Or a Russian one in the post 2014 world.
Ugh!
One of the good things about Clancy—who is not a great writer but is a damn sight better than many of the “techno-thriller” authors like Dale Brown or Robert Ludlum that he’s generally lumped in with—is his ability to set his stories in a plausible, slightly fictionalized, pseudo-roman à clef that makes the story seem plausible as unknown or alternative history. In The Cardinal of the Kremlin the titular CARDINAL agent is a transparent stand in for Oleg Penkovsky (even though Penkovsky is named checked in the story as having recruited and protected CARDINAL before his execution for feeding the British about Soviet emplacements in Cuba) and his motivations for justice and revenge seem plausible because they’re grounded in known corruption and failings of the Soviet system. Removing that context and insering a generic opponent turns it into just anothher paint-by-numbers actioneer with the “Jack Ryan” brand slapped on it to assure a guaranteed audience.
Stranger
Yes, which is why he’s going to Russia next. 
The helicopter was a bit much, but I took it as Greer fucking with him in retaliation for getting Greer into this mess.
He got pulled into the task force pretty clearly, so it didn’t seem mysterious. In DC, he was given a badge by Secret Service, so he was identified.
We’re liking it so far. I agree that the whole hotel scene with “Blanche DuBois” was gratuitous, but they did need a subplot with the drone pilot because of what happened next.
In episode one, one of the characters appeared to be talking to the rubber bands on his wrist, as there was no visible transmitting device. But most of the gaffes are minor, with few of the weapons problems that usually plague these sorts of efforts. At least there hasn’t yet been a grenade exploding in an enormous ball of fire.
I finished it, and liked it very much.
Some observations:
[spoiler]Zafid seemed to be blown sky-high by the drone pilot as he was attempting to rape Mrs. Suleimon, but he reappears later on. Or was I mistaken and it was a new guy? If not, he’s one tough bastard to survive that drone strike.
When Suleimon remonstrated with one of his men for being dirty, and offered to supply him with his own clothes, I thought he was setting him up as a double to decoy the drones elsewhere. Didn’t happen, though.
And speaking of drones, do they have two kinds? One small undetectable one to hover and provide surveillance, plus a big one to provide the actual firepower?[/spoiler]
I just started it on Sunday – friends mentioned it on Friday night – and I got through episode 5 yesterday. I’ll definitely finish the season; maybe even this week. I don’t much care about Clancy or whether this Jack Ryan is Jack Ryan enough: it’s entertaining, and so far no one/nothing annoys me. So I like it.
I had to go to IMDb and figure out why I recognized the actor playing the drone pilot: he played Vince Muccio (Lorna Morello’s husband) on Orange Is The New Black.
I don’t think that’s true at all. He’s a wonderful character. Intelligent, integrity, humble. I have enjoyed all of the movies and books.
Agreed; wtf was that all about? And then the way he got closure? unneeded side story at best.
I like that! It would have been better than they way his story line ended.
I really liked it; and I can’t for the next season… in a year and a half. 
(based on other series on Prime that what it will seem like, anyway).
I share your disappointment in the wait. I hate finding a good show and then sitting around forever - to channel my inner 10 year old - until the new season is released.
That still doesn’t explain why a financial analyst is being tasked to go out and do operational and “special activities” fieldwork, or how he is able to run around DC openly with a firearm and no law enforcement credentials. Except for Security Protective Officers, CIA officers do not have any authority to publically carry weapons or conduct law enforcement operations within the United States.
It is also inexplicable that the President is being cared for at a public hospital. Except for extingent circumstances while on travel, the President and his family are always treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which naturally has a world class infectious disease unit and direct access to the National Institutes of Health Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Even if they needed to bring in Cathy Muller to consult on her expertise with that particular strain of Ebola, there are infectious disease experts at Walter Reed and standard protocols for treatment to deal with the regular evaluation and treatment instead of pulling this critical researcher away from her work; and of course, security in a public hospital would be an absolute nightmare for the Secret Service.
And on top of that, the first thing that would be done with prisoners who had been held for an extended duration would be a complete medical check and bloodwork, both to look for nutritional deficiencies and possible pathogens they might have picked up while in captivity. That the PSF lead doctor and other hostages would be infected and slip through screening is unlikely at best, notwithstanding that the timing for them to be rescued and returned would require a just-so schedule of events that wasn’t really planned. In fact, the whole contrivance of performing one attack just to set up a second attack is not really that sensible compared to just putting their energy into the primary attack.
As I said, the plot of this really doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s really a mediocre generic two hour thriller that ten years ago would have starred Colin Ferrell or Ryan Reynolds, but Amazon stretched it to miniseries length and crammed it with a bunch of go nowhere sideplots to make stretch it out. It’s still better than most of the “original content” Amazon produces, but that’s a low bar. If this were on HBO critics would be savaging it as below par.
