Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jack Ryan’ On Amazon Prime, In Which Ryan Is A Young Analyst Flushing Out Terrorists

When Amazon announced that they were going to create a series adaptation of Tom Clancy’s most famous character, and that John Krasinski would play Jack Ryan, the big response was, “John Krasinski? Is he going to be able to pull it off?” Judging by the first episode of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Krasinski’s action star bona fides aren’t in question. The rest of the show, on the other hand….

JACK RYAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A pre-teen boy is seen singing and dancing to “The Safety Dance” as his younger brother laughs. He’s called to dinner, and the two run on the roof of his house; a graphic comes up that says “Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, 1983.”

The Gist: The kid and his brother see a formation of fighter jets over their city, then they start seeing explosions. As they run for it, the explosions reach their house. We cut to a sky shot of the boy’s neighborhood being carpet-bombed.

Cut to the present day. A young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) is biking to work. He almost gets hit by a guy in a car, who curses at him as he drives to work. In the morning briefing Ryan, whose job is to track financial transactions, talks about some anomalies he sees in a certain bank’s ledger. Meanwhile, James Greer (Wendell Pierce), a former station head, is going to work on his first day back in Langley, having gotten the leadership job of the division he’s in via a favor from Assistant Director Nathan Singer (Timothy Hutton).

Sure enough, Greer comes into the morning briefing and sees that the guy he almost hit is on his team. It puts him immediately on the defensive as Ryan talks about how he thinks the anomalies he’s seeing will track to a new terrorist kingpin named Suleiman (Ali Suliman). Greer wants to see more evidence. Ryan, though, bypasses his new boss to get the accounts frozen via a team member who is part of the Treasury Department, which enrages Greer.

But when it turns out that two operatives are caught in Yemen working with the bank’s manager, Ryan and Greer go over there to question the prisoners. What we find out first, though, is that before the CIA, and before he even worked in private finance, Ryan was a Marine intelligence officer, who is not only a great interrogator, but has the physical and emotional scars to show for his time overseas.

In Yemen, the courier is questioned, yet Ryan thinks he can get something more out of the driver. When the base is attacked, Ryan figures out who he’s really talking to.

Our Take: There is nothing subtle about Jack Ryan. Developed by co-showrunners Carlton Cuse (Lost, Bates Hotel) and Graham Roland (Fringe, Almost Human), they have decided to retcon Ryan’s story to make him roughly the same age (maybe a bit older) than Alec Baldwin’s Hunt For Red October version. And, of course, Ryan’s target is supposed to be guys with beards killing Westerners instead of Russians. However, the character is actually closer in spirit to Harrison Ford’s version, a guy who doesn’t want to be in the action but is forced to in order to protect his country.

If not for the presence of Krasinski, Pierce, and Abbie Cornish as Cathy Mueller a love interest for Jack and the daughter of Jack’s old private-sector boss, this show wouldn’t be anything more than a standard-grade terrorist chase drama, Homeland with more shooting. There’s an intriguing side story where we see Suleiman’s wife Hanin (Dina Shihabi) grapple with some new and mysterious people doing work in her husband’s compound, and the motivations surrounding why Suleiman turned his ire towards the West are also a good story we hope Cuse and Roland explore.

But the show begins and ends with Ryan’s story and his relationship to Greer. So far, it’s all cliche. Ryan’s got PTSD, and he doesn’t want to get back into the thick of things. Greer doubts this young-ish analyst’s hunches but begins to trust him more as they bear fruit. Right now, there’s nothing to get excited about, but we know that Krasinski and Pierce are both charming enough to elevate even mediocre stories and dialogue.

Sex and Skin: We think Cathy got all excited when she saw Ryan, who says he’s a logistics analyst for the State Department, airlifted out of her dad’s stuffy party by the Coast Guard, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: After the terrorist group retreats from the base, having gotten what it needed, Greer and an injured Ryan survey the damage, in which it seems like dozens of agents and soldiers have been killed. Ryan looks gravely out in the distance as the caravan disappears, knowing that he’s back in the thick of things whether he likes it or not.

Sleeper Star: Not sure why, but we liked the one scene where the Treasury representative on the team, Teresa (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) helps Jack go around his boss to freeze the bank’s accounts. In that one short scene, she shows how much she likes him, and wants to do something productive, and Krasinski puts on his best Jim Halpert in order to charm her into it. The whole scene feels like a subtle callback to The Office.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m not going to Yemen. I’m an analyst! I don’t interrogate people, I write reports!” — Jack to Greer as they’re about to get on a private jet to Yemen.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but only because of Krasinski and Pierce. And, with a second season already assured, we hope that Cuse and Roland can elevate this show beyond the standard spy fare.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime