The funeral for Faraz Hamzad opens The Old Man season 2 episode 5. Emily (Alia Shawkat) narrates her own feelings about the proceedings. While she doesn't understand the language of the villagers, she can understand what Hamzad meant to them. That is harder for her to quantify, but she wants to say goodbye in her own way. So like she did with her mother, she writes a letter.
In it, she says she is grateful she and her father "passed each other in darkness, even if for just an instance." She asks when he sees her mother to be kind to her, as she was just as fractured as they were and did the best she could. But she wants him to let her know she found her way home. She burns the letter and scatters its ashes at Hamzad's grave.
After the proceedings, Emily says goodbye to Farouk (Michael Sifain), who is leaving with Tarik (Amir Malaklou) to get out of the village, presumably to America, before the Taliban arrive. Khadija (Jacqueline Antaramian) asks what Emily said to Farouk? She told him he'll be safe, but he's going to be scared and alone, knowing from personal experience it's not good to lie to a kid when the truth is important.
Sending Farouk away was not a moment too soon, as Khadija notices smoke in the distance and the sound of gunfire. Hamzad's enemies are on their way.
Refuge at the Harper household
Back in the US, Cheryl (Jessica Harper) is trying to address a big leak in her basement when Harper (John Lithgow) comes rushing in. He reminds her he tried to leave his work at the door and not have it interfere with their lives, but things are too complicated now. He explains Angela (referring to Emily as Cheryl knows her) is still in Afghanistan and in danger, and so are they. He wants her and their grandson, Henry, to stay in a hotel for now. But Cheryl reveals Henry doesn't live with them anymore. They have to drop this conversation as Chase (Jeff Bridges) and Zoe (Amy Brenneman) come in from the rain, eagerly trying to reach Emily and worried about having Bote's car in the driveway.
After they get settled, Zoe asks how the attackers found them? Chase thinks Bote got too close to Pavlovich's pursuit of Hamzad's mineral deposit. Though he's confused why Pavlovich would think killing Bote on US soil would help him, as it will cause major blowback. There's something they don't understand yet.
Harper and Cheryl pick up the Henry conversation. She sent him to live with his other grandparents because she wasn't sure Harper was coming back and it wasn't fair to Henry to not be able to ask questions or expect to get answers. Cheryl knows what she signed up for when she married Harper, but even she admits she's drowning in the absence of answers. So Harper gives her some: Angela Adams was a fiction.
How hard that must be for Cheryl hits home when Zoe finds a photo of Emily with the Harper family. She asks if Chase knew how close Emily was with all of them, if it was hard for Chase to be on the outside of all that since he once was close with Harper too? He says that was part of the deal he and Abbey (his wife and Emily's mother) made, a clean break. Abbey and Emily were all he needed. Zoe notes that needing and wanting are two different things.
The phone call
The power goes out in the Harper house because of the leak, but before they can do anything about that, Emily answers Chase's call. Everyone comes in so they can hear. Chase tells her that Bote is dead, so she has to get out of there because he can't protect her from what's coming. But Emily reveals the enemy is already there. Chase again urges her to get out, but she refuses. She tells them Hamzad is dead. Before she can say anymore, she has to move as the enemy forces are getting closer, but she promises to get back on when she can.
As Harper scrambles to figure out how they can help, Chase remembers a time when he lost a young Emily at the park. He says through all the wars and horrible things he's been through, he's never experienced a feeling like that before and he swore he would not let himself feel that again. But certainly, it must be creeping in now.
Emily gets back on; the enemy is breaching. Chase tells them to use the tunnels in the village to get out, but the enemy is using those exact tunnels. So all that is left for Emily to do is say her goodbyes.
She apologizes for putting Harper and Cheryl through this again after losing their son. She also adds she doesn't blame Harper for what he did (she doesn't overtly say he shot Hamzad in front of Cheryl). She then tells Chase she needs him to know that her choice to stay was not a rejection of him or Abbey and that she needs to know he's not going to spend his life resenting the new family she found; she chose this. Before Chase can answer, the soldiers break through and gunfire goes off. The last thing they hear before the line goes dead is Emily saying "no, wait!"
Needing answers
Knowing he has lost Emily forever, Chase is distraught. As he tinkers with the leak he repeatedly says he should have stopped Emily, but Zoe asks how could he have? She comforts him as he sobs. He stops when Harper comes in, saying they need to go. Not yet, Chase says. He confirms Harper heard what he heard on the call and says he wants answers, now. Harper relents, telling Zoe to keep Cheryl distracted. Zoe asks what it is they heard on the call? The men who attacked the villagers weren't Taliban, they were speaking Russian, which means Pavlovich sent them.
Chase and Harper grab one of the attackers from Bote's they kept alive and stuffed in the trunk of the car to extract answers from him. Meanwhile, Cheryl and Zoe are in the kitchen. Cheryl asks if Zoe is inside or outside all this; does she know what's going on, or does she wonder what the people who know what's going on are thinking? Zoe says she's in a transitional phase. Cheryl isn't, which kills her because Emily's final words to Harper — not blaming him — will be something she never knows about. Zoe decides to tell Cheryl that she was told to distract her and that Bote is dead, killed by Pavlovich's men, who also killed Emily.
As Chase tortures the attacker for answers, Harper says he can help, as getting answers out of people was his job. "Not like this," Chase says, sending Harper upstairs. So Harper goes to be alone in his son Chip's old room. There he imagines Chip and the two have a conversation about how all of Harper's own fiction he used to protect his family is falling apart. The imagined Chip says he never truly knew Harper, as some part of him was always left with his work. Harper regrets that he messed up being a father and wishes he had the chance to say goodbye, to have last words with Chip, Emily, and even Henry. This thought sets off a light bulb in his mind.
Harper finds Zoe and asks if Bote said anything before he died? No, but he had his phone and was trying to send something. Harper believes that's an important piece to his puzzle, something Bote wanted to make sure didn't die with him. And Harper may have an idea on who Bote was messaging.
Chase comes up from the basement. The attacker didn't know anything about Pavlovich, he was just a hired gun. But Chase did learn one thing: Bote wasn't the only target. He and Zoe (or Marcia and Henry Dixon, the aliases they used when they met Pavlovich) were also meant to be killed. Chase thinks their best option to find out what's going on is to meet with Hamzad's lawyer, who had something to tell Zoe. Off to London they go.
As they say goodbye, Cheryl tells Harper she understands the situation now. Maybe not everything, but enough. But now she feels like she understands Harper less. Harper intends to find a better way to make everything work when he gets back.
After Cheryl leaves, Harper goes down to the basement. He grabs a saw and moves toward the attacker. Whether he's going to just cut up an already dead body or cause him additional pain is unclear. But what is clear is that Harper is ready to get dirty.
New episodes of The Old Man air on Thursdays on FX, then stream on-demand on Hulu the next day.
