Jack Ryan: I enjoyed it. Not overly intense. Almost predictable. But I have a questions (SPOILER)

[Fla Dem]

I don't get the plot line for the character Victor Polizzi. Victor is a drone operator for the Air Force/Army (?). A guy who takes some glee when he spots a target and then they are obliterated. He and his co-worker pay each other a dollar each time one of their targets are destroyed.

At one point he takes his winnings and goes to a local casino and wins big at the roulette table. During his time at the table he is befriended by a man and his younger woman companion. After Victor collects his winnings, (I think it was $39,000) and a lot of liquor he stumbles back to his home with the man and woman. There the woman throws herself on him for sex. He initially rejects her as the guy she was with is right there in the room making drinks. The guy gives a tacit OK and Victor and the woman have drunken sex while the guy watches.

As soon as they are done, the guy becomes threatening and beats Victor up. I, of course, think they are going to steal his winnings. But no. After Victor is thoroughly beaten, they simply leave. Don't get that whole sequence of events as they don't play into the storyline at all. There are no further contacts with the couple and no extenuating events as a result.

Also back at the drone base Victor sights a target on a motorcycle he thinks is Suleiman. He tries to convince the officer in charge that he is right. But the OIC tells him to hold off calling for an attack until he gets clearance from higher up. Victor is convinced he's right and initiates a strike. The guy on the bike is destroyed just as an OK comes down from Command. Later it comes to light that Suleiman is still very much alive so Victor called in a strike on a supposedly innocent man.

This really eats at Victor's conscience. Near the end of the series we see him travel to Syria to visit the home of the man he ordered the strike on. He meets the man's father and his young son and gives them his casino winnings as compensation and I guess penance for the man being killed at his hand. I question how the man was identified.

Both of these side stories have little or anything to do with the main storyline. Victor never interacts with Jack Ryan or the CIA. Nothing he does intersects with Ryan's mission. To me it was just a diversion and filler. Did I miss something?

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Series 2 will pick up with that story line, I bet.

I didnt want to watch because of Clancy, rightwing prick.

But I watched and it was good, one of those you have to keep watching till it is all gone, so real good actually.

I worried that I would keep seeing "Jim" instead of "Jack", if you know what I mean, but Krasinksi found this look , a combo of anger and fear, he kept it on his face almost in every scene and I was able to see Jack, not Jim.

[Fla Dem]

3. I only watched "The Office" occasionally, so that character wasn't implanted on my brain.

I did question though how an actor mostly known for comedy would portray a harden CIA operative. I thought they set it up well. He was primarily a CIA Analyst who got sucked up into the hunt for Suleiman. He was able to adapt I guess because of his Marine experience. I agree with you, he played the role well.

Based on the brief description of a 2nd season, not sure if Victor will show up again. I too had thought that might be an option.

The upcoming second season has been described as following Ryan as he confronts "the forces in power in a dangerous, declining democratic regime in South America."[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(TV_series)

[Eliot Rosewater]

6. You are right, doesnt seem to be at all.

I had not watched "Breaking Bad" when it was on, when everyone else was.

When I discovered it I had the entire series on Netflix or somewhere and I lost a lot of sleep in that week it took to watch it.

This reminded me a little of that.

[Kaleva]

10. Krasinski played the role of a private military contractor in the movie "13 Hours" quite well

So when I first saw the ads for this series, I thought that Krasinski would make a very good Jack Ryan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_Hours:_The_Secret_Soldiers_of_Benghazi

[enough]

2. Victor was having intense misgivings about his work as a drone killer

even before the scene in the casino. At the casino he was trying to lose the dollars he got for his “kills” at work. He had the dollars taped to the wall of his apartment and took them down to go to the casino. But he was mysteriously unable to lose and ended up with the $39,000.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. Right but what did it have to do with the main story-line and the couple that beat him up?

If it is not extended into series 2 as the posters synopsis indicates, then it is a head scratcher.

[getting old in mke]

8. He was incapable of losing the blood money

Even when beat up. He had to give it away. At least that was my read.

[Eliot Rosewater]

9. OHHHHHHHHHHHHH, yeah THAT Makes sense, you should be making this stuff!

[Fla Dem]

5. Yes, I wasn't sure about the sequence of events.

I knew he had misgivings. That all happened after he found out he had killed an innocent person. He was fired up about that kill at the time.

[Stonepounder]

7. I agree that it was a very strange diversion from the main plot.

The only thing I could figure was that it was supposed to be an allegory for a) his glee every time his drone hit a target (winning at the casino) and then b) his guilt at taking out an innocent man (his beating).

But it didn't really work.