Stranger
I’m under the impression that double attacks are fairly common, as a way of pulling in responders and others and then getting even more victims.
I’m not sure about the logistics of using Ebola in this scenario (timing to onset can be variable, and so on), but using the doctor to get close to the president seemed clever and plausible.
You are correct, I believe, it should have been Walter Reed.
I don’t understand the terrorist plot at all.
[spoiler]So Suleiman gives the doctor Ebola in the form of the pills? Except there’s an incredibly tight window in which the doctor needs to be in contact with the president for the president to be hospitalized. Suleiman only finds out about his son’s secret contact with his daughter after he gives the doctor his pills, so how could he have known when the extraction would happen? As far as he knew, his wife was dead so how did he even know the US had him under surveillance? If the US had just decided things a bit faster, they would have sent out bombers and everyone would have been dead.
Also, the bomb plot was nonsensical. Cell phones require both cells to have service before a call can be made. It doesn’t matter if Suleiman walked out of range of the jammer, he couldn’t have called the bomb anyway. Everyone was completely safe once the secret agent made the call to jam the cell towers.
Also, everyone American seemed awfully happy to shoot high value targets. Why kill the Arab in the cell with the doctors instead of extracting him and trying to obtain intelligence from him? Why shoot glasses guy at the end?[/spoiler]
I was so confused by the end of it.
I believe the terrorists hardwired the device’s controller into the hospital’s VoiP system, although how they knew to do that and had administrative access is unclear, as is why they wouldn’t use a simple timer.The remainder of your criticisms are on point, though.
Stranger
Been renewed for a second season.
Onto to Ep 6, will finish it on the weekend. So this question might have been answered. Don’t serving US military officers have to at least inform the Command when they are leaving the country on holiday? I mean won’t the US military not be too happy about a missileer who goes for a vacation in Sochi? And what happens here?
Not that I’m aware of. As an enlisted man, nobody gave two cents about where I went on vacation. I’m sure that his command would be unhappy to learn that he went into a restricted zone, but unless the cab driver ratted him out, how would anybody know?
My husband is a Military officer. When he leaves the country he definitely has to inform someone, and carry a “leave chit” with him at all times.
Entry and exit records, flight manifests, credit card records, et cetera. A drone pilot would certainly hold a security clearance and would be required to report foreign travel and significant foreign contacts. It might go unnoticed for a while, though given where he was going would be likely to be flagged unless he took some effort to conceal his final destination.
Stranger
Just started this last night at my wife’s request and, so far, am buying into the characters. I am always a fan of seeing The Wire guys getting work, so when I saw Bunk Moreland I almost cheered.
Only saw ep 1 though, and chuckled at the scene where the rich guy, trying to get info out of Ryan, remarked (paraphrasing) “your biggest regret will be that you realized you wanted this (rich 'n fancy) life and you blew it years ago”. Of course, I then tried to retcon this with the novels where Jack is a millionaire who worked on “the Street” for some period of his life (his potentially-shady dealings with one of the companies he worked with was a minor plot point in one of the novels) and was asking myself if Jack was already wealthy by this point, or does that come afterward.
He doesn’t live like he’s rich, but that doesn’t mean anything.
I watched it and enjoyed it, but it had its flaws. Not putting spoiler tags since it’s almost two months since the last posting.
I was at first put off by the side-plot with the drone pilot (the scene with the other couple had me incredibly confused), but I think it paid off nicely. It worked for me as an example of why war is chaotic and unpredictable and sometimes strange things happen.
The intricacy of the final attack involving careful timing and Ebola and nuclear material was a little too movie-plot silly for me. I’m sort of ok with the hostages as Ebola-vector since Suleiman could have released the hostages shortly after without giving up his home location. It doesn’t quite work with the timing of the doctor getting sick while he’s on stage with the President, but I read that scene as a dramatic conceit. We have to see the doctor getting sick. It’s not necessarily a strict indication of exactly how long the Ebola incubation period is.
But… would a President who was not under active treatment but just being quarantined for 20+ days actually spend that time in a public hospital that was doing regular business? Seems like an absurd and unlikely security risk, right? The military has BSL-4 medical facilities that can be locked down and don’t have random ambulances showing up. We even saw one: USAMRIID. I agree that they should just use a timer. You don’t need to precisely start a dirty bomb hooked up to the ventilation system. It’s not an IED on the side of the road.
It was clear early on that Ebola was going to be a major plot point since there’s like a 30-second scene with Dr. Mueller talking about a specific case of it with her colleague when no one else is around. I thought that’s what the church attack was going to be.
They sure like smuggling things in dead bodies, huh?