‘The Old Man’ Episode 3: Recap & Ending, Explained – What Happened Between Dan & Hamzad? Who Was Emily Chase?

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“The Old Man” Episode 2 had still started to set the base for the thriller series, and now Episode 3 sets the force into motion, as more important things get revealed. Whatever happened in Afghanistan thirty years ago was something that Dan always knew would come back to trouble him, and now we are told exactly what happened back then. Along with this and Dan Chase’s narrow escape from the FBI, episode 3 also focuses on another major revelation—the real identity of Emily Chase.


‘The Old Man’ Episode 3: Recap And Ending

The episode begins with the introduction of a friendly and polite man talking to his grandmother on the phone, helping her get medicine for her terrible back pain. The man, upon seeing a young woman with crutches struggling to board a bus, also helps her out. However, his quite contrary real identity, particular to our context, is revealed through another phone call that he answers—he is the professional assassin hired by Harold Harper to wipe out Dan Chase. The urgency of the situation is further heightened, as the FBI plans for a SWAT team invasion into Zoe’s residence, where Dan Chase is still at. Dan and Zoe remain seated at their breakfast table, where they were last seen in “The Old Man” Episode 2, and the man now thinks of revealing his true self to his new lover. He at first tries to present a story of needing to drive to Montana at the earliest for a professional callup, but Zoe insists that she needs to go to the bank to clear her son’s fees first, and asks Dan to stay on till then. Dan now tries to explain who he really is, saying that Zoe’s fate has also been wound up with his own since she casually told police officers the previous evening that she was Dan’s wife. The woman is now terribly scared of the situation and wants Dan to leave her house, when Emily calls, and Dan asks Zoe to have a word with her. Emily calmly explains how her father is, after all, a good person, just in the wrong situation, and she indirectly asks Zoe to stick with him and go wherever he wants to take her, but Zoe is not really convinced. She leaves the house, intending to drive away, when suddenly a loud bang and thud from inside makes her check what is going on. Peeking through the window, which also now has a bullet hole, she sees Dan and the hitman embroiled in a fight. Just as the hitman is about to overpower Dan, Zoe brings in the two dogs, Dave and Carol, and releases them onto the intruder. Dan shoots him and quickly leaves the house along with Zoe, almost taking the woman hostage in her car.

Back at the FBI counterintelligence headquarters, Harold Harper oversees the operation about to take place sometime later to arrest Dan Chase. Raymond Waters, the junior investigator with CIA connections, still tries to cook up a different plot, suspecting Harold of hiding something, and the senior officer now directly confronts him about it. News of Waters’ earlier conversation with FBI agent Angela Adams, where the man tried to insinuate Harper’s role in Dan Chase’s escape from arrest, had already reached Harold’s ears, and he suggests that Raymod does not try a stunt like that again as it won’t work. Soon after, Angela also joins their conversation, and the two FBI agents now turn the table on Raymond, and present to him suspicions of their own. On the instruction of Harold, Angela had done a background check on the CIA man and had found out that he was disliked by pretty much everyone in the agency. The primary reason for such a reputation was Raymond’s irritating and sometimes irrational habit of always asking questions about everything. Gathering all these findings together, Harold and Angela now suggest that it is Raymond who is actually the insider in American intelligence acting on behalf of Faraz Hamzad, the one-time warlord in Kabul who now wants Dan Chase to be apprehended and possibly brought to him. Once all their suspicions are out in the open, Angela suggests that the three keep these things among themselves and asks Raymond to contact Hamzad directly and clearly ask him what he wants. Despite his initial suggestions that he has no such reach, Raymond tells Angela at the end of “The Old Man” Episode 3 that he would indeed do it, but he also threatens to search out any secrets that Angela herself has if she puts him in similar trouble the next time. As far as the SWAT team invasion is concerned, authorities storm Zoe’s house but find it completely empty. Although it might first seem that the hitman’s dead body might have been removed by Dan himself, soon a scene gives away that the man has actually survived the incident. The assassin, named Julian Carson, seems to have been saved and rescued from the place by another unknown man, whom he is well acquainted with. A surveillance drone manned from the FBI headquarters does follow Dan Chase initially when a car is seen leaving Zoe’s house before the SWAT break-in, but the drone is quickly shot down by the brilliantly skilled shooter, Dan.


What Happened Between Dan And Hamzad In Afghanistan?

