Jack Ryan

I had always wondered why John Krasinski had been cast in this role. I mean, dude is jacked, but even totally muscular he still looks like, well, someone who'd work in an office and be a bit of a laugh. But I hadn't realised that Jack Ryan is just that: a slightly loveable, deeply moral person with a military background, sure, but whose real talents lie in their analytical mind and ability to piece people together. He's an analyst. He needs to not look totally out of place holding and using a gun, but really, he want to be a slightly dorky dude. And Krasinski nails that, completely. When he needs to be serious and look like he knows exactly how to handle himself, he can. But the rest of the time, he gets to play into the righteousness and the brilliance of the character, navigating problems first with logic and empathy, second with action. It's a nice change of pace for an "action hero" character.

That alone would have been a pleasant surprise, but the plot is actually pretty damn decent too. Sure, it's another "Muslim decides to wage holy war on the West because of past military atrocities", and the show is not subtle about the Bin Laden parallels and jamming home the whole "boy howdy the US sure does make its own future nightmares more often than it solves issues, oh boy!" message. But it's not necessarily wrong to do so, and it's slightly refreshing to see a main character actively point out how a) by operating in morally bleak ways the US can't really claim to be helping the world, and b) that just because someone appears to fit a specific profile, doesn't mean they do. And that's where the clever bits come in. Having Suleiman be raised in France, be radicalised in prison (for taking the fall for this brother), and be tolerant towards Muslims regardless of "tribe", all go to paint a slightly unique picture. The show uses this uniqueness well, both to criticise French racial tensions and ideologies, and US interventionist policies. More than once, characters in the Middle East quite rightly point out that they cannot afford the kind of moralising that those in the leafy suburbs of Paris or DC can, and that's coming from both sides of the supposed conflict.

And then they give us side stories that dive into Suleiman's past, his deep connections with his brother, the racism he directly experiences trying to break into the world of finance, his wife and her own struggles (and the entire fleeing plot), and only on top of these many layers do they give us the terrorism angle. His actions are nuanced, considered, and methodical, and ultimately largely undone by his own humanity, and that of those around him, with the love for his son being a big one. We may consider their plans monstrous, but the show does a good job of highlighting that the actions taken against him, that led him here, are also monstrous, arguably equally so. It doesn't hurt that the plan is actually well thought through and kind of novel. Using one attack to architect a larger one is a clever methodology. Using it to ensure the POTUS will be in a fixed location for a given amount of time, also clever. It feels grounded, believable, and interesting.

Against this backdrop, Ryan is an unusual leading man. I've already mentioned the whole analyst-vs-action hero, but his moralising also feels, at times, naive. And that naivety costs lives, something he's all too aware of. Then there's his backstory, and that of Greere, both of which are handled well to build their respective characters and deepen their connection to one another. Both men have spent their lives trying to help other people, and have reached slightly opposing albeit complimentary conclusions. He can be infuriating, but he's rarely wrong, and Krasinski plays him well, giving him moments to savour his moral victories that can't help but make you smile along too.

The result is a riveting, nuanced, and intriguing mix. Throw in an odd, but brilliantly performed subplot about a military drone operator trying to come to terms with the morality of his purported mission, and the show takes an interestingly complicated stance on US exceptionalism and military strategy. It's clear that both Ryan and Greere believe that it is both right and correct for America to be taking such an active stance in international affairs – a stance that other characters actively voice dissent for – but the series still takes time to explore the other side of that coin. It's not black and white: American foreign affairs are to blame for much in the world, but they have also helped prevent much as well.

Having stuck the landing on the first big adventure, I'm intrigued to see where they take the characters – and the moralising – next.

I've not seen a show slide so far so fast in quite some time. After a clever, interesting, and relatively well-thought-through first season, the second is boring, predictable, largely pointless, and often bizarrely gratuitous. At best you could chalk this up to American military propaganda, the kind of gung-ho nonsense the first season flirted with but largely turned on its head, mainly through our titular character actually having a backbone and some decent morality for us. But alas, between the end of season one and the start of season two Jack Ryan appears to have entered American politics, and with that any character development (or likeable characteristics) seem to have been lost. The love interest is gone with nary a comment; the jobs (both of them) are skated over with little reason; he's now a lecturer and a political aide for reasons that are never entirely clear; and yet they manage to shoehorn all of the other ooh-ra cameos from the first season back in. Of course, Ryan isn't the only one whose personality has been removed to allow for more action and Americana. Greere is still as salty and bitter as before, but now he has a heart condition – that's it, that's the character development. And the random marine from the first season whose only interesting characteristic was constantly changing his name is back, now with a fixed name and possibly a family, but don't worry he's really just here to die a heroic and largely pointless death. I say it again: ooh-ra!

