Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

:

Season 1
Season #: 4, 3, 2, 1
User Score
6.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 160 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 104 out of 160
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 160
  3. Negative: 33 out of 160
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User Reviews

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  1. carlossolrac
    Nov 16, 2018
    4
    It's like Homeland for kheds who went to Newton South mush. Seriously, this show needs some better writing and less predicable outcomes. Go Lions!
  2. EerieDemonble
    Sep 3, 2018
    5
    Amazon wasted a lot of money on this absolutely uninspired show. "Avarage" is the only word that can describe every aspect of this show (except budget).
    - Every plot point is 100% cliche and predictable
    - Acting is passable - No suspense, no thrill, no mystery - Few scenes with cringey progressive propaganda Shame. I was hoping for solid spy-series. Anyway, you won't miss much if you    Amazon wasted a lot of money on this absolutely uninspired show. "Avarage" is the only word that can describe every aspect of this show (except budget).
    - Every plot point is 100% cliche and predictable
    - Acting is passable
    - No suspense, no thrill, no mystery
    - Few scenes with cringey progressive propaganda
    Shame. I was hoping for solid spy-series. Anyway, you won't miss much if you skip this one. Better to rewatch "Homeland" or "Americans".    … Expand
  3. WorstEver
    Sep 1, 2018
    4
    Unmitigated garbage TV for the 24 crowd. Plenty of explosions and played out terrorist plots should
    keep it entertaining yet it somehow manages to feel boring and predictable. Once you've finished your serving of military acronyms and dramatic "That's an order soldier" monologues you're left with the deep sinking realization that amazon and netflix now produce shows that would have once    Unmitigated garbage TV for the 24 crowd. Plenty of explosions and played out terrorist plots should
    keep it entertaining yet it somehow manages to feel boring and predictable. Once you've finished your serving of military acronyms and dramatic "That's an order soldier" monologues you're left with the deep sinking realization that amazon and netflix now produce shows that would have once been the in realm of made for TV B list cable channels.    … Expand
  4. patterninstatic
    Sep 3, 2018
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Binge worthy show with plenty of action, that can be enjoyable to watch as long as you can maintain an extreme suspension of disbelief throughout the experience. Spoilers ahead.

    Indeed, in order to keep the story on track and at a brisk pace, the plotline revolves around glaring logical leaps, insane coincidences, and deus ex-machina. Characters on the show go from having ridiculous epiphanies to being completely oblivious as the show sees fit.

    Ryan can randomly guess that an eight digit number is a prison ID for unlocking the phone (even though 8 numbers could correspond to a date) after randomly opening the file to a page with the prison number on top. This is after IDing the bad guy based on a hand gesture that he made on video with cuffs (arguably he could have simply learned to present his hands for cuffs from being cuffed multiple times since his capture in Yemen). On the flip side the good guys are pretty stupid when it comes to preventing the evil master plan. it would seem pretty standard protocol once it had been established that Ebola was in play to make everything and everyone from the compound go through quarantine. Once you have established that somewhere in DC could be targeted by an attack, it would also seem logical to secure the president instead of having him, the VP, and members of congress publicly quarantined in a single essentially a public location in the middle of the city.

    On top of this, the characters are ridiculously cliche and the backstories are stupidly stretched. Ryan could just have PTSD from deployment, but instead they have to one up it.... in trying to save an innocent boy, Ryan personally led to everyone's death. Despite this, Ryan has strong moral values, constantly being the one who reminds everyone that the end doesn't justify the means. We get it...

    Cliche scenes get repeated. Army personnel arriving to tell someone, "you have to come with us to this super high level meeting because you stumbled onto something".... Ryan speaking up at top level meetings when you know he's not supposed to...Ryan being asked to "stay back while we go in" then ending up where the real action is.

    The show also introduces random subplots that are meant to humanize but in reality distract. The drone subplot is fun as long as you don't ask questions. The drone pilots are supposed to operate in the same village every mission to the point of recognizing an unfamiliar SUV, yet the bad guys are constantly circulating in armed convoys nearby. Seriously, the pilot goes to Syria to meet the family of the man he killed, in militant controlled territory, speaking only English and with just a bag full of cash, and they share a warm moment.

    This is regular flaw. The show wants to fit in particular scenes, narratives, or subplots, and does so even if it defies logic or pacing. When the mother and children get put into protective custody, with a full system in place to isolate them, the girl is still given a video game console which can communicate over the internet, which she uses to talk to her brother in Syria. Ryan brilliantly deduced that the terrorists communicated over a video game based essentially on nothing (the two boys in Paris bickering), yet no one can see how giving the girl a device that can connect online can be a problem.

    Also it seems that the producers decided that the events in France were going to be a huge battle in Paris, followed by an one on one encounter in the Alps. To justify this, for some reason a huge brigade gets sent to the apartment in Paris when the address is just an "address of interest", but then after a huge battle happens, multiple people are killed etc., the French government decides to tone it down and simply send two police agents along with two Americans to follow a person who would essentially be public enemy number one.

    The "evil plot" is convoluted to the point of being a little stupid when you spend a few seconds to think about it. The terrorists go to Liberia to get an Ebola infected body, that they being back to Azerbaijan to extract the Ebola, so that they can infect a captured friend of the president, so they can get the president quarantined in a hospital, which they will access by blowing up a nearby pizza joint, ultimately in the hopes of putting irradiated powder which they sneak into the US, in the airways of the hospital in order to kill the president. The "bomb" is hooked up to the hospital landline (what?) and in a very "first world problems" scene, the final showdown consists of Ryan trying to stop the terrorists before their cellphones can find network.

    It seems like I'm only giving negatives, but this show still deserves a 5. Despite being bad you can have fun watching it. The decent acting and big budget action contrast with an extremely bad plot to make this an average show.    … Expand
  5. Echo9k
    Oct 13, 2018
    6
    I won't give it a 10/10 because the combat scenes are bad. However, the story is interesting.
  6. SeussMyTub
    Sep 2, 2018
    5
    The production values are nice, but it's the usual US versus terrorists all over again. Jack Ryan is a big old boring boy scout, and all the Muslim males are terrorists, while their women are treated like slaves. Nothing new.
  7. psyberdelic
    Sep 4, 2018
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Looks great. Scenery is awesome. However... Krazinski is the new Kevin Costner. Handsome and boring. He doesn't act he just looks good. Plot is stupid. The bad guys know they are recognized and don't kill the witness (Jack Ryan). Sure he's got a grenade with the pin pulled but they're standing at the door and have plenty of time to shoot him and scoot. But they don't because PLOT! So, you're chasing a high-value target into a building and you don't surround the mf'er and block anyone from leaving. Bad guy just walks away because PLOT!

    I wound up jumping to the ends of scenes just to see what happens. Worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do.    … Expand
  8. Voodoo123
    Oct 6, 2018
    6
    Great cast deliver excellent performances. The Locations are interesting and the overall premise is worthy of the title.

    Sadly this show fails to deliver the quality setup from previous outings. Lackluster cinematography and action scene choreography betray the prevalent budget with the script failing to meet the detail of the scenarios being dealt with. Despite this I will say I had    Great cast deliver excellent performances. The Locations are interesting and the overall premise is worthy of the title.

    Sadly this show fails to deliver the quality setup from previous outings. Lackluster cinematography and action scene choreography betray the prevalent budget with the script failing to meet the detail of the scenarios being dealt with.

