The Old Man (TV Series)

II (2022)

John Lithgow: Harold Harper

Photos 

Quotes 

• Harper's Driver : [picking Harper up on the tarmac]  Office or home, sir?

  Harold Harper : Neither. I got to go see a friend.

  [Harper is ushered into the mansion by the butler, walking past photographs of Bote with Reagan and Gorbachev, and Bote with Nixon] 

  Morgan Bote : [Harper enters a room, a man is sitting at an easel, facing a bay window with his back to Harper]  Just a moment. The light's perfect right now. The New York Times called today to read me my obituary. A very nice girl named Janine read it to me. I quite enjoyed it. Like peeking through the curtains into some forbidden room.

  Harold Harper : I'll bet. What did she say?

  Morgan Bote : I don't really remember. Mm, the things you'd expect. It wasn't what she said so much as how she said it. But how nice it will be, in those final moments as the light is dying, knowing what everyone will read in the paper the morning after and knowing it will be good.

• Morgan Bote : One day, a nice young lady from The New York Times is going to call you. And she'll pull back the curtains, and I hope you see that all the work you've done, all the things you've built they mattered. They're appreciated. They'll survive. I hope you'll see tears and reverence and love. Believe me when I tell you that moment is what every moment that preceded it has been for. What you don't want to see is doubt. Ill regard. Gossip and indictments and your wife's shame and your grandson's confusion about what kind of man his grandfather truly was. Do what you must to protect that moment. Do anything you must.

  Harold Harper : If I even touch that piece of paper and anyone ever finds out, I have a pretty good guess what the headline on my obituary will be. And it's not gonna be good.

  Morgan Bote : The light's perfect. Would that it might stay that way forever.

• Harold Harper : Faraz Hamzad is back.

  Morgan Bote : I know.

  Harold Harper : Yeah, I thought you might. And I was hoping that maybe you'd know why.

  Morgan Bote : Does it matter?

  Harold Harper : Well, I think it matters. For 30 years, uh...

  [chuckles] 

  Harold Harper : No one could've cared less about him or what he wanted. Now he's asking for help settling some 30-year grudge, and some fool has agreed to provide it. He can ask for anything he likes, anything at all, and he's gonna get it.

  Harold Harper : [bewildered]  Why?

  Morgan Bote : From the moment Johnny betrayed him, one imagines he was consumed with two things and two things only: imagining revenge and acquiring the means to make it real. Opium. Guns. K and R. Influence. He had no problem acquiring means. It was just a matter of time before he figured out how to apply it. Who knows what leverage he holds over whom and how, but in this moment, he's using it for all it's worth, and it's working.

  [Bote turns to face Harper] 

  Morgan Bote : I loved you and Johnny both as I would sons. I warned you both that the choices you were making would have consequences. And I watched as you did whatever the hell you wanted, as sons will. Him leaving the Agency to be Lawrence of Arabia and you leaving it to be a policeman. The only surprise is that it took so damn long for any of this to catch up to you.

  Harold Harper : I spoke to him.

  Morgan Bote : Spoke to who?

  Harold Harper : Johnny. I called him. And I tried to help him escape.

  Morgan Bote : When did you do...

  [overlapping Harper] 

  Harold Harper : Just before he was about to get caught. Last night.

  Morgan Bote : Why would you...

  [overlapping Harper] 

  Harold Harper : Because in the process of pulling out his fingernails, maybe Faraz Hamzad learns that Johnny had some help screwing him over. And then all kinds of stories crawl out into the light. And then maybe the next name on Faraz Hamzad's revenge list is mine. This thing has been buried in the ground for 30 years. I wanted it to stay there.

  Morgan Bote : Well, you should've called me first.

  [Bote turns back to his painting] 

  Harold Harper : What, you would've told me not to call him?

  Morgan Bote : I would've told you that Johnny doesn't fucking listen no matter how much sense you think you're making. And I might have told you that there are better ways of keeping things buried in the ground than trying to wish them away.

  [pulls a scrap of paper from his smock pocket and places it on the adjacent table top] 

  Harold Harper : Is that what I think it is?

• Raymond Waters : With your permission then, sir, there is one question from last night I'd like to start working on.

  Harold Harper : What's that?

  Raymond Waters : Well, there was a point where he'd lost my guys. He could have just disappeared, but instead, he came back to do all this. I'm wondering why.

  Harold Harper : Maybe he wanted to make it messy so we'd have to play by the rules.

  Raymond Waters : Or maybe he wanted to make it messy, sir, so that you would be the one in charge of the rules we play by. Sir, it is hard for me to see what I saw last night and not suspect that this situation is personal to you in ways that may be detrimental to the mission.

  Harold Harper : You get to be my age in this business, and one way or another, you'll have something personal with just about everyone.

  [turns and exits] 

  Raymond Waters : Where you going?

  Harold Harper : Can't have gotten far. I'm gonna find him.

• Harold Harper : I've got another name that we have to track down, but I want you guys to do it. No one else.

  Joe : Okay. What's the name?

  Harold Harper : I don't know. Dan Chase has a daughter. I don't know anything about her, but I know she exists. And I know if I can find her, I can get control of him.

  Joe : Well, if you don't know anything about her, how do you know that she exists?

  Harold Harper : I know him. *Knew* him, at least. We served together.

  Angela Adams : Jesus. So that's why they called you in.

  Harold Harper : Yeah. It was a long time ago, but yeah, I have some skin in the game on this one, so I want to see it through.

• Harold Harper : Then tell me you've found something, Agent Adams. Tell me you got some good news.

  Angela Adams : I do, and it's not. We found the daughter. She's dead. Emily Anne Chase died, 2003. suicide. It looked like they kept it quiet. CIA must not have thought to look for it, but it wasn't hard to find. There was a police report.

• Angela Adams : Can I ask you something?

  Harold Harper : [reviewing documents]  Yeah.

  Angela Adams : Waters got into my ear today. He told me some stuff about Faraz Hamzad. And about you.

  Harold Harper : Mm-hmm.

  Angela Adams : Well, is it true? I mean, what the hell is this really all about?

  Harold Harper : [stops reviewing documents, turns to face Adams]  This is the end of a very long story, in which I'm not sure anyone's ever really known the answer to that question. Right now, I just want to make sure the damn thing ends, so I can go home. Make sure you get some sleep, you hear?