The Bad!
I don’t like to single out one particular actor for criticism, but then at the same time, if I feel someone was cast and not performing at the same standard as their colleagues, I have to talk about it. In this case I am referring to Abbie Cornish who plays Cathy Mueller, the love interest and eventual wife of Jack Ryan. Season 1 takes us to the very beginning of Cathy and Jack’s relationship and for the most part stays fairly faithful to the source novels. Cathy is the daughter of Joe Mueller, Ryan’s ex-boss in Wall Street. Joe thinks Ryan is naïve and stupid for not using the immense talent he has for finances to make a killing in the markets. Ryan however, feels that making money is not as important as using his skill set to help people and this gets further complicated as Ryan then falls for his daughter Cathy.
The only real change from the novels is that Cathy was an eye doctor and instead here is a specialist in infectious diseases, it’s not a major change, but it allows the writers to force a situation into the plot, which was, in my opinion, unnecessary. However, the actual problem with Cathy is not what kind of doctor she is, the problem is the performance of Abbie Cornish just didn’t quite come up to the level of her co-stars . This became so noticeable for me, that I started turning off emotionally and intelligently in any Cathy scenes towards the end of the Season. I am not saying they miscast the role as I have never seen Cornish in anything else, but whatever the reason, they really need to work on this in Season 2. Right now I feel like you could have replaced Cornish with a cardboard cut-out and still gotten the same emotional range. I am not saying Abbie Cornish cannot act, I just didn’t like the actor in this role.
There was also a couple more decisions that bothered me about the story and one other piece of casting, I’ll start with the other casting issue. Where is John Clark?
Now, if anyone has read a Jack Ryan novel, then you will have heard of John Clark. Ryan is not a field agent, or a great warrior, he is the brains. The muscle of the novels was always John Clark, who is probably my favourite secondary character in the books, even though he does not appear in them all. Clark is a soldier, Clancy even wrote a prequel book showing how Clark went from being a Vietnam Vet into a wet work agent for the CIA. Clark also started the Rainbow Six squad (You may have heard of the video games based on this team), and over the years becomes a trusted ally of Jack Ryan and a mentor for his son Jack Jr.
However, there was no mention of John Clark in Season 1 of Jack Ryan. There was however, a very similar character called Matice, played by John Hoogenakker who I just assumed was Clark at first. Now it is possible that this character will be revealed to be really John Clark some time in later seasons as the character even tells Ryan he chooses a different name for each country he visits. All I will say is, please Amazon, don’t remove Clark, have this guy be John Clark and build up the relationship between the two men through Jim Greer like they do in the novels.
Plot-wise, whilst overall the main story was pretty good, there were a couple of subplots that seemed to come out of nowhere and then disappear without any real consequences. One of these I mentioned above was the decision to have Jim Greer be a Muslim, but there was a far worse offender. There is a subplot that at first seems right out of one of Clancy’s books, but just goes nowhere. It revolves around a pilot who, instead of flying planes like he always wanted, sits in a trailer and pilots drones. The pilot begins to feel a sense of detachment from his actions as he just pushes a button in safety and watches people die.
This pilot then has an encounter at a Casino with a strange couple and he ends up sleeping with the wife while her husband watches. The husband then proceeds to beat on the pilot afterwards and then leaves him and is never seen again. It really doesn’t fit with any other part of the story and served zero purpose. What I thought was going to happen was that this pilot was going to get compromised and used by clandestine agents to abuse his power in some way, as that’s how Clancy would have written it. Instead, it just fizzles out and ends with the pilot visiting a man in Syria whose son he accidentally killed. It literally does not connect in any way to the rest of the story in this season, in fact if you cut this entire plot out, you’d probably have seven instead of eight episodes and we wouldn’t know the difference.
And The Future!
Amazon, use the novels as a guide, even if you don’t follow the dated plots. Notice how Clancy develops Ryan as he gets older until the point Ryan ends up as the POTUS in later novels. Also, don’t have every season be a terrorist plot. Sure, it’s relevant to today’s CIA, but it has the risk of becoming quite stale and repetitive. Jack finds a terrorist planning an attack, Jack stops attack, move onto next season. If Amazon go down that route for all future season then the show will get dry and stale and I will stop watching it. One of the things Clancy did really well in the books was to explore the intelligence game at super state level.
There is a Jack Ryan book called The Bear and the Dragon, and this book revolves around a new Chinese hard-line Government who are trying to start a war with Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The stakes and risks seem to be heightened when you are fighting against an enemy that has as good resources as you do. My worry is that Amazon will shy away from portraying other big nations in a negative light, but I implore you Amazon, this kind of content is needed to allow this show to progress beyond being a copy of 24. Season 1 ends with Jim Greer moving to a new post and I sincerely hope this instigates a change of plot and scenery in Season 2.
Conclusions!
Overall, this was much better than I expected it be and it engaged me from episode 1 right through to the finale. A few criticism aside I think anyone who has a passing interest in serious spy thrillers or is a fan of the Jack Ryan novels will get a kick out of this show. My only worry is that they won’t progress the story enough over succeeding seasons to keep the viewers engaged time and time again, I hope I am wrong. Amazon, whatever you do for Season 2, please do not have the protagonists be Islamic terrorists. Feel free to use that again where needed, but Season 2 needs a change of pace, which most studios would be reluctant to make, unfortunately.
I really enjoyed Jack Ryan, but there was also a few minor wrinkles, which I hope they smooth out. Give the show a shot and let us know what you thought of Jack Ryan Season 1 in the comments below, along with anything else Jack Ryan related.
Grade: A –
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