Jack Ryan (TV Series) Old Haunts (2022) User Reviews

ok

[Lythas_85 · 6/10 · 23 December 2022]

So the boss babe also burned greer in the past.. check.. so we hating her from the start... she only cares about her career..

russian minister is annoyed by the killing and old dude says they know it wasnt the americans that caused all the trouble... oh boy.

Greer is helping jack behing lady boss back and her on the other hand, is spying on him cause she does not trust him.. jesus.. what is this.. I like it.

So the new defense minister had a hand in killing the old one and also he is friends with the Ukranian's chief of security I guess.. he was the one who rushed and killed the sniper guy.. that was framed.. it was weird him just killing the guy like that instead of trying to take him in and extract info.. but then we understood why now..

and his wife is the one that played that bartender to take her to the soccer game and be the fall guy.. that was lazy because it would have been so easy to track her down.. see who were the last people the guy talked to.. lots of people would have seen her at the bar.. images of her and stuff... but in the end it was played like dude did everything alone and she was safe.. ok

the convenient plot holes that we love, right?

Lady boss telling greer off saying she knew he sent jack money when he was in rome.. received a call from home.. let us bet she is a lesbian too, of course? Lol

on to the next episode.

8/10 Despite

[soapytiger · 8/10 · 31 December 2022]

Why? Because this is the level of suspension-of-disbelief action I have been craving, in addition to its prescient international plot and subject matter. Yes, there were plenty of instances where this, that, or the other are highly implausible (hence the minus 2), but it's the kind of just squeaking by, high wire narrative that's hitting the spot.

I am thrilled the series is back for a third round. One must have the foreknowledge that Tom Clancy character Jack Ryan is evergreen, and like a Weeble: he may wobble, but he won't fall down. It remains exciting to see all the new inventive situations, locations, and ways our hero might extract himself from imminent danger.

From Athens to Prague to Moscow

[lavatch · 8/10 · 22 December 2022]

This episode toggles between Greece, the Czech Republic, and Russia. It is now clear that Dr. Jack P. Ryan is on his own as he seeks to thwart the dastardly plan of a rogue Russian official to potentially start a nuclear war.

Petrov is the oily figure who replaces Popop as Russia's defense minister. The elderly Luka, who carried out the massacre of the Russian scientists in 1969, is able to see clearly the plotting of Petrov. But it is not clear if Luka will be an ally of Petrov. The Russian president actually seems like a stand-up guy.

Alena Kovac, the President of the Czech Republic, believes it was the Russians that killed Popop with the intention of assigning the blame to the Americans. But she is now in a difficult position whether to acquiesce to NATO or continue an alliance with the Russians.

Jack is now in Greece, ably assisted by his friend Tony who runs an auto repair shop. In turn, Jack gets linked up to his old buddy Mike November, who flies him out of Athens. Jack's only other ally is Greer, who is sent to Prague by the duplicitous and ambitious Elizabeth Wright.

...To be continued.

Old Haunts

[bobcobb301 · 6/10 · 23 December 2022]

While this show always tries to give us a little bit of action, this episode was kind of a letdown here. It felt like they did not have a lot of story to tell, and perhaps more pressing it feels like they are going to absolutely push the limits in terms of believability this season. That is disappointing as you could usually tell a fun story somehow in the realm of possibility given what we know about spies.

I do worry about the backstory behind this USSR revival project as we are just two episodes in and they are already getting kind of confusing about the direction they want to take it and who the bad guys are.

Unbelievable

[nnjgqb · 1/10 · 26 December 2022]

The writers of this series have absolutely no clue about geopolitics. A Russian agent giving the Athens police orders? Greece is a NATO member. There is as much chance of this happening as there is a Turkish agent giving them orders. And Turkey is also a NATO member. One of the plot points has Russia casually moving their army into the Ukraine to threaten the Eastern European countries. There is no mention of Ukraine resistance at all. It's as if Ukraine is still a part of the Russian Federation. I'm sorry but I cannot buy what this show is selling. Two episodes was enough to put me off. It's a shame because I enjoyed the previous two series. Goodbye, Jack.

