Summary
The Old Man excels in conversation in “XIV”, getting the pieces in position for an explosive finale.
There’s a lot of dialogue in The Old Man Season 2, Episode 7. In fact, “XIV” is comprised almost entirely of three conversations – Dan Chase and Suleyman Pavlovich, Zoe and an American agent who calls himself Pete, and Harper and his ex-wife, Marion. Through these conversations, we glean a lot of important information about what’s going on geopolitically-speaking, tying several threads – including some stretching back to the first season – together.
There’s no action – very little, anyway, but Chase does slice open someone’s femoral artery, and Zoe does blow away a would-be assassin with a shotgun. That’s it, though. The episode is otherwise just chatting, so it’s a surprise it ends up being so compelling. Although perhaps at this stage it isn’t that surprising after all; The Old Man has always been able to hold a conversation.
Chase and Pavlovich
At the end of the previous episode, Chase was infected by a deadly neurotoxin and decided to surrender himself to Pavlovich to acquire the antidote. That’s where “XIV” picks up, with Pavlovich wondering what Chase could possibly offer him that would be more worthwhile than just getting Chase out of his hair and securing his membership in the rare earth metal cartel (which remains a great name for a band.)
Because the toxin is rotting Chase’s brain away, he spends the entire episode hallucinating that Parwana is present in the background of this conversation, constantly giving a voice to Chase’s wavering inner monologue. Chase is weighing up his options. He could break free and kill Pavlovich, condemning himself and probably Zoe to death, but avenging Parwana. But he has another option – even considering it gives him a sense of shame.
The other option involves Zoe, who, as instructed, has turned herself into the police. The episode switches back and forth between the two but we’ll cover Zoe specifically a little later, so here’s the gist: Dan has instructed Zoe to tell the police that he killed Morgan Bote and Faraz Hamzad as revenge for kidnapping Parwana. Pavlovich can take the credit for killing Chase if he lets him and Zoe go with the antidote, some cash, and Parwana’s body.
Pavlovich is understandably skeptical about this, especially given the revelation that Parwana was really Hamzad’s daughter and Chase should logically want revenge on him for his men having killed her, but he eventually goes in for it. However, just as Chase is making the call to Zoe, someone else calls Pavlovich with some worrying news. Since he doesn’t have time to verify who’s making a move on him (it could be Chase, as far as he knows), he calls the deal off and orders one of his men, Yevgeny, to dispatch Chase.
Unfortunately for Chase, Yevgeny is the son of a man he killed years ago in Afghanistan, presumably one of the nameless extras in Season 1’s flashbacks. Yevgeny breaks all the antidote vials and intends to disembowel Chase, but Chase is able to kill him by severing his femoral artery with a shard of broken glass. In lieu of the antidote, though, he passes out from the toxin.
John Lithgow as Harold Harper in The Old Man | Image via FX
Zoe and “Pete”
As mentioned, while this is going on, The Old Man Season 2, Episode 7 frequently flits over to Zoe, who has turned herself in to the local police station and dropped a few names – Nina Kruger, Morgan Bote – to persuade them to contact the U.S. Embassy and the CIA Chief of Station.
Pretty soon after, Pete arrives. He’s American and comes running when he hears mention of Bote’s name, so the assumption is that he’s a CIA guy, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t properly identify himself. Nevertheless, Zoe asks for immunity, and Pete warns her that there are many dangerous people who have been awakened by Bote’s death and won’t care about her legal status. She’ll still be in danger regardless.
After Pavlovich calls off the deal, one of his men stationed outside kills Pete and the uniformed officer working the desk. Throughout “XIV”, we’re treated to flashbacks to a younger Zoe reluctantly marrying her husband, and being coaxed into the family by her soon-to-be father-in-law. As far as I can tell, the only purpose of these flashbacks is to suggest that Zoe’s former in-laws taught her how to shoot. When Pavlovich’s assassin gets inside the building, Zoe blows him away with a shotgun.
Outside, Julian arrives, having been sent by Harper to take Zoe away.
Harper and Marion
In the previous episode, Julian showed Harper the final email Morgan Bote had sent him, which contained a photograph of Harper’s ex-wife Marion and the rest of the rare earth metal cartel. So, in The Old Man Season 2, Episode 7, Harper goes to see her.
Marion is a British spook who was born, lives, and works in Hong Kong – her allegiances are still to the communist Chinese government, and her intentions all along have been to use Parwana as a Chinese asset to force Hamzad into business with Pavlovich, who she had brought into the cartel for his muscle and infrastructure, and the Chinese government.
Marion was using Harper and Chase to weaken Hamzad. Initially, he was only interested in working with American partners with American interests, which Marion didn’t understand until she discovered he was trying to locate Parwana.
Harper is disgusted to hear all this. Just as he’s leaving, though, Marion gets a weird call from Pavlovich, who she hasn’t spoken to for some time. Her only deduction is that he must be terrified. But of what? Or whom?
In the final scene of the episode, we see Pavlovich meeting with other members of the cartel, trying to downplay the Meshbahar mess. Through their dialogue, we now know that Pavlovich’s men have been completely eradicated by a local tribe, and control of the deposit has been lost. As we expected, Parwana, alive and well, is leading the tribe.
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