Here’s how the story for The Old Guard 2 is set up by the first movie. Few action films are developed with the intention of being a one-off nowadays, and The Old Guard is no exception. Adapted from the comic book of the same name by by Greg Rucka (who also wrote the film version) and Leandro Fernández, the movie readily lends itself to a sequel or more thanks to its premise, which involves a group of immortal warriors trying to make the world a better place and avoid drawing attention to themselves in the process. And thanks to its popularity on Netflix since it started streaming, the $70 million thriller is bound to give rise to – at least – one more installment.
Crucially, people aren’t just watching The Old Guard because they’re looking for a distraction, they’re genuinely enjoying it (as evidenced by its online user ratings and reviews). Some are even talking about the ways The Old Guard 2 could improve on its predecessor – namely, by diving deeper into its fascinating mythology – while still delivering the efficient, yet brutal, action sequences and emotionally weighty storytelling of the first movie. That ought to come as all the more welcome news to Rucka and director Gina Prince-Bythewood, the latter of whom has confirmed The Old Guard was developed with the end goal of making a trilogy in mind.
For the large part, though, The Old Guard works as a standalone work; it’s only the film’s post-credits scene that feels incomplete without a sequel. Even so, the movie is full of plot threads that lay the groundwork for The Old Guard 2, and it’s fairly easy to see where the story would go from here.
The Old Guard Sets Up Quynh As The Sequel’s Villain
When The Old Guard picks up, its protagonist Andromache “Andy” of Scythia (as played by Charlize Theron) is having a bit of an existential crisis: she’s spent centuries fighting alongside a few other immortal heroes to save the world, yet it never seems to do any good. More than that, she’s haunted by all the pain she’s suffered over time, particularly the loss of Quynh (Van Veronica Ngo), her oldest ally. As the films reveals through flashbacks, the pair fought side by side for who knows how long – until, five hundred years ago, they were imprisoned and tried as witches. When their captors were unable to kill them, they resorted to locking Quynh in an iron maiden and dropped her into the ocean, leaving her to drown over and over again, until she either escaped or died permanently. (We’ll circle back to that later.)
For most of the movie, it’s unclear (even to Andy and her comrades) if Quynh is dead or still trapped at the bottom of the sea…that is, until the post-credits scene, when she shows up in Booker’s (Matthias Schoenaerts) apartment. The tease leaves it to The Old Guard 2 to explain not only how she escaped, but when, and what she’s been up to this whole time. Yet, even without that information, it’s reasonable to assume she wants some kind of revenge on humanity for what they did to her, and will serve as the sequel’s antagonist for, at the very last, a significant portion of the film. She should also make for a much more complicated threat to Andy and her team than The Old Guard‘s primary villain, Steven Merrick (Harry Melling). As enjoyable as it is to to watch the latter, a despicable pharmaceutical CEO who wants to exploit the heroes’ abilities for profit, get his comeuppance in the end, his motivations are far simpler and easier to grasp than Quynh’s are, after everything she’s been through.
The Old Guard 2 Will Feature The Team Working With Copley
In the modern era of surveillance, it’s harder than ever for Andy and her team to stay off the radar. This allows James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a former CIA operative, to track them and deliver information on their whereabouts to Merrick. However, as the movie reveals later on, Copley isn’t motivated by greed: he’s still grieving the death of his wife from ALS and believes that, by letting Merrick and his company harness whatever genetic material gives The Old Guard their super-healing abilities, they will be able to devise medical treatments that prevent needless suffering. Of course, when Copley realizes Merrick is perfectly fine with torturing the heroes to gain that information (even indefinitely, if needs be), he decides to turn against him and help Andy and her team. The film then ends with Copley agreeing to put his know-how to better use and assist the heroes cover their (digital) tracks from now on.
Unmistakably, the intent is for Copley to serve as the team’s “Guy in the Chair” (to quote Ned Leeds from Spider-Man: Homecoming) and assist them in their missions in The Old Guard 2. One presumes those missions could involve everything from rescuing those taken hostage or kidnapped (like Andy and the others aspired to do in the first movie, only to learn they’d been deceived by Copley) to protecting everyday people as they take to the streets to protest social injustices (something they’re shown to have done in the past via the evidence Copley collected of their existence across history). The Old Guard 2 might even offer a glimpse of one or more of those operations before it gets into the conflict between Andy and Quynh. If it turns out the latter has assembled her own team of deadly operatives, Copley’s skill could be all the more essential in aiding Andy and protecting her and the others from being hunted by their enemies (or, alternatively, helping them to locate Quynh).
What Will Booker’s Role In The Old Guard 2 Be?
This also begs the question of how Booker will fit into The Old Guard 2. The original film concludes with him being exiled from Andy’s team for one hundred years, as punishment for Booker betraying them to Copley (in the hopes that Merrick could find a way to end their immortality by their own choosing), only to come face to face with Quynh six months later. Despite being on the outs with Andy and the rest of her crew at the start of the sequel, Booker isn’t necessarily going to be down for whatever vengeful scheme Quynh has been cooking up, and may yet find a way to redeem himself by reaching out and warning Andy of this new danger (even knowing it would mean he violated the terms of his “sentence”). Alternatively, the disillusioned Booker might be inclined to team up with Quynh until he has a change of heart or, in what would be a dark turn for the sequel, evolves into the potential big bad for The Old Guard 3. Whichever way you cut it, the character will be a key part of the second film.
The Old Guard 2 Will Likely Restore Andy’s Immortality
One of the biggest mysteries (nay, the biggest mystery) left unresolved by the end of The Old Guard is what gives Andy and her kind their immortality… and what causes them to lose it with no obvious way of predicting when it will happen, as Andy does part-way through the film. It’s implied their powers could be supernatural in origin: it would certainly explain why the heroes are able to dream of one another before they’ve actually met, and would further account for Andy losing her abilities at a time when, by her own admittance, she could use a reminder of the value of being alive. Upon learning their actions have a much greater positive effect on humankind than they were aware of (thanks to Copley’s research), she, Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli), and new recruit Nile (KiKi Layne) thusly agree to keep on fighting, even now that Andy is mortal.
Thing is, does she have to stay that way? Since she’s come to realize her actions are, in fact, meaningful and being immortal is a burden worth having if you use it to do good, it’s entirely possible Andy will recover her super-healing in The Old Guard 2. A superhero losing their powers only to later regain them, upon accepting the full responsibility that comes with having them, is a trope that’s popped up throughout the genre’s history (with something like Spider-Man 2 being a famous movie example), and it could very well come into play in The Old Guard sequel, as part of the conflict between Andy and Quynh. It might be more interesting from a storytelling perspective if Andy remained mortal and couldn’t fall back on her immortality to protect her when things get dangerous, but if it does happen, it would be difficult to argue the original film didn’t lay any foundation for it.
