It’s not an easy task to stay away from cliches, and I thought that The Old Guard was able to do a pretty good job of it. I say that, because making a film about characters who are immortal, who have been on the planet since times immemorial, and who fight for what they think is right could prove to be tricky. Hundreds of films have been made recycling the same tropes, and so it becomes difficult to weave a narrative that may seem unique in its own way. That said, let’s find out what happened in The Old Guard 1 and go through everything you need to know before the release of part 2.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Copley set a trap for Andy and her team?
At the beginning of The Old Guard, Booker gave a call to one of his teammates, Andy, as there was a man who’d requested them to do a job for him. By the looks of things, Andy and her team, which consisted of three other guys, Booker, Joe, and Nicky, were trained assassins who were generally hired for dangerous missions where the odds were never in their favor. This time around they were hired by a man named Copley, with whom they had worked in the past too. Andy and Booker met Copley, who told them that around 17 students had been abducted after a school, located southwest of Juba, had been attacked by militants. Andy’s job was to infiltrate the militant base camp and rescue those children. Andy and her team entered the base camp, only to find out that it was a trap set by Copley himself. Something strange happened during the shootout. Copley’s men shot at Andy and her team, and it felt as if they’d all met their fateful end. But it was not so. Their wounds healed, and they got up as if nothing had happened to them. Andy realized what Copley was up to. He wanted evidence to prove that Andy and her team were immortals, as without a recording nobody would have believed him. Copley took that video and went straight to Merrick, the CEO of a pharma giant. Together with Dr. Kozak, Merrick had been able to arrest the progress of cognitive decline, and they claimed that nobody would ever have to experienced symptoms of dementia again. Copley showed Merrick the CCTV footage he had been able to get, but the latter wanted more concrete evidence. He asked Copley to find a way to capture and bring at least one of them to him so that his team could conduct experiments on them and find out why they were immortals. Merrick knew that if somehow he was able to crack their genetic code, then he could make unimaginable profits. Merrick said that his discovery could benefit all of mankind, but the truth was he was a very selfish man who only cared about his own good. So Copley began his quest to hunt for Andy and her team, and quite soon he was able to make a breakthrough.
How did Andy find out about Nile?
Andy was the first of the immortals (in her team), and for a very long period of time she had survived on her own. Then she was joined by Joe and Nicky in the middle ages, and then later in 1812 by Booker. They all had visions about each other until they finally met one another in person. The visions stopped after that, and so since 1812 they hadn’t experienced anything like that. But then, all of a sudden, after they were able to survive Copley’s trap, they all got a vision about a woman who was a marine serving in Afghanistan. She was named Nile. During a mission, Nile’s throat was slit by a militant, and everybody knew that she was not going to survive. But miraculously, Nile’s wound healed overnight, and after a couple of hours, there wasn’t even a scar left behind. She was being sent for further examination and testing when Andy arrived out of nowhere and captured her. Andy knew how difficult it could be for someone to handle the realization that they were immortal. Andy told Nile who they were, what they did, and how their lives were. Nile did show some resistance; she tried to escape, but eventually she calmed down and realized that Andy and the others were not lying to her, and she was actually different from others. Nile was with the team when, one night, she got a vision of a woman who was trapped underwater in an iron cage. That’s when it was revealed that, before Nicky and Joe, Andy had two other partners, Quynh and Lykon. Nile was surprised when she learned that Lykon had died on the battlefield, and she didn’t understand how that could happen if he was an immortal. Nile was told by the team that they could lose their powers at any given time, and nobody knew when it would happen. Also, during the witch trials in England, Quynh and Andy were captured by the puritans. The people tried to kill them several times, but when it didn’t work, they were branded as witches. It was decided that both of them couldn’t be held together. And Quynh was locked in an iron cage and thrown somewhere in the ocean. Andy escaped later, and she tried to search for Quynh, but eventually she gave up, as even after putting in all the effort, she wasn’t able to find the location where the iron casket had been dumped. The guilt of surrendering and not looking for Quynh after a point in time still haunted Andy. Nile was still trying to absorb everything when Copley suddenly tracked down Andy and her team once again. Copley’s men were able to capture Nicky and Joe, and Andy made it very clear that she wouldn’t make the same mistake she did with Quynh, she would not stop until she rescued her teammates.
