After five long years since the first film, The Old Guard 2 is finally here.
Released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the film’s predecessor was based on the graphic novels of the same name, following a group of immortal mercenaries as the first new immortal since the 1800s wakes up from a knife wound that should have killed her. While the film itself is entertaining, albeit messy and backed by a grating soundtrack, the romantic relationship between two of the film’s core characters captured viewers’ hearts.
Fighting on opposite sides of the war during The First Crusade, Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli) killed each other, only to both wake up from their respective injuries. Thus begins a love story that has withstood nearly a millennium, bringing them to the 21st century smitten with each other and willing to protect one another no matter the costs.
For a genre that has frequently disregarded queer stories and characters, the palpable love between these two men was blatantly displayed, which still feels nothing short of groundbreaking in 2025. They hold each other in their sleep, make declarations of love to each other in the wake of homophobic jokes from their captures, and seal their love with a burning kiss.
In the five years since the release of The Old Guard, the pair have amassed 7,454 fanworks written about them on fanfiction site Archiveofourown.org, which for a standalone film, is a hefty number.
All of this is to say that Joe and Nicky’s impact on the legacy of the first film was immense, and it withstood the drawn out production of the sequel, thanks to these dedicated fans. After such a long time between films, fans of the "Immortal Husbands” were delighted when the trailer was finally released, yet the dynamic duo seemed to be relegated to the background.
Unfortunately, the screentime Joe and Nicky get in the trailer is indeed equivalent to the screentime they get in the film.
While Andy (Charlize Theron) is clearly the franchise’s main character, the two were prominent enough in the first film to become fan favorites, and were marketed through poster reveals and tweets from the official Netflix account to continue to pull in viewers that were captivated by this romance.
Instead of getting more attention than they were given in the first film, the couple are nearly erased from the sequel entirely, disappearing for 10-minute intervals at a time, so much so that when they pop back up you’re jolted into remembering why you’re watching this film.
In a media climate that is growing more conservative by the day, the absence of Joe and Nicky in The Old Guard 2 means there is a startling lack of queerness throughout the entire film.
I’m not talking about homoerotic tension here, as Andy and Quynh (Veronica Ngo) have a palpable chemistry that simmers between them each time they’re on screen, but rather a fleshed out queerness that isn’t afraid to show itself, displayed in front of its audience with pride.
While Joe and Nicky were previously always seen either holding hands, or gazing at each other over battlefields, they feel more like brothers-in-arms in this film than they do a couple. They give each other side-hugs like dude-bros do, and speak to each other in a stilted way that doesn’t emulate two men who have loved each other for nearly 1000 years.
Building upon the love declaration that made the couple so famous back in 2020, The Old Guard 2 does a slight rehashing right at the end of its second act, after the two men have already disappeared from a majority of the film.
At the end of his speech, Nicky tells Joe, “What I feel when I see you—when I see your heart. That’s truly immortal.” Marinelli delivers this monologue with a passion that the film is frankly undeserving of, and Kenzari responds to his words with some charmingly tender looks. Yet the speech doesn’t feel earned, and it’s the only glimpse of full-fledged romance we get from these two in this sequel.
In having Nicky profess his undying love to Joe, it’s impossible not to think about the monologue delivered by his lover in The Old Guard, which was sealed with a heady and passionate kiss.
Here, there is a shocking lack of physical affection between the two men before or after this declaration, and instead of a kiss we watch as they nudge their foreheads together. While the first film leans heavily into the love shared between them, this second film instead leans away from any direct display of queerness, almost as if the director and actors were forced to tone it down.
This moment between them feels like a desperate plea to fans to remember how prominent this romance once was, rather than an authentic proclamation between two men who are about to go into battle.
While Joe and Nicky disappear to God knows where, the relationship between Andy and Quynh takes center stage. Though it does feel undeniably queer, it is also sanitized in a way that the first film and original graphic novels never were. The fight scenes between them are infused with sexual tension, but in 2025, is that enough?
The same can be said for the film’s final act, wherein Joe pushes a man onto Nicky’s sword, which is quite sexy, but not nearly as charged as how the two operated like a well oiled machine in the first film. Each interaction between queer lovers in this movie doesn’t feel like on-screen representation that exists in the 21st century, rather one which exists in the era of the Hays Code, a direction which modern media inches closer towards each year.
By the end of The Old Guard 2, Joe and Nicky are the first immortals to be captured once again, doused in liquid nitrogen and kidnapped by Discord (Uma Thurman).
While the film’s middling climax sets up the franchise to be a trilogy, with Netflix’s streak of cancellations, the fate of these two characters hangs in limbo. If this is where we’re meant to leave these lovers, it’s a shame that it’s in a film where their relationship feels like a blip in the story rather than an exploration of how love and queerness can withstand the test of time.
Queer relationships in action and superhero media are scarce already, and with The Old Guard it felt like we were moving towards a landscape that welcomed some well-needed change. Instead of continuing with the precedent that it set, the franchise’s second film regresses to the point of confusion, muddling Joe, Nicky, and their relationship beyond redemption.
