As someone who has covered TV for over a decade, I need hard evidence of a character’s death. Alia Shawkat’s panicked voice, the sounds of screaming and gunshots, and a phone cutting off are excellent creative choices, but as far as a 100 percent guarantee that Emily Chase is dead? Sorry, The Old Man , but you’ve gotta give me more. For the sake of the story, we do have to go on the assumption that she has been murdered by Suleyman Pavlovich’s mercenaries.
That means Dan Chase is out for blood, and by the end of “XII,” he and Zoe McDonald are headed to London to seek out Faraz Hamzad’s lawyer, Nina Kruger, their only link to Pavlovich. But after watching this episode, I’m not so worried about Chase or Zoe — even though Chase is battling some serious trauma from listening to his daughter’s murder over the phone. It’s Harper who seems to be in the worst mental shape for this upcoming mission.
Undoubtedly, there are many bleak moments in “XII.” However, the most compelling ones involve John Lithgow, whose FBI veteran character is forced to peel back the layers of his well-suppressed past. Now that we’re entering the season’s third act, The Old Man has hit that sweet spot where it’s whacking us over the head with the “HAROLD HARPER HAS SOME SERIOUS EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE” messaging.
But we’re still left in the (literal) dark about it: During a scene in which Harper’s deceased son appears as a surrogate for his father’s inner monologue, Chip Ha.