The Old Man (TV Series)

VI (2022)

Amy Brenneman: Zoe McDonald

Photos 

Quotes 

• Dan Chase : [sets a pen on a cocktail napkin on Zoe's seat tray]  Write your name on there.

  Zoe : Why?

  Dan Chase : Go on.

  Zoe : Which one?

  Dan Chase : Your real one.

  [Zoe writes on the cocktail napkin] 

  Dan Chase : This is something I used to do early on to help me get my head straight before I stepped into a new op. Yeah, all right. Now, put it in there. Yeah, go on, in the water. Yeah.

  [ink runs on submerged cocktail napkin] 

  Dan Chase : Now, see, your name... is still in there somewhere. But it's got to let go of you for a while, and you got to let go of it. Huh? When you walk out the door, it stays behind, you know? And you figure out a way to put it back together again when it's time.

  Zoe : Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but that seems like a problematic metaphor.

  Dan Chase : Oh?

  Zoe : This isn't reversible. In any way. Whate... whatever this is, it can't go back to what it was.

  [momentary wry smile appears on Chase] 

  Zoe : Oh... I see. That's the price you pay for your line of work.

  Dan Chase : Um, that's the price you pay for waking up in the morning.

  [hands water glass to flight attendant] 

  Flight attendant : Merci, monsieur.

  Dan Chase : [sighs]  Everything's in free fall, all the time.

  [exhales] 

  Dan Chase : We're not wired to cope with that, so we've all agreed to *pretend* that it isn't happening. But it is.

• Zoe : I want to understand how your world works. Will you explain it to me?

  Dan Chase : Lesson number one. All tradecraft is waged wielding two weapons in concert. In your left hand, uh, is your empathy. Your ability to read people, know what they want, what they need. What they fear. What, uh, may give them hope. Cause them shame. And then, uh, in your other hand... you've got your ruthlessness. The willingness to use all that insight against them, uh... And when both of those two knives are sharp, you'd be amazed what they can cut through.

  Zoe : And that's something you're taught?

  Dan Chase : Mm-hmm. Well, a little bit. But I learned by doing, mostly.

  Zoe : Emotionally carving strangers to pieces through trial and error sounds messy.

  Dan Chase : Ah, you have no idea.

  Zoe : Don't I?

  Dan Chase : Oh, do you?

  Zoe : The day we met.

  Dan Chase : Mm-hmm.

  Zoe : When you cooked for me, told me stories and were charming, that's what you were doing, wasn't it? Disassembling me to see how I worked? Applying pressure to the seams so that I'd let you stay?

  [pause] 

  Zoe : Was it difficult? Was I difficult to disassemble and manipulate?

  Dan Chase : It's not really a "hard or easy" kind of thing. Everyone's, you know, wired so differently...

  [interrupted] 

  Zoe : It's really a simple question.

  Dan Chase : Yeah, not very hard.

  Zoe : Really?

  Dan Chase : Yeah.

  Zoe : Okay. I really want to know how to do this.

  Dan Chase : You haven't, uh... heard the catch yet, though.

  Zoe : Oh? What's the catch?

  Dan Chase : Uh, the catch...... is that once you turn it on you can't turn it off. Ever. Now every time you meet someone, you get close to someone, you lay eyes on them, you'll be thinking... how easy it would be to use them, you know. Hurt 'em, discard them. And maybe you wonder if, you know, maybe they're doing it to you too, now. Maybe you can never really trust anyone ever again.

  [protracted pause] 

  Dan Chase : Still want me to go on?

  Zoe : Well, friend, I haven't really trusted anyone for a very long time, so why the fuck would I want to start now?