Thirty years ago, in the Hindu Kush valley of Afghanistan, young Dan Chase is seen returning to a small mountain village and to the house of his host, the rebel warlord Faraz Hamzad. When asked for the reason for his return, Dan insists that he had joined American intelligence because he wanted to kill Russians, but the only place in the world directly allowing him to do so was in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. He tries to convince Hamzad to let him stay and be a part of his fight, and he also promises American guns and ammunition in return. Although Hamzad is mostly convinced, his wife Belour, who also plays a major role in the rebel uprising, suspects his loyalty because she does not have the best opinion about all Americans. As Belour later explains in fluent English, she was about to move to the USA as a young girl with her parents, who were both professors, but the military coup soon followed, and all such plans were stopped in their tracks. Since then, she has despised Americans, many of whom wanted to shape the Afghani rebellions for their own political benefits. However, her opinion of Dan, called John back then, seems to change when the guns he promised finally arrive in the village, and he keeps insisting that he is on their side. One of the biggest revelations in “The Old Man” Episode 3 comes in this regard, for when young Belour is seen for the first time, she is seen to be the same woman introduced as the young Abbey Chase in the earlier episodes. What Dan had done thirty years ago that made Faraz Hamzad want to track him down now is clear—Dan Chase had fallen in love with the warlord’s wife, and she, too, with him, and the two had eloped and escaped to America. This is verbally stated at the end of the episode by Harold Harper as well, who now admits that his role in the entire matter was that he had helped Dan escape Afghanistan with Belour, who Dan later married and was renamed, Abbey Chase.


What Is The Real Identity Of Emily Chase?

From the very beginning of “The Old Man,” Emily Chase seemed like an elusive and mysterious character, or at least, thirty minutes into the first episode, as the woman was never seen on screen but only heard. Her conversations were also only with her father, Dan Chase, and the man’s own doubts about memory loss and the FBI’s findings of Emily Chase being dead combined also seemed like Emily existing only in her father’s head was also a possibility. However, all such presumptions are squashed in “The Old Man” Episode 3, as we see Emily Chase in flesh and blood, and realize that it is actually not the first time she has been seen on screen. When Zoe talks to Emily on Dan’s phone, a car in a parking lot is shown inside which Angela is talking on the other side of the call. Emily Chase is, after all, FBI counterintelligence agent Angela Adams. It is quickly established that nobody else knows about Angela’s real identity in her workspace, and she is definitely not just the junior or protégé agent to Harold Harper as he believes her to be. Whether Dan is aware of Emily’s exact role as an intelligence agent is yet to be known, but it might be easy to speculate that the father does indeed know about her and also often gets information from her regarding any threat that might be coming his way. With Angela’s exposition as a character way more important than just a side-office detective, she seems to be given drastically more agency, as she is now seen intervening with her senior officials (at least one of them is clearly her senior). When Harold and Raymond keep on discussing what Faraz Hamzad now wants from Dan Chase endlessly, Emily or Angela intervenes, saying that the discussion is not taking them anywhere fruitful and instead suggests that Raymond contact Hamzad directly. What is even more interesting is where exactly Angela cuts off Harold Harper—when Harold casually reports how Belour Hamzad had eloped with Dan Chase for a better life in America. The FBI officials’ reporting of the entire matter is laden with suggestions of stereotyping, while Angela clearly knows more about her mother’s intentions. Her intervention, for the first time in the show, does startle Harold Harper, as is evident from his face, but he too immediately supports her plan of making Raymond Waters contact Faraz Hamzad.


What To Expect From ‘The Old Man’ Episode 4?

With two major expositions in the third episode, “The Old Man” is predicted to pick up more pace. We will get to know how Dan escapes the authorities. He is last seen amidst a hilly forest where he stands and remembers his first interactions with Belour, or Abbey, and then opens the trunk of his car. While his two dogs are seen in the backseat of the car, the trunk most probably holds Zoe in it. Where the two go from here and whether their relationship ever recovers from such a messy hit will be something to look forward to. Along with Dan’s fugitive run, the finer details of what Hamzad wants to do with Dan now at present will also be explored. What exactly is Angela or Emily’s role in this whole fiasco, will also get clearer with the next episodes. Is it possible that she convinces Raymond to contact the warlord because it is she who wants to make contact with him? Such questions and more will probably be answered in the next episodes of “The Old Man,” which is definitely maintaining the crisp touch of an entertaining thriller.


See More: ‘The Old Man’ Episode 4: Recap And Ending, Explained – How Does Dan & Zoe Fit Into New Identities?


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Sourya Sur Roy
Sourya Sur Roy
Sourya keeps an avid interest in all sorts of films, history, sports, videogames and everything related to New Media. Holding a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies, he is currently working as a teacher of Film Studies at a private school and also remotely as a Research Assistant and Translator on a postdoctoral project at UdK Berlin.

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