Like season one, we also get some inconsequential arcs with side characters. But whereas these were previously used to critique American military strategy and humanise those who serve the country by allowing them to show emotion and remorse, to empathise with the people who they are trained to consider as barely more consequential than insects, this season we get, what? An ex-military dude who gets convinced to come along because he's "good with boats" who spends less than ten minutes in a boat, doing very little anyone else could do, and then arbitrarily runs off into the jungle, has his beacon pickpocketed by a local kid, and basically causes a chain of events that almost creates a new dictatorship. He's not given any real character or growth, unless you count "gets to be in the military again" as growth somehow. I'm not really sure why any of that subplot exists, to be honest. He could have just been one of the troops, there are two others who get far less screen time and about as much depth. And then there's the whole German spy/hit man love triangle thing which... I just... no. It's dumb. It's all dumb. And very unnecessary. I guess it gives us the only fun characters of the entire show: hitman's daughter and random MI5 agent who couldn't really give a fuck, and it lets Printworks cameo, but that doesn't redeem it much at all.

At its core, the problem here is that Ryan is now just some tough guy American who thinks every problem can be solved with a gun. Sure, they pay lip service to the fact that he's an analyst, and he's allowed a mood board with string for a handful of shots, but gone is the analytical, moral, almost overly self-righteous man of the first season. Instead, he's just out for revenge, killing anyone in his way with barely any qualms. This is a dude who had almost an entire episode devoted to the morality of having a sex trafficker as a guide now genuinely having to be talked down from assassinating the leader of another nation and calmly mowing down scores of his staff, bodyguards, and guests without hesitation. There's not argument here about justification, apart from some vague talk about revenge for a character who is given a dozen speaking lines and we're supposed to care. It's just dumb. And not helped by the overtly Americana-infused plot around Venezuela and the triumph of democracy. The show almost seems oblivious to the fact that everything deemed "good" about the ending was on track to happen without any of the core cast being involved, and all they really achieved was coming close to fucking it all up, getting a bunch of POWs and other civilians killed, and fundamentally destabilising a foreign country. They don't even tell the incoming president about the whole mining resource thing.

This can all be neatly summarised with the subplot around the General, our proto-dictator's childhood best friend and man of surprising conscience, who Ryan literally strings out to die in order to possibly flip as an asset. Screw that this is another human being, one who he has no reason to believe is actually all that problematic, and which the show doesn't give any indication is anything but a revolutionary, let's put his and his family's lives in danger in the hope he might be useful to America. Season one would have seen Ryan at least question this line of reasoning, if not outright condemn it. In season two, he suggests it, then utterly forgets about it when it doesn't seem to pan out. The dude is killed because Ryan thought he might be useful. And people are meant to root for this asshole?

I think I will watch season three, mainly out of morbid fascination to see if the downward slide can continue, or whether that brief glimmer of something better that crops up every now and then can be salvaged. But I'm not expecting to be pleasantly surprised.

Has the show fully redeemed itself? No. Ryan is a still a moody prick, he's just less moody and actually shows some semblance of a moral compass which isn't simply "if it's good for America, it's good for me" imperialist bullshit. And whilst the previous season was pretty solid in its realism around languages, frequently having large sections in Spanish, this time out in Eastern Europe and Russia we get nothing but English (they don't even bother giving some people an accent; I sweat some of the Russian Navy sound like they went to Eton).

But the plot isn't completely stupid. And whilst our main American "heroes" are still as two-dimensional and increasingly cookie-cutter as last time (seriously, the hell have they done to Greere, the man's lost all grit), the supporting cast are surprisingly nuanced and intriguing. The main villain is still a little boring, even if I enjoyed the last minute twist with the Russia Defence Minister, but both the Czech President and the ex-KGB commander were brilliantly played and quite interestingly written. And that whole "explode the bomb under the tunnel bit"? Or the actually nail-biting homage to the near-miss in the Cuban Missile Crisis (particularly from the Russian perspective, with the young second-in-command stepping up for humanity)? Or even the very concept of the "Seven Days to the Rhine" (which is based in historic fact)? Yeah, there was some interesting plot moments here, much more like the first season.

Jack himself remains a deeply disappointing character. Maybe I just read what I wanted to read into him in the first season, but I liked the idea of an analyst with Marine training. This knock-off Mission Impossible star or grounded James Bond is just a bit dull, and lacks any of the humour of the former or swagger of the latter. But perhaps if this wasn't the third season, and if we hadn't had his entire mentality yo-yo around so crazily during that time, perhaps that wouldn't bother me as much. I've seen what he could be, but what he's become isn't as bad as it has been, either. Passable, even.

Although that said, I read the blurb for the first episode of season four and I'm not sure I can be bothered. It sounds super dumb 😅