Summary
The season premiere of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is an action-packed thriller not to be missed.
A Russian general and his team have arrived at Matoksa, a testing facility where we know the Russians are cooking something deadly. The General meets the group of scientists and technicians. The man in charge of the project delivers the news that the launch test vehicle had a setback and they will need six more weeks. The General understands and congratulates them on a job well done. The man even gives the scientist a handshake. However, when he and his second-in-command leave the facility, he says, in so many words, to take his squadron and eliminate the team. Why? Because it has become too dangerous to continue. A cold war mentality in 1969. What is the project’s name?
Sokol.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan season 3, episode 1 recap
Jack Ryan is now undercover, meeting an asset. Her name is Zoya, and he lights her cigarette. She immediately hands him a small chip that looks like it could go inside any smartphone. Zoya knows Jack is investigating the Sokol project, and now we learn why. She tells him it is a nuclear weapon developed to be undetectable by radar. As we read above, the project was scrapped in 1969 but has now been reactivated. Jack relays the information to James (Wendell Pierce), who appropriately busts his balls in the process. Jack has a new boss who doesn’t like heroes. Her name is Elizabeth Wright (Get Out’s Betty Gabriel), and she likes things done by the book. That’s not Jack’s style, as he went alone on an unsanctioned mission to meet Zoya.
Another subplot is the president of the Czech Republic, Alena Kovac (Tar’s Nina Hoss), has meetings behind the scenes preparing for peace talks with the Russian Minister of Defense, Dmitry Popov (Michael Gor). She is about to meet with them during the meeting of NATO and is between a rock and a hard place. Why? Because she is caught between pacifists and hard-liners. Yet, it turns out that she is being used as a pawn when she continues talking with Popov and escorts him to the biggest football match of the year.
A beautiful blonde woman sits at a bar for a while, waiting for a date that will never come. The bartender hits on her and sees an opportunity to make his move. It happens she has two tickets to the soccer match and was going to surprise the guy with him. So, he pours her a drink then and invites himself. When they arrive at VIP parking, he runs out, exclaiming how they can see the field from here.
That’s when the woman attacks him from behind with a stun gun. While he sleeps, the woman’s partner gets next to the car setting up his sniper rifle. A few moments later, he puts a bullet in Popov’s head while talking to Kovac. When Kovac’s security detail arrives (I initially thought it was Popov’s) where the shot was sent, the bartender is awake, is having trouble moving, and the agents leave the rifle in his hands. The agent puts two bullets into him. Something tells me he is also part of the assassination plot.
Jack has gotten word that Sokol is being delivered on a Russian freighter and has a SOG Team escort. In a great scene, they come on the ship with their SDV (Seal Delivery Vehicle), fire up some harpoons that stick the landing, and take a full 90-degree walk up the massive ship. However, a scientist named Yuri is inside when they locate the cargo. (Jack sees a small breathing tube coming out of the cargo).
They manage to get him off this ship, but barely with our hero having to jump off the ship after holding off a Russian attack. They arrive on the beach with an extraction team waiting for them. Jack then begins to question the scientist. Yuri has worked on Sokol for four years. The weapon is tiny, and he was part of the team working on reflection admissions. So yes, it’s invisible to any radar. He refuses to answer questions further until he is granted asylum. That’s when what we can only imagine is a Russian kill team shows up. They take out the entire team except for Jack and Yuri.
And that doesn’t last for long. When they get into Greece, they are chased again, and when they abandon the car, Yuri is shot in the back when they try to find cover inside an apartment building. Jack drags him up the stairs and safely escorts a father and son from the floor. That’s when the assassins show up, kill Yuri, and Jack runs for his life. As he shoots terrible guys, jumps from rooftops, and through windows, he accidentally shoots a police officer. However, he still reached the safehouse where Elizabeth told him to go, but when he arrived, he spotted a couple of people watching the place. What is going on?
Ending Explained
At least that’s when Jack asks Elizabeth and James when he calls them, wondering why he hasn’t entered yet. Elizabeth tells him that the official line is he entered the country illegally and killed a police officer. “Holy s**t, you’re looking for a fall guy,” he replies. James is wide-eyed, not knowing this is happening. They let him know Popov was killed, and Jack knows that this is the start of seven Clancy’s first assassination of the defense minister. The last will be Sokol.
Jack’s boss tells him he has to come in, but he spins it as he needs to keep moving because he is their only hope of finding Sokol. Before he hangs up, James tells him something in an unfamiliar language (at least to me). Jack ends the call, and James now has a bone to pick with his boss. Who is the one that burned Jack? Elisabeth? Or her boss? She admits to James that she called to burn his partner. She then asks James what did he say to him?
James replies, “Shelter in paradise.”
What did you think of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan season 3, episode 1? Comment below.
It’s confusing. Too many plots.