Too Old To Die Young’s Shocking Episode 8 Death Explained

Here’s the shocking character death from Too Old To Die Young episode 8 explained. Director Nicolas Winding Refn scored a critical and commercial success with his stylish thriller Drive in 2011, which was praised for its performances and style. It’s probably one of the director’s most accessible projects too, with the bulk of his other work being somewhat nihilistic in tone. He was offered various major blockbusters in the wake of Drive’s success such as Spectre but turned them down to make the polarizing Only God Forgives instead.

Other notable Nicolas Winding Refn movies and TV shows include 2016’s The Neon Demon and Too Old To Die Young. The latter is an Amazon Prime miniseries, which Refn co-created with Ed Brubaker. The series mostly revolves around Miles Teller’s cop, who sidelines as a vigilante and is drawn into a bloody world that also features Mexican cartels and the Yakuza. Too Old To Die Young cast Augusto Aguilera, Jena Malone and Cristina Rodlo in other major roles, with the series receiving a predictably divisive response when it debuted.

Some reviews praised the style and themes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old To Die Young, while others found it shallow and that it wallowed in graphic violence. The latter is an element the series didn’t hold back on, with the show arguably being the bloodiest project of Refn’s career – which is saying something. This extended to its main characters too, with Too Old To Die Young episode 8 “The Hanged Man” seeing Miles Teller’s Martin meeting a gruesome end.

His killer is Jesus Rojas (Augusto Aguilera), who also killed Martin’s partner when the series began. Jesus later learns Martin is the one responsible for killing his mother, so in Too Old To Die Young episode 8 he kidnaps him and has his girlfriend Janey shot. Jesus then ties Martin up and announces Janey’s death before revealing he intends to beat him up for three days straight, before killing him.

While most TV shows or movies might feature Martin trying to escape or someone coming to his rescue at the last moment, Too Old To Die Young has no such reprieves. The barely alive Martin is finally untied in his final scene, and after Jesus teasingly traces his machete blade around his neck, he viciously decapitates him – which happens off-camera – before proceeding to hack up his body. It’s a cold, disturbing ending for one of the show’s most important characters, and even following his demise, no revenge is sought. Given the bleak tone of Refn’s noir series – and the trail of corpses the character himself has left behind up to that point – Martin was never destined for a happy ending.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

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He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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