“The Old Man”, recap, season two, episode two: “IX”

The old man

IX

Season 2

Episode 2

Editor's Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: FX

Dan and Abbey Chase are gone a lot of victims they left behind. In season two of The old manit's time for her most prominent victim to have her say: her daughter Emily Chase. Now that we've met Emily's two fathers, Harold Harper and Dan Chase, the focus in the second episode rightly shifts to Emily's point of view. After living with a dual identity for most of her adult life, Emily is now confronted with an even more shocking reality. The woman who grew up as “Emily Chase” and who Harper knows as FBI agent “Angela Adams” is also Parwana Hamzad, the Afghan-born daughter of Belour Daadfar (aka Abbey Chase) and Faraz Hamzad.

Although she is currently juggling three names, I will continue to call Alia Shawkat's character Emily for now. But I give a lot of credit to The old man for the beautiful portrayal of the character's ongoing inner identity crisis. I know I would be just as confused as Emily/Angela/Parwana if I were in their shoes.

What I also like about this new storyline is that despite the presence of three impressive father figures, Emily isn't that interested in their backstories. No, the person she really wants to know about is her mother. (This is reminiscent of the fact that Emily's mother died of Huntington's disease before the events of the series premiere.)

The central drama now revolves around Emily (unknowingly) travelling to the other side of the world to uncover her mother's secret, only to come away empty-handed. Her struggle is not so much to accept her new identity, but to figure out how her Afghan family can help paint an accurate picture of Belour.

We pick up right where we left off in the season one finale: Emily arrives at Faraz Hamzad's compound in Afghanistan after being kidnapped by her biological aunt Khadija. Khadija's initial interrogation confirms that the backstory Dan and Abbey Chase told 18-year-old Emily included nothing all the branches of her family tree. At this point, Emily still sticks to the approach: “My name is Angela Adams, and you are in serious trouble for holding an FBI agent against her will.”

Until Khadija orders an old-fashioned movie projector into Emily's locked room and Emily is FORCED to watch home videos of herself as a toddler, with young Faraz Hamzad singing to her while young Dan Chase gives her goosebumps in the background. “Traumatized” doesn't even begin to describe Emily's reaction as Shawkat slowly begins to cry in disbelief. Who can she trust now? The “parents” who raised her in a lie? The Afghan family she just met? I can imagine it as well as you can.

The next day, Emily and Faraz Hamzad meet face-to-face for the first time in decades, and, well, it's about as awkward as you'd expect. Faraz begins by telling his long-lost daughter about the Hamzad family history: She comes from a long line of male freedom fighters. The urge to fend off invaders is in her blood. But Emily isn't here to learn about domineering men—she's had enough of those throughout her life. No, she wants to learn about her mother: Why did she kidnap her and hide the truth? And more importantly, was there ever a spark of love in this distant woman? Why didn't Mom show her affection? All valid questions, Em. Unfortunately, Faraz can't point her in the right direction. He dismisses Belour as a “cold and unfeeling master manipulator” and suggests that Deconstructing Belour is one of the The old manThe biggest mysteries of the second season.

Meanwhile, Omar, the shady Taliban spy from the previous episode, has shown up on the outskirts of Hamzad's village. His unscathed face suggests he hasn't encountered the Dude and Harper yet in this timeline. A meeting between Omar and Hamzad further clarifies that Omar is a mercenary – and that Hamzad isn't as powerful as he once was. I won't go into the convoluted details here, but from what I understand, Hamzad hasn't been paying his protection money to the government on time, so Omar is trying to take advantage of the situation. We also learn that, as the black sheep of his own family, Omar has next to no influence: Even his big, powerful uncle can't stand him. So his only move is to pit Hamzad and Chase/Harper against each other.

But it's not just Omar who's on thin ice: a brief conversation between Hamzad and Khadija reveals that they, too, are in a precarious position. And Emily wasn't kidnapped because they wanted a family reunion: she's an asset. This, coupled with Hamzad's decades-long conflict over the kidnapping of his daughter and the unforgivable betrayal by his wife and loyal American ally, means his emotions are about to boil over. And boy, do we get that in spades. First, Hamzad enters Emily's room and points a gun at her head, angry that she's just like the woman who went into hiding all those years ago. What he didn't count on is Emily rebuffing his anger with professional FBI training. She hurls all kinds of insults at him and taunts him with the knowledge that he wants as many answers from her as she does from him.

What happens here is exactly what Chase was afraid of: Emily sends Faraz into a fit of rage that turns into a hilarious father-daughter brawl. It's disturbing to watch because Faraz and Emily are the victims here. They're only fighting with each other because they can't take their anger out on Johnny and Belour, the real perpetrators. But I digress: We've seen Faraz strangled his daughter almost to death because he can't separate her from Belour, and Emily almost attacks her own father.

In this broken home, Emily's self-defense strangely earns her a new respect. She moves into a nicer room and receives medical treatment. Emily meets her cousin Faruza (Sara Seyed), who luckily gives her some of the insight she's been yearning for. Faruza is on Team Hamzad because the Taliban killed her husband, and Faraz has been keeping the soldiers at bay ever since. It's not much, but it's better than Khadija's stonewalling. What Emily struggles with most is not the trauma of her biological father trying to kill her, but the disappointment that the people in her home village can't give her the “infinite answers” she so desperately seeks from her mother. Emily also meets Faruza's angelic son Farouk, who serves as a mediator for Emily's growing acceptance of her new family. He teaches her Dari! He shows her his hidden stash of toys!

To demonstrate the passage of time, we cut to Omar, now wearing a large pirate patch after Chase took a giant bite out of his eye socket in the previous episode. An ominous conversation with a minister in Kabul establishes that Faraz Hamzad's situation is indeed on shaky ground, especially now that Omar has confirmation that Hamzad owns a major American asset. When Khadija discovers Taliban soldiers surrounding the lithium mine, she knows the tide has turned.

Suddenly, a horde of Taliban soldiers led by Omar invades Hamzad's compound. Khadija stops them, and Omar smugly announces that he is conscripting all the boys in the village as punishment for lying about Emily. Faraz realizes that his daughter is no longer safe with him and smuggles the confused Emily into the mountains.

I can’t imagine a better time for these two, Finally have an open conversation than during a high-pressure escape from the Taliban, can you? To lower the dramatic temperature, The old man takes a cute approach, presenting this exchange as a conversation between old Faraz and Emily's child self. He offers his condolences over Belour's death and voices his differing thoughts on why he took Emily to Afghanistan. But he knows she actually wants to hear something positive about her mother. Unable to give Emily what she wants most, he passes on some fatherly advice he learned from Belour himself: “You can love someone, or you can trust them.” Gosh, who needs a warm feeling at a family reunion when you can have pain and chaos instead? But before Emily even has time to absorb that crazy advice, Faraz goes off to investigate the sounds coming from his secret cave hideout. Why could this be the same secret cave hideout Chase and Harper are currently taking cover in? (Yes, yes, that's it.) Emily hears a familiar gunshot and enters the cave. Since we don't know who shot who, we'll have to wait until next week to see the horrified look on her face.

• Does it bother anyone else that Emily calls Raymond Waters her boyfriend? During their physical altercation, Emily accused Hamzad of killing her “boyfriend.” I assume she meant the moment when Khadija kidnapped her in the season 1 finale, Waters and Julian Carson. Waters spent the entire first season provoking Emily, only to eventually kidnap her on Morgan Bote's orders. Why would she always do you feel any love for this guy?