Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jack Ryan’ Season 3 on Prime Video, Featuring John Krasinski In A Well-Built Version Of The Spies And Guns And Intrigue Genre

Jack Ryan returns to Prime Video for a third season of globetrotting and spy jobbing, and featuring a more comfortable John Kraskinski in the role that’s also been played by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine. But with two seasons under his belt, plus his turn as a bearded operator in Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, does anyone really even remember Krasinski as Office nice guy Jim Halpert? (Maybe it doesn’t matter, anyway, since Mindy Kaling has declared their old show totally cancelable.) For the third go-round of Jack Ryan, Krasinski and returning co-star Wendell Pierce are joined by Betty Gabriel as a CIA station chief and Nina Hoss as President of the Czech Republic.

JACK RYAN SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: 1969, Matoska, USSR. “Your government is very proud of the work you are doing,” a Soviet Army general assures a group of nervous scientists. But outside their lab, he refers to them as “expendable,” and leaves it to a junior officer to “take care of this.”

The Gist: At the end of Jack Ryan’s second season, Ryan’s mentor, CIA lifer James Greer (Wendell Pierce), allowed that his being tortured and nearly killed during their dangerous time together in Venezuela had inspired him to decelerate. Greer was done, out, finished; he was going to take his heart condition to a desk somewhere and look forward to retirement. Which is why now, in season three, as Jack and Greer enjoy dinner in a piazza outside the Pantheon in Rome, the older man displays a measure of pride in what his CIA protege has become. “It does me good to see that you took so naturally to the field as a case officer.” Retirement can wait, though, because Jack’s Rome field work and steadfast analytical mind have also turned up a threatening prospect: somebody in Russia has seemingly reactivated a Soviet-era initiative called “Sokol” (“Falcon”), which aims to use small, radar-undetectable battlefield nukes to destabilize the Eastern Bloc and foment unrest on an international scale.

At the Kremlin in Moscow, the powers that be are worried about NATO potentially moving missile systems into the Czech Republic. How will they handle negotiations with Alena Kovac (Nina Hoss), the Czech president? A crusty old intelligence chief crushes out his cigarette. “Keep our enemies close. Easy to slip in the knife, if necessary.” And with the Russian foreign minister en route to her country for a tense meeting, Kovac’s aide describes the diplomat as an old school hardliner not comfortable with powerful women. The president allows a smile. “What man is?”

Jack Ryan is gonna Jack Ryan, so he’s damn sure about the validity of his intelligence concerning the secret Russian nuclear program. But Elizabeth Wright (Betty Gabriel), his direct boss and the Rome station chief, still kicks it upstairs to the CIA director before Jack is authorized to assemble a covert strike team, hit a container ship in the Black Sea, and search it for rogue nuclear material. The vagaries of geo-politics and whose boots are on who else’s soil are suddenly in serious play as Jack’s team is assaulted upon their supposedly secure landing in Greece. He’s now in possession of hard intel that has huge implications for the CIA, for NATO, for relations between America and Russia. But Jack Ryan is also quickly realizing that not everybody wants to hear about it. Who can this newly-minted field agent really trust when everything around him is going to shit?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Prime Video is bullish on John Krasinski — it’s already renewed Jack Ryan for a fourth season. But the platform also features Chris Pratt in The Terminal List, another show full of government agency shadowplay and spontaneous firefights. And if you’re looking for a more cerebral take on this sort of material, Apple TV+ has you covered with Luke Evans and Michael Huisman in ECHO 3.

Our Take: The braintrust behind the “Ryanverse,” as this corner of the meta media landscape has come to be known, is fully behind John Krasinski’s take on the character. (He is, after all, an executive producer, alongside Michael Bay and many others.) And these brisk eight-episode seasons of Jack Ryan, which have so far spent extended time on the ground in places like Yemen, Venezuela, Russia, Italy, Greece, and various points in mainland Europe, have also goosed their formula effectively, letting Krasinski infuse his affable personal brand into tense but also somewhat stock storylines full of international intrigue and tactical vest gunplay. The budget is also sufficient enough to support those far-flung location shoots, and to include characters in helicopters landing on US Navy ships, if the need arises. Perhaps even more importantly, that budget can accommodate a deep ensemble cast featuring name brand actors, which fills in the narrative and makes all of the spy-jockeying and intently-staring-at-a-computering of the Ryanverse that much more convincing. Even the actor playing the typically nerdy technical support guy Jack interacts with at Rome station manages to elevate the stereotype.

Plans for Jack Ryan season four have already leaked, with the trades touting the return of Abbie Cornish, who played Jack’s love interest Cathy Meuller in a since sidelined storyline. Meuller, of course, has been a mainstay of the Ryanverse; Cornish’s portrayal joins those of Anne Archer, Bridget Moynahan, and Keira Knightley. It’s thus notable that this Prime Video Jack Ryan has a sense of connectivity with the Tom Clancy source material, even as it evolves on its own path.

Sex and Skin: Nothing here. (Remember, Cathy Mueller, Jack’s emerging love interest from season one, has been MIA ever since.) Everyone in Jack Ryan is too busy frowning, staring at monitors, communicating tersely through earpieces, and shooting at each other.

Parting Shot: “The official line out of the Greek government is that you entered the country illegally to eliminate a Russian national, and in the process killed one of their own.” Jack knows that isn’t how it went down, but now he also knows something else, and it inspires him to bust up his agency-issued mobile device. The CIA is looking to make him their fall guy.

Sleeper Star: She’s currently generating serious buzz playing opposite Cate Blanchett in Todd Field’s Oscar favorite Tar. But Nina Hoss is also a wonderful addition to the third season of Jack Ryan, instantly making her Czech politician presidential, personal, and fully formed with what can often amount to the subtlest of gestures.

Most Pilot-y Line: Elizabeth Wright (Gabriel), the Rome station chief, scolds her gung-ho CIA analyst for going solo on an intelligence-gathering op. “I’ve never really liked heroes, Jack,” she tells him. “They tend to think more of their actions than they do the repercussions.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Jack Ryan has successfully evolved its formula of spycraft and gunfights to accommodate John Krasinski’s brand of charm. In other words, it’s solidly-built, with just enough of everything that a show in this genre requires.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges