Amazon Prime Show: Jack Ryan (Season 2)

I, too, was disappointed in this season. I liked the first couple of episodes okay, but it went downhill from there. A lot of dumb and/or unrealistic actions taken by people who would/should know better. Turning Jack into an action hero feels wrong–not true to the character. I also wonder what was up with Cathy? She was totally MIA for this season. Though Jack was only stateside for a few scenes, I thought they could easily have included her in one or more of those scenes. Like when Jack was having dinner with the senator and his family–it would have made perfect sense for Cathy to go with him. Instead, she isn’t so much as mentioned at all the entire season and instead he hooks up with Noomi Rapace. It felt odd having no explanation about that.

Especially when they went out of their way in the first episode to say how serious his back injury was.

It’s almost like they found an old “24” script in the garbage and said, “This will work!”

Am I the only one confused about the plot?

So Reyes has a Russian firm launch a satellite in the South Pacific he can use to find mining areas in Venezuela. He hires a third party PMC to guard his mining site.

Why was he using Russians or a third party at all and trying to keep it completely secret? Why does the US care about what Venezuela is mining in its own country? What was so worthy of assassinating a US Senator over?

The in-story explanation is that the stuff discovered in Venezuela had previously been found in significant amounts only in China and it is necessary for the manufacture of the chips that run virtually all modern technology. So this stuff gave China huge leverage against other countries because they could threaten to cut off access to this stuff. Billion-dollar industries in the US and other countries would grind to a halt. The discovery of deposits of this mineral in Venezuela was a game-changer for world politics and economics.

That did bother me too (even though I enjoyed the season overall). I had been holding out hope that when Uber was rescued he would have a good explanation. But nope; apparently he was just an idiot. Then to top it off; no one was pissed off at him. Not one “Look at this shit you got us into!”

Still enjoyed it though. :slight_smile:

So Venezuela should make the discovery public, tons of foreign money flows in, economic woes are relieved, everyone lives happily ever after!

FWIW, Uber left the boat when a patrol of … Venezuelan soldiers? mercenaries? we couldn’t see them very well through the trees … wandered close by. At first I thought he was going to take them out, then I thought maybe he was going to hide a short distance away in case they found the boat. In the end, though, it seems he … umm … intended to … nah, I got nuthin’.

Yeah, the subplots are kinda pointless. Also, for CIA types, their personal security sucks balls. Hey, let’s all go over and talk by the front windows! Let’s all talk about sensitive things over unsecure telephone lines! How about I leave classified or sensitive documents lying around in my hotel room so another spy can look at them! Howzabout I meet a stone cold killer, who’s trying to off me, in a deserted place in the dead of night!

We’re at episode 6 and it’s trying my patience.