Why did Booker betray his team?
Nile took a call to not be a part of the team. She knew that if she went back to her family, they would eventually get to know she was an immortal. Booker had told her the repercussions of letting their loved ones in on their secret. He told her how his son felt betrayed when he got to know the truth about his father, and how he was never able to look at him the same way. Still, Nile felt that it would take some time for her family members to figure out that she was not like the rest, and until then, she wanted to savor each and every moment with them.
So Nile went back, while Andy and Booker got ready to launch an all-out attack on Copley. Andy found Copley, but before she could do anything, in an unprecedented set of events, she was shot by Booker. It came to be known that Booker had conspired with Copley and led Andy straight into their trap. Booker’s intentions were not bad, even though keeping Andy in the dark was not something he should have done. Booker felt that if Merrick was so sure that he could produce a drug using their DNA that could make people immortal, then he could maybe find a way to rid them of the curse of immortality too. Booker wanted to die. After he lost his family, it was a struggle for him to get through each and every day. What Broken didn’t know was that Merrick was a sadistic man, and he was keen to torture them for his own benefit. So Andy and Booker were also taken into Merrick’s lab for experimentation. Also, another revelation that was made at this point in time was that Andy’s wounds weren’t healing. This meant that she was no longer immortal and that if she got fatally injured, she could succumb to her injuries.
Were Andy and Nile able to stop Merrick?
The reason I stated that Copley didn’t have bad intentions was because he felt that Merrick’s discoveries would help mankind in general, and people wouldn’t have to suffer the loss of their loved ones anymore. Copley’s wife had died sometime back, and the grief of not being able to do anything to save her still haunted him. Copley had no clue that Merrick’s sole aim was to earn profits. Meanwhile, Nile stopped on her way back to dispose of the weapons that were kept in the back of the truck, when she noticed that Andy had left the bullets there itself. Also, Nile, I believe, didn’t feel right about leaving her in such a dangerous situation. So she decided to go back and save her teammates. Copley helped Nile find the lab where her teammates were being held captive. Nile rescued all of them, and then together they were able to eliminate Merrick’s guards easily. It was Nile who jumped off the building, taking Merrick with her, making him meet his fateful end. The megalomaniac kept shouting till the end that they didn’t understand the importance of the work he was doing, but nobody listened to him. Through her courage and grit, Nile proved that she was going to be an integral part of the team and that she was going to do great things in the future.
What happened in the mid-credit scene?
Andy added Copley to the team as she knew that, firstly, he was a good man, and secondly, he could help erase their footprints, and not let secret agencies all over the world get a whiff of their affairs.
Though Booker kept Andy in the dark, not entirely out of bad intentions, the team decided that it was imperative he pay for his actions. Nicky and Joe decided that they would sever all contact with Booker for the next 100 years, after which he would be allowed to rejoin the team. Booker went to France, where he frittered away his time drinking, as he had nothing better to do, and even nothing to look forward to. In the mid-credit scene, we saw that an unexpected guest paid him a visit. It was none other than Quynh, who had been accidentally rescued by some mariners who might have found her iron casket on the ocean bed. There could be two possibilities: either Quynh will join Andy and her team, or she will take revenge on her best friend for not living up to her promise by giving up on her search. Whatever she does, it will definitely have an impact on everybody, especially Andy. In the trailer of The Old Guard Part 2, we saw that a woman named Discord, an immortal who knew all about Andy, had arrived on the scene with certain vendettas. I believe Andy, considering she was a mortal now, will need all the help she can find to fight against somebody as powerful as Discord, and this is where I believe Quynh is going to play a critical role.
