In the powerful second season of The Old Man, our protagonist and ex CIA operative Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) is back in the thick of it and this time partnered with his former enemy, ex FBI chief Harold Harper (John Lithgow) , where they go on an operation in Afghanistan. Their goal: as Dan’s daughter and Harold’s former FBI protégée, Emily, played by Alia Shawkat, gets kidnapped by the show’s tribal chief and Emily’s birth father, Faraz Hamzad, portrayed by Navid Negahban.
‘The Old Man’ Season 2 Episode 1 Recap
The episode begins with Chase and Harper in the back of a truck advancing deeper through the territories of Afghanistan to save Emily, played by Alia Shawkat, from the warlord called Faraz Hamzad. Harper is obsessed with thoughts about Emily’s past and despite the connection with her mother tells others, he attempts to find some stories about Emily in order to help her get through the traumatic experience of her kidnapping. Chase, however, is bent on the mission and hates deviations of any sort, emotional ones included.
On the way, they are attacked and their truck is destroyed which causes a considerable and nail-biting shoot out. Their driver is now dead and they could not figure out what they would do next; however, he managed to pull out a SAT phone and use it to find their way. Chase disobeys Harper’s intuition and takes them to an aggressive group of the resistance fighters, and the two men do not trust each other. When the Sudanese soldiers are about to execute the two just as they seem to have run out of gas, Omar (Artur Zai Barrera), a man from the rebel side, saves them.
Omar passes on information about Hamzad’s business which include Lithium mine that has placed Hamzad as a key player in the region. Even with Harper’s questions on why the Taliban were reluctant to overthrow Hamzad, it was evident that Hamzad had a lot of influence both with the Taliban and in the U. S. government.
Things turn for the worse when the two get to a camp only to find a lot of people killed. Having been apprehensive with the situation earlier, Harper contacts his contact Marion (Janet McTeer) so that they can try something new. However, Chase starts to have the feeling that Omar is a Taliban and this makes him right when Omar starts attacking him. In the climax of a struggle Chase kills Omar however they continue chasing each other with the Taliban following them.
Late at night, when no one is watching, Chase talks to the wall and shares his thoughts about Abbey and young Emily and finally admits that he is jealous because his daughter is developing such passion as soccer which is Hamzad’s heritage and she just changed the direction as long as she was a little girl.
The final scene of this episode depicts Chase dreaming of young Hamzad with the to be a grim vision of the future. When Chase wakes up, he finds out that this is Hamzad in the flesh, holding a gun at him and the final scene of the episode is a gunshot in the mountainous terrain.
In this episode there is a lot of banter between the two military men and their interactions while they are on the move in very dangerous Afghan territory deep in what is controlled by the Taliban.
