resort. He’s there to take out the man who killed his mentor, Morgan Bote, while she just wants to save her boyfriend’s life. In an extremely tense sequence, Zoe and Carson arrive at the resort, where Harper, over the phone, gives them the green light to assassinate the Russian delegation. The only reason this was even possible is that the influential Marion gave an order for the cartel’s guards to ignore the non-tactical-suit-wearing man and woman lurking around the resort for 15 minutes.
Gbenga Akinnagbe gets his one big scene where Carson expertly takes out Pavlovich’s seven-man security detail, culminating in his own Inigo Montoya moment: killing Morgan Bote’s murderer. It’s awesome, but Zoe’s getting impatient. She jumps into a car abandoned by Pavlovich’s security detail, fires up the GPS, checks their recent destinations, and voilà! She takes off as soon as she finds Chase’s location. Okay, smart, but also, WTF, Zoe? Why are you leaving Carson behind like that? Not nice.
Also not nice? Marion. The second she informs Harper that Pavlovich is dead — and starts acting uncharacteristically kind — Harper realizes he’s about to pay handsomely for her most recent favor. She’s turned him over to the Chinese, and he’s ostensibly their prisoner now.
Zoe rolls up to the cliffside church where Chase is somehow still clinging to life, armed with an antidote (this was the bag Carson was carrying at the end of last week’s episode when he connected with Zoe at the police station). She injects Chase with the antidote and gets Carson on the phone to walk her through basic life-saving techniques. Between you and me, I’m impressed Carson even answered the phone. SHE DESERTED HIM AFTER HE KILLED EIGHT PEOPLE.
Suddenly, Chase wakes up in a quiet country house, surrounded by Dave and Carol (woo-hoo!!!), with Zoe tending to his numerous wounds. To be honest, I spent most of the episode’s third act wondering if this was a dream sequence, which may have been the writers’ intention.
According to Zoe’s expository dialogue, Carson apparently stuck around long enough to help Chase and Zoe return to the United States under deep cover and settle them into an off-the-grid existence before disappearing again. (No, really: Akinnagbe’s last scene in this episode is a voice-over, coaching Zoe over the phone while she’s administering CPR on Chase.) I don’t get it. Why does this show keep treating Julian Carson like an afterthought?
Chase and Zoe are now hiding out in one of Morgan Bote’s old safe houses, spending the next few scenes trying to heal from their shared trauma. The dialogue establishes they have no clue Emily is alive and that they’re unaware the Chinese government is holding Harper. Watching Zoe and Chase taking long walks together in the meadow with the dogs is sweet, but come on, Zoe — why are you calling your son on a library computer? (It’s a plot device to drop a couple more hints about her marriage; Zoe’s ex-husband would constantly put her on the defensive. However, she doesn’t feel that way about Chase. Hmmm …) It doesn’t matter how many books he reads on the porch or how happy he is playing house with Zoe. Dan Chase is still restless and worried. Ah, don’t fret, my dude, your peaceful existence is about to be seriously upended.
A package arrives containing a burner phone and a number, leading Chase and Zoe to an unassuming roadside diner, where Emily is waiting! Father and daughter have an emotional reunion, but Emily’s response to Chase’s question if she’s okay is quite telling: She doesn’t say that she’s all right, just that she’s “here.” First, Emily gives Chase and Zoe the Harper update: Marion is using him as a bargaining chip to control the Meshbahar deposit.
Chase: “Huh? I thought some yahoos in the valley seized control of the deposit from Pavlovich.”
Emily: “Hi Dad! Lead yahoo here!”
Emily asks Chase to help her rescue Harper, and he’s all in. That is, until she lays out her demands: She needs access to Lou Barlow. We already know from “XIII” that this shady Lou Barlow fellow can even make someone like Dan Chase cringe, and now it sounds like Emily is forcing her dad to revisit one last demon for Harper’s sake.
Chase flat-out refuses to go down that road again, but he doesn’t understand that he’s no longer in charge here. The big reveal is that Chase was Lou Barlow, a man capable of “things that are uglier than violence.” Oh, good Lord, Dude. What the hell did you do??? He swears up and down to his daughter that he’ll find a different way to help her, but none of that matters anymore. In a complete switch from earlier in the season, it’s Emily’s way or the highway.
But it’s more than that: I loved this scene so much because Alia Shawkat flawlessly demonstrated every single complicated layer of Emily’s thinking while keeping her emotions in check. She loves Chase, but she’s also super-pissed at him for lying to her. Add to that newly acquired influence and an unwavering goal (rescue her other dad). You’d better believe she’s not in the mood to negotiate.
And she’s not going to because Chase can’t ignore the facts he’s spent decades repressing: Emily wields immense global power now. She found Chase and Zoe because she called in a favor to the FBI, resulting in Zoe’s son’s phone being tapped (I knew that was a dumb idea, Zoe!). But her FBI favors don’t stop there because, as Chase remarks, “Parwana Hamzad gets whatever she wants.” As in forcibly transporting Chase and Zoe with her out of the country to rescue Harper.
The final shot of the season is of several FBI cars surrounding the diner, confirming that even if we don’t get a season three of The Old Man, Dan Chase is now his daughter’s operative. Again, I just love how Shawkat played this scene. Emily’s not smug about the new world order — there’s even a tear in her eye. But she is angry and taking her life back on her terms. Are her actions revenge on her parents? Is power corrupting her? A little bit of both? Maybe we’ll find out in season three.
That’s, Like, Your Opinion, Man
• Amy Brenneman recently made a good argument for a third season. I don’t blame her because we also need more on Zoe’s cryptic backstory: All we know from those scant flashbacks is that she wasn’t in love with her ex-husband, but through that marriage, she learned about the importance of partnership — and firearm skills. What else is she hiding?
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