This is the last review of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old To Die Young, a 10-part series focusing on assassins, Mexican cartels and everything else under the LA neon lights. Starring Miles Teller, the series has been at times a frustrating watch but I made it. I’m both relieved and sad to be leaving this series behind, but something tells me it’s going to be lingering in my mind for a while still.
At the end of episode 8, “The Hanged Man”, Jesus killed Martin Jones, played by Teller, and pulled the rug out from under us all. To kill your protagonist with two more episodes to go? That is a bold move from NWR and I applaud it. I’m not sure what this series is anymore and it’s an exhilarating feeling, not knowing where we’re headed now. It’s wild and it makes things exciting again. I was sure there was going to be a massive showdown between Jesus and Martin at the end of episode 9 or 10 and the series would end with one of them dead, one of them alive, possibly even redeemed from all the bad things they’ve done.
And now I have no idea what’s going to happen.
The Empress
Episode 9, “The Empress”, begins with Diana on the floor unconscious. She’s having strange visions, filled with fire, chaos and violence. When she wakes up, her eyes have turned to chrome and she seeks help from an old friend who heals her. Diana says she saw a woman in the middle of the destruction in her vision; could this be Yaritza? It’s definitely Yaritza, right? The High Priestess of Death who has been slaying men who have wronged women. Maybe Yaritza is the key to saving the world, which is being destroyed by patriarchy.
Elsewhere Jesus and Yaritza are into some kinky roleplay where Yaritza pretends to be Jesus’ mother and they end up having sex in a room filled with pictures of Magdalena. Jesus is having sex with his mother while being watched over by his mother. Creepy.
As mentioned before, the Tarot cards are a big influence in the series, not only for the episode titles but also in the duality seen throughout the series. In Tarot, The Empress signifies motherhood, but reversed it can mean emptiness and neediness. Both certainly apply here. Jesus has taken his mommy issues to another level with this roleplay. He’s trying to fill the void left by his mother with Yaritza whom he needs to take care of him but also to control, like all men feel compelled to control their women as if they’re their property.
Later at a meeting Jesus orders the cartel to conduct more violence, more rape. He wants destruction and he wants it now. Yaritza listens to one of the girls tell the cartel about The High Priestess of Death. She’s becoming a legend, a myth, only she’s made out of flesh and blood rather than old stories. She’s somewhat of a mother figure to the lost souls she saves, the poor women abused by the cartels and sold off to be mercilessly raped and further abused. Yaritza is the saving angel, who simultaneously satisfies her own hunger for violence and her need to do something powerful and meaningful.
It all feels remarkably ordinary, or at least as ordinary as anything gets in anything NWR does. Violence is the norm here, a currency. No thought is spared for poor Martin Jones or his girlfriend Janey who got shot through the eye after a romantic date to the beach. Martin was hacked to death with a machete. He’s currently in a bin somewhere, in pieces. And no one mentions it.
Moving On
Viggo isn’t doing much better. He is close to death and so is his Alzheimer-ridden mother. He muses once again about God, religion and the human condition, our nature. He takes out his fake eye, gives it to his mother who eats it. She then dies peacefully, holding that same eye in her hand. How did that get there?
It’s a strange sequence; there’s almost a dreamlike, hazy quality to it, like it might not be real. It’s poetic and moving, a tender moment in between all the violence. The lack of dialogue apart from Viggo’s monologue gives the sequence a magical, surreal feel. It’s intoxicating, all the slowness and stillness we see in Too Old To Die Young.
Viggo is devastated and angry. Whether anyone knows Martin is dead is questionable; has Viggo figured it out yet? Maybe they know, maybe they don’t. Maybe it doesn’t even matter to them, because nothing outside their own destructive needs matters anymore. Viggo might be the most tragic character of them all; he has lost everyone apart from Diana. Martin was supposed to take over from him, continue his work, the purging of the world from the evils within. Well, that certainly won’t happen now.
So Viggo goes looking for trouble. He wants to hurt people, he wants to kill people, he wants to destroy people, things and places. He has a need to completely obliterate everything in his way. Diana advises him on a town full of rapists and Viggo lets it rain, so to speak. In a glorious sequence, Viggo destroys the entire town in operatic proportions. Trailers, people and sets explode, people meet their makers and it’s all so big and pompous. It’s a fun sequence, but NWR is better with the more vicious stuff, like severed hands and blood spraying from arteries. Simple fights are where he shines, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t cackle maniacally during this sequence.
John Hawkes is a force to be reckoned with here. He layers his performance with so much sorrow and loneliness it’s almost unbearable. He plays it straight but there’s so much going on at the same time. Little gestures, like his refusal to look up, to look people in the eyes, say more than any piece of dialogue NWR could ever come up with.
The episode ends with Diana in a café waiting for Viggo. She orders pie and converses with the waitress, who would like to take the last of the cherry pie to her grandmother. Diana asks if she knows the real story behind Little Red Riding Hood, who killed the wolf after the wolf raped her. She didn’t need a Huntsman to save her; she had herself. The erasure of women heroes from narratives to serve patriarchy is sure to hit a nerve with feminists and it is nice to see women left standing at the end.
The question now is, what will happen to Jesus? Where will Yaritza end up?
The World
The last episode is only 30 minutes long and possibly the most surreal thing NWR has produced. Barely an episode, it feels like an epilogue for the two women of the series. Or at least the only two women who didn’t die. Whether NWR considers this work feminist or hopeful for women is questionable. On one hand, the men are destructive and doomed, usually by their own hand and women come out on the other side stronger. On the other hand, there’s an endless amount of abuse and violence inflicted upon female bodies.
The first part of the episode focuses on Diana who masturbates on her bed with a VR headset who gives her strict, if clinical instructions on what to do. She then calls in sick to work and wildly dances in her house to Goldfrapp’s “Ooh La La”. It’s a wildly feminine moment; a dance that’s not seductive, not choreographed to appeal to the male gaze but full of freedom and bodily autonomy. She simply moves in ways her body was designed, in the ways it can.
Diana later sits on a chair and monologues (god, NWR really loves a good monologue) about the state of the world but the words seem directed at America specifically. She speaks of concentration camps, how hate will be rewarded and incest, molestation and paedophilia will be praised. It’s all too painfully familiar from the news.
And just like that she’s gone and we move on to Yaritza, who joins other Mexicans at a cartel. She asks one of the women there if she knows a song about The High Priestess, which she does and Yaritza asks her to sing it. While the woman sings, Yaritza stares the men down. The song ends and Yaritza pulls her guns out, executing all the men. She then leaves, moving on to the next location to continue her journey and purpose.
It’s over. The end. Time to go home, everyone.
It’s a deliciously frustrating ending. I would expect nothing less from NWR. What happened to Viggo? Jesus? Literally anyone? I don’t know, but I know I already want to dive back into this series. I am deeply in love with it, but I also equally deeply hate it. I hate that it doesn’t give me straight answers or even ask the questions I want. It’s not NWR’s most refined work and it certainly is a hard watch; 13 hours of this is no joke and should not be attempted to watch like I did, all in one go.
Overall though, Too Old To Die Young features impressive performances from Miles Teller, John Hawkes, Cristina Rodlo and Augusto Aguilera, who plays Jesus and injects him with every bit of hatred and insecurity he needs to be a fascinating and multi-layered character. It’s not the most outrageous or the most violent stuff we’ve seen from the controversial Danish director but it’s much richer and deeper than one can attempt to comprehend in one watch. Too Old To Die Young is a series to be savoured, mulled over and discovered again and again.
What did you think of Too Old To Die Young? Were you frustrated by that ending? Let us know in the comments!
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