And there’s now a release date! “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan returns 11/1”
I could never get past the boring episodes that spent the whole time ignoring Jack and instead following the comings and goings of some terrorist family. Guess who doesn’t care about the domestic problems of a terrorist? Me.
If I hear good things about season 2 I might watch the season 1 finale just to prep for season 2 and go from there.
Amazon dropped Season 2 a day early. It’s available now.
I’m pretty excited about this, I remember really enjoying season 1, but I can’t remember a thing about it. Hopefully they have a recap at the top of episode one!
I watched one episode! I should probably get back to that.
Oh, perfect, thanks!
@Scotch_Lufkin I decided that the Amazon Video summary of Season 1 was too short (it needed to be about 3 times as long), so I went looking for some better summaries.
Wikipedia has about a paragraph on each of the episodes, combined with the Amazon Video, it might be enough depending on how much detail your want.
I found a much more detailed summary here, with full one page summaries for each of the Season One episodes.
Oh, hey, thanks for the legwork. I was going to start watching this tomorrow so I may dive into the additional details on the wiki while I’m at work.
Okay, I watched the first three episodes and there doesn’t seem to be much connection to Season One, so I think you’ll be fine just going in cold. They reference what Jack did in Season One a few times and it might be helpful to remember that Jim Greer was sent to Moscow at the end of Season One, but that’s pretty much it. Someone watching Season Two without watching Season One would be no worse off than someone watching the movie “Clear and Present Danger” without having watched the “Patriot Games” movie.
It does make sense in that they pretty much cleared up lose ends in Season One so there wasn’t a lot they needed to carry into Season Two.
Generally enjoying the show, my one complaint is, I find it hard to believe that real CIA operatives exercise such poor information security. People are carrying important files around in people’s houses, in hotel rooms, and are discussing details of their work out in public in bars and restaurants in foreign countries.
And you get that Season 1 stuff in the opening.
Watched the first two last night. Fun so far.
The first part of the season 2 is fun/exciting, the ending just feels rushed, and is plain dumb and unbelievable.
So I liked season 1 of this, but season 2 seemed to want Jack Ryan to be Jason Bourne. The Jack Ryan of season 1, and the books, doesn’t go looking for firefights. He may occasionally find himself in one, but he’s not a soldier any more.
Not only did they change his entire nature in season 2 to a bloodthirsty mercenary, the entire plot didn’t make sense.
So it all boiled down to the fact that Venezuela found some unobtanium and was going to mine it. That’s not illegal in any way. Launching satellites isn’t illegal. Using them to find minerals isn’t illegal. Shipping containers filled with mining equipment isn’t illegal.
So what the fuck was this all about? And why did Jack Ryan have to fly to Venezuela to go photograph some containers in the jungle? Use a drone and take photos from the air as they take the equipment out. What was the big rush?
Not to mention this was all so parochial. Whoopee, we saved democracy in Venezuela. We found out there’s a big supply of some minerals there. We found out that a US senator was apparently part of the operation to mine it. Who gives a shit? From what I remember of the books, every one had a multinational plot with big threats. This was a bad President.
And that last episode. What the hell?! US soldiers invading the Presidential Palace of a sovereign nation? I feel like they should have been arresting Jack along with the Senator for war crimes. They rolled in there and murdered tons of security guards, many of whom probably didn’t know anything about the President’s crimes.
It’s not like they had the US President held captive in there. A mid-level CIA operative doesn’t get a mission like that to get him out. They wait out the election, see what happens, and then negotiate his release.
So many other gripes, but damn, this season sucked.
Yeah, I’ve stalled after episode 3 and I also enjoyed the first season. I’d agree that the character seems a lot less interesting - as you say “Bourne-light”. Overall the show doesn’t feel as complex / intelligent as the first season and since that one was solid but not a home run, that leaves season 2 plodding along.
Same take thus far. I get they’re basically inserting a heavily-tweaked Clear and Present Danger into this, but even the film version had Ryan as less action-hero than this does. It’s not bad per se, just a little jarring. Also, the whole “gotta open up the rest of the containers” bit was a little stupid, imho, along with him apparently coming along merely to be the designated guy who uses a geiger counter.
I’m on episode 4. Uber leaving the boat was the stupidest thing ever.
Episodes 7-8: “Hold my beer”.
Whoever wrote season 2 got the wrong memo. They thought it was supposed to be a vigilante superhero story, that’s how they wrote Ryan and company, and then someone was like “oh shit this is supposed to be spy stuff”. At least, that’s the only way I can see how this premise leads to this terrible of a plotline.
Hold crap, you’re not kidding. Finally finished this up and … I’ll just be recommending the self-contained season 1 to people new to the show.
Just adding my voice to the chorus of the damned, this season was terrible.
Amazing how stupid and ridiculous and just unbelievable the writing on this was.
Just a single example: the presidential palace of Venezuela has no air defenses?