    Despite this I will say I had fun watching and will prob check out S2!    … Expand
  9. Eman0221
    Nov 5, 2018
    5
    I came into this show thinking it would be a more action-packed version of Homeland or at least a small screen version of the Harrison Ford version of the character from the 90s, but instead, its this era and generation's version of 24. Whereas 24 embraced the campy, 80s action movie style, this show pretends that it's smarter than it is, but it isn't. It tries to take the kind of fantasyI came into this show thinking it would be a more action-packed version of Homeland or at least a small screen version of the Harrison Ford version of the character from the 90s, but instead, its this era and generation's version of 24. Whereas 24 embraced the campy, 80s action movie style, this show pretends that it's smarter than it is, but it isn't. It tries to take the kind of fantasy peddled by Mission: Impossible and James Bond movies and lay it over serious, real-world issues that deserve deeper examination and ass-kicking, but it doesn't at the end of the day. At least John Krasinski does a good job shedding his image from The Office into a gritty action hero, but it isn't his fault that the plot and writing are dumb.

    If this show wants to want to be "Let’s just blow sh*t up, shoot some bad guys and have him go home and romance the pretty doc. Action 101, baby!” then embrace it, be good and not too serious about it, and drop the pretenses of it wanting to be deep and complex, or stylish like a Bond flick in order to win over the critics. It's not how Jack Ryan novels are supposed to be, but this show is like that.    … Expand
  10. section20mi6
    Sep 13, 2018
    4
    Childish and Cliche, Jack Ryan does not even live up to the standard of being an adequate spy thriller, but only an unprofessional piece with poor execution at most.
  11. eagleeyeviking
    Sep 26, 2018
    5
    While "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan" entertains throughout its eight episodes, it can't conceal the familiar plot, shoddy character development, haphazard script, and a sense that several plotlines are incomplete or half baked. It feels like an inferior version of "24".
  12. razumikhin
    Jan 9, 2019
    4
    This should have been on Network TV 15 years ago. I like John Krasinski and I really like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel so I wanted to like this show as well. But it is bad. It is filled to the brim with cliches. Krasinski is not convincing in the role. The Jack Ryan is a shallow character. The outcomes are predictable. He is incredibly annoying in his self-righteous morals, and I get that theThis should have been on Network TV 15 years ago. I like John Krasinski and I really like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel so I wanted to like this show as well. But it is bad. It is filled to the brim with cliches. Krasinski is not convincing in the role. The Jack Ryan is a shallow character. The outcomes are predictable. He is incredibly annoying in his self-righteous morals, and I get that the show pointed it out in the first episode but it doesn't give any real insight into his stubborn irrationality and there aren't any real consequences any way.… Expand
  13. geewah
    Dec 24, 2020
    6
    Predictable fodder that doesn't break any new ground.
    Writing is ordinary that sticks to basic good vs evil themes and it's attempts to humanise the main players comes across as being pretty forced

Awards & Rankings

98
#98 Best TV Season of 2018
22
#22 Most Discussed TV Season of 2018
72
#72 Most Shared TV Season of 2018

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
66

Generally favorable reviews - based on 28 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 28
  3. Negative: 0 out of 28
  1. Vox.com
    Reviewed by: Karen Han
    Aug 31, 2018
    60
    Ryan’s part of the story is a breeze: He’s the good soldier, here to save the day. Sometimes he’ll face some sort of moral dilemma, but it’s never too difficult to guess what the outcome will be. The rest of the series is much thornier, and all the more real for it.
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  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Lloyd
    Aug 31, 2018
    70
    Ryan may be the shallowest figure here, an assemblage of reactions and attitudes more than a person we get to know--or seem to get to know, which is all the same in television. His early-episodes earnestness is appealing. ... He is forced to spend much of the middle episodes in a kind of balled-up funk as Ryan stews indignantly over the moral compromises he encounters "in the field." ... It gives all the best moments away to Pierce, who is as easily believable, and believably easy, as an old agency pro as he's been in every other part he's ever played. Still, the star handles the action well, when it comes.
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  3. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    Aug 30, 2018
    80
    It’s a smart show, for all its huffing and puffing. Mr. Krasinski might even grow on you.
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