Jack Ryan's Season 3 Finale Wraps Up With 'The Hunt for Red October'

Jack Ryan season 3 pays homage to the franchise's past and reminds us that finding Red October is still the story that started it all.

Editor Note: The following article contains spoilers for Jack Ryan Season 3.

For more than three decades, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan has been one of the most beloved heroes in modern literature and entertainment. When Clancy originally created the character for his novel, he probably never imagined they would inspire five movies and one of the most beloved TV shows of the 21st century. While Clancy's novels have a large and devoted fan base, moviegoers first got to know the man thanks to Alec Baldwin's performance in "The Hunt For Red October." A brilliant CIA analyst. The characters, franchises and world politics have changed dramatically over the years, but in the season three finale, Amazon Prime series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan brought the series back to its roots.

The Hunt For Red October is Clancy's first "Ryanverse" novel; theme of a potential nuclear conflict with Russia was particularly timely at the height of the Cold War, and the novel is known for its detailed descriptions of the war and its delicate handling of political issues And was praised. Hollywood quickly took an interest in Clancy's story. Predator and Die Hard director John McTiernan was tasked with Bringing "Finding Red October" to life. He manages to craft an educated, tense thriller that balances points of view and emphasizes strategy over spectacle. Although there have been many films since, most "Ryanverse" fans will still rank The Hunt for Red October as the best film in the series.

Amazon's Jack Ryan made many bold attempts to modernize the material to fit the global political context of the 21st century, while John Krasinski's interpretation of the titular character matched Baldwin's ) are completely different. If Baldwin gravitates toward the obnoxious behind-the-scenes work of Ryan's work, Krasinski's version of Ryan is a daring action hero willing to risk his life to save innocents from danger. However, in the season 3 finale, "Stars on the Wall," Jack finds himself in a place fans of "The Hunt for Red October" might recognize; he must establish communications between an American sub and a Russian sub bridge to avoid the outbreak of World War III.

Another Soviet Plot

In season three, Jack finds himself on an undercover mission with his longtime mentor and friend James Greer (Wendell Pierce) to investigate a cabal in the former Soviet Union Activists hope to restore political tensions of the 1980s by blaming the US government for the conflict attempt. Jack Ryan has certainly outdone his predecessors in the "Ryanverse" with a fuller portrayal of global politics (especially sympathetic to international refugees and freedom fighters), and this storyline doesn't feel like simply repeating familiar beats for the sake of nostalgia . Considering everything that has happened in the past year involving the current Russian regime and the situation in Ukraine, Jack Ryan seems almost docile in comparison.

Similar to Hunting for Red October, Jack is basically the only one willing to work towards a peaceful resolution. Baldwin's Ryan is the only CIA agent who thinks Captain Marco Ramius (Sean Connery) isn't out to start a conflict, but to defect. We saw a slight parallel in Season 3 of the Amazon series; Ryan made a reluctant ally with ex-Soviet soldier and spy Luka Gorchurov (James Cosmo). While Luka lacked Ramius' idealism and was certainly more ruthless, he also saw firsthand what Soviet spies could do in positions of power. he and Jack is just out to make sure the kind of violence he's seen never happens again.

A Volatile Situation

Things heated up when Defense Minister Alexei Petrov usurped power from the Russian presidency and issued a series of erroneous orders that threatened to trigger a global first strike. Similar to The Hunt for Red October, tensions between the US and Russia are at an all-time high, and any sign of an attack would be the first domino in a large-scale nuclear conflict. Jack is in the same position in both stories; he's desperately trying to send messages to two different ships, cooperating with his Russian ally, and using whatever connections he has with the President of the United States to convince cooler heads to prevail.

Similar to the season finale "The Hunt for Red October", "Stars on the Wall" is a cat-and-mouse game between two submarines. Although Petrov was executed and his fellow traitors were responsible for their belligerent actions, no lines of communication were passed to those on the Russian submarine Dreadnought. The USS Roosevelt is actively pursuing; while the technology has clearly changed three years later, the strategic mapping and tracking technology feels very good almost the same.

Jack's relationship with Luca mirrors his collaboration with Ramius in "The Hunt for Red October"; Jack manages to fly a helicopter to the American ship, and Luca tries to convince the Russian crew not to follow false orders because the would invite retaliation. In both cases, cooler heads prevailed and rationality broke through. Interestingly, the peace between the two nations is as fragile now as it was when Clancy first conceived these characters, which is amusing and a little frustrating.

Krasinski’s Evolution

Krasinski's version of Ryan generally has more in common with Harrison Ford's depictions of the character in the Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, as his prominence in action sequences highlights his military skills. He also has the vestiges of youth that made Chris Pine so likable in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and some elements of Ben Affleck's feminine version of the character in The Sum of All Fears. However, Jack's behavior in the wake of the nuclear crisis is avoided, and it feels like a nod to Baldwin in "Hunt for Red October"; he has a casual decency about him, and he'll start the day office.

It was both necessary and exciting to see Jack Ryan take the story in a new direction and reintroduce the material to a younger audience by resetting the story's themes. However, Jack Ryan season 3 is a nod to the franchise's past and a reminder that hunting down Red October is still the "Ryanverse" adventure that started them all.