Review: Jack Ryan – Meh

Jack Ryan is a new Amazon Studios show based on the beloved character from the late Tom Clancy’s books, although the show doesn’t follow the plot of any specific book. John Krasinski (A Quiet Place, The Office) plays the titular character, a marine turned Wallstreet analyst turned CIA financial analyst chasing the money supporting terrorism. After Jack gets a financial lead on a new terrorist on the block, his boss sends him into the field to help gather more evidence and the next thing we know, the mild-mannered desk jockey is racing to stop a terrorist plot.

Things I Loved:

1. I like that Jim Halpert remains a likable dude. Would’ve loved for him to actually have a character in place that had some personality beyond relying on John Krasinski’s natural charisma, but Jack Ryan has always been something of a cipher as a character. So that’s to be expected.
2. I will always love any version of Cathy Ryan (née Mueller) that you give me. Gates McFadden shows up for two seconds before Alec Baldwin makes his way to a submarine? LOVE HER. Keira Knightley proceeds to own Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit? YES. LOVE HER EVEN MORE. Abbie Cornish steps into a hallowed hall of fine actresses playing this part and she manages to do so even though the part is so underwritten it almost enters Sexy Lamp territory. Hey, writers? One of you wrote the travesty that is The Box for Fringe, so maybe get some women writers.
3. Speaking of women, I absolutely loved the humanity we got to see in Hanin and her family. I liked the way they unfolded pieces of her storyline and her background, and her character is absolutely one of the best things about this show and then later on one of this show’s biggest downfalls. But you’ll have to check out the Things I Hated section for that particular rant.
4. Um, DC looked super pretty in all the shots? Like, good production values, A+ to the cinematographer.
5. I like that it’s not a terribly long season.

1. At its core, Jack Ryan is the story of a dude that has been focus-grouped into nebbish pleasantness, one who consistently fails up and who is forever surrounded by characters far more interesting than himself. In the first episode we see him almost cause a car accident (understandably) and being forced to pay for it in front of his new boss, to show that that boss is an unfair “hardass.” This justifies Jack disobeying direct and strident orders and going behind his boss’s back on a hunch that he’s after the next Osama bin Laden. When he’s proven right, instead of facing censure for his actions, he’s rewarded with field work and a chance to prove himself as an action star badass in front of Suleman.
2. I am so absolutely tired of shows building up ridiculous straw-man obstacles (in this case, Jack’s boss) for these mavericks to overcome in the name of heroism. This move is echoed later on with a drone operator who disobeys direct orders from a commanding officer and is rewarded for it as well. I’m tired of it, guys. I promise you it’s possible to write the smartest guy in the room without making him a rule-breaking asshole in order to push his agenda through.
3. Everybody—and I mean everybody—is way more interesting than Jack. Can we please un-kill Sandrine and give her a series instead? She’s been divorced more than three times and you KNOW she has crazy stories to share. A show about Hanin’s journey as she works to establish her family somewhere else and deal with her PTSD would be way more fascinating and eye-opening. I want a show about Greer dealing with his obvious demotion and his faith and this asshole analyst that thinks writing a SQL query makes him sound intelligent! Hell, give me a procedural about Cathy. She can solve fascinating medical problems and there can be a touch of nudge-nudge-wink-wink absurdity whenever her ridiculous husband Jack shows up because, like, it’s obvious he’s been out getting beaten up stopping over-the-top terrorists but it’s just part of their everyday life. Calls to ask him to pick up milk show him chatting with her while in knife fights and de-fusing bombs.
4. What infuriates me most is that the show tiptoes right to the end of a staring contest with interesting nuance about international cooperation and peace—and then it ultimately swerves and unfairly rewards its characters because ‘MURICA, HELL YEAH! Take the—in my opinion annoyingly long—plotline with the drone operator. The show does a really interesting job of showing his PTSD with the fact that he’s pressing a button to kill people, even though these are people are removed from him culturally and distantly. In addition to entirely unnecessary transphobia, his coworker supplies him with a dollar bill for every kill. He saves these bills with the kill number written on each, and the viewer can easily pick up that receiving a new one is traumatizing him. This? This is good and interesting, and it makes a statement about what impact these drone strikes are having on the people behind the trigger (one of the very first scenes in the show showcases the effect the drone strikes have on innocent civilians, and it’s gut-wrenching).But the problem is that instead of sticking to its guns, the show then finds ways to reward this behavior. The drone operator is traumatized by his job of blowing up people far away, but it’s all justified in the end when he blows up Hanin’s would-be rapist and saves the day like a true American cowboy, y’all. He accepts that particular dollar bill with a satisfied smile. Meanwhile, Jack is just an analyst, but somehow he manages to stumble in to discovering Suleiman, thought to be just a bodyguard, is the actual terrorist. He’s the one who tracks down Ali at a gas station in the Alps even though Sandrine—the officer trained for this sort of thing—is right there too. He gets to be the one to heroically take down Ali while Sandrine bleeds out. He gets to be the one to save Hanin and manfully retrieve her son. There’s just this disturbing trend of HELL YEAH AMERICAN HERO saving everybody when the show has so many opportunities to avoid falling into that trap.
5. Freakin’ rape storylines, ya’ll. It is the 2018, Year of our Lord and Savior Gillian Anderson. Can we please just stop using rape threats as storylines? The sequence of Hanin being dragged away from her daughters by a man intent on raping her (we know he’s a bad man because he has gross teeth and he leers, the infidel) just left the worst feeling in my stomach. But don’t worry! As I said before, she’s saved! By an American! Yeah! What made matters worse for me was that I’d just finished watching 12 Monkeys, which managed to be a compelling and amazing TV show that lasted through four seasons of intricately plotted episodes without showing a single sexual threat against any of its kickass lady leads. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan couldn’t even make it four episodes.
6. Biggest sin of all: criminal under-use of Natalie Brown. She’s only in two episodes????? COME ON, LET ME LIVE A LITTLE.

One of the other Nice Girls, Cay, had a different take. You can check out her thoughts here.