Casting and believability-hit and miss

[owamibuy · 5/10 · 18 March 2023]

The more of this series I see, the more I find that John Kraskinski isn't the best actor for Jack Ryan. He was fantastic for 13 Hours. But not this. Lacks the intensity and emotion of Harrison Ford or even Alec Baldwin. He's calm, collected sand unfazed nearly all the time. There are characters who are well cast and believable - Tony, Mike November, Greer, Luka. It they're mixed with others who aren't. Elizabeth Wright has absolutely no depth of character. She belongs on Law and Order as a district attorney or something.

The screen action seems to do all it can to make Ryan standout. If you're trying to ghost in a major city, a CIA officer isn't going to look like a clean-shaved American tourist with a pompadour and drive a pickup truck. How about a disguise? A vehicle that doesn't shout American. Blend in. Duck if you're 6'4 and trying to hide in a crowd of people who are 5'8. Get out of the city. Gunfire, torture, mortal combat-leaves Ryan with a forehead graze and some scrapes that heal by the next day.

Shows like SEAL Team and Terminal List have gone to great lengths to consult with SEALs to make the shows as accurate as possible. This uses CIA acronyms and lingo but lacks realism for any kind of clandestine activity. Three people acting solo topple the world's biggest threats...one after another.

Ignorant to a fault.

[krissa75 · 5/10 · 5 August 2023]

I liked the first serie and thought the second was already a step down but the start of the third series is really getting on my nerves. We have a series of events and coincidences that are farfetched and not rooted into realism whatsoever.

There also doesn't seem to be a single person with a map or access to wikipedia in the entire writers/producers room. Tom Clancy would scream at the blatant ignorance shown.

* In episode 1 Jack goes with a dingy from the Black Sea to Greece. Greece does not border the Black Sea. If he needed to go to a NATO country he could have gone to Turkey, Romania or Bulgaria. To reach Greece he had to go through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Both narrow straits with heavy traffic.

* In the same episode a 3 megaton nuclear device is called "low yield". "Low Yield" is around 10 kilotons or less. The Hiroshima bomb was 16 kilotons. 3 megaton is larger than almost the entire US arsenal of nuclear devices.

* The Czech Republic is "thinking of joining NATO". They have been members of NATO since 1999.

* The new Russian defence minister threatens the Czech president with an attack through Ukraine. Czechia does not share a border with Ukraine. Russia would have to go through Poland or Slovakia, both in NATO, to do so.

The return of Goldenface

[jgreco7 · 5/10 · 28 December 2022]

John Krasinski returns as CIA analyst and accidental operative Jack Ryan, armed with an Armani suit and a pompadour. Teetering on nerdy, like his "Office" character, he's unconventionally handsome, cozy, and comfy for the home screen. Lacking charisma like all of the former Ryan incarnations, but not as bland as Baldwin and Afleck, or as merely tolerable as Ford and Pine, he appears closer to the model envisioned by its creator Tom Clancy. One of those popular American authors who always took ownership of a novel, Clancy placed his name not above the title, but in it. He had a hyperbolic take on masculinity, unlike that of the urbane Ian Flemming whose alter ego was also charming, witty, and clever--more than just a human punching bag, yet handy too with a Walther PPK. Ryan can be clever, but in a way that reeks of good old American ingenuity. Krasinski even reveals a glimmer of wit, or what passes for a sense of humor (Ford was capable of this as well).

Clancy's franchise is now the property of Amazon, and Krasinski, its titular hero for a third season of action-packed thrills, hushed voices, spy lingo, surprise take outs, and explosions. There are enough bullets and accents to go around, in multiple European locations, where the lines between good, bad, and indifferent crisscross.

In short order, Jack becomes a liability and goes rogue as only he can do. This is how he'll catch other rogues, evil Russians, of course. The optics are bad. But he's got eyes on. Surikov's compromised. Things need to be ascertained. Where's the Sokol nuclear device? How will Ryan extricate himself from this tangle of intrigue? Does he have the intell? Will he prove himself an asset once again? Can he ever forgive the CIA for doubting him?

There is a necessary evil in these espionage thrillers, and not just the Russians: it's the tendency of writers (there's a gaggle of them) to complicate a plot for the sake of authenticity because, after all, evil doing is a complicated business and requires more twists and turns than a pretzel factory. In accordance with the genre, between kills there's always a necessary turn to something human, but decency is in short supply. How many times can a person get hit in the head and still get up to get hit some more? No worries. Jack rebounds quickly, nothing a band aid can't fix. He's back on the case as only a PhD in economics can be.