Yahoo News Jack Ryan season 2: Here's everything you need to know
Warning: Contains spoilers for Jack Ryan season one.
Four months before Jack Ryan launched on Amazon Prime Video, the show had already been renewed for season two.
Created by Lost's Carlton Cuse and Prison Break's Graham Roland, the show is the fifth version of Tom Clancy's character to reach the screen – the first for TV – and sees John Krasinski stepping into the shoes of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine to play the CIA analyst.
"With so much early anticipation for Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan from our customers and personally having the pleasure to preview the exhilarating, action-packed first season, we are excited to greenlight a second season of the series months ahead of its debut," said Amazon Studios boss Jennifer Salke.
If you've already binged on the first eight episodes, here's everything you need to know about the second season of Jack Ryan.
Related: Designated Survivor season 4: Everything you need to know
Jack Ryan season 2 trailer: When can we see it?
On July 27, Amazon Prime released our first glimpse of Jack Ryan's sophomore season with a teaser trailer you can watch above.
The emphasis here is on action rather than plot, so not much can gleaned about season two just from the footage we've seen so far. However, what we do know is that fans can expect plenty more of the thrills they enjoyed so much back in season one and a second longer trailer will likely drop before season two is released.
Jack Ryan season 2 release date: When can we expect it?
Given the early renewal, season two was already in production when season one came out on Amazon Prime Video worldwide on August 31, 2018.
"We're two months into shooting the second season already. We're really thankful for Amazon's belief and support of the show," Cuse told The Hollywood Reporter, with Roland adding: "I think we opened up the writers room for season two on October 4, 2017."
A new teaser trailer released by Amazon Prime on July 27 promised fans that season two is "coming soon," but no official release date has been provided still. Our best guess at the moment is that Jack Ryan will stick to the late August slot for season two, heading our way sooner than we initially expected.
Jack Ryan season 2 cast: Who's coming back?
The main trio of characters will be back in season two, so that's John Krasinski as Jack Ryan, Wendell Pierce as Ryan's mentor James Greer and Abbie Cornish as Ryan's girlfriend Cathy Mueller.
However, Ali Suliman won't be back as Islamic terrorist Mousa Bin Suleiman after he was killed by Ryan in the season-one finale as he attempted to assassinate the President and other leading political figures. That means we can also expect that Dina Shihabi won't be back either as Suleiman's wife Hanin Ali.
We will be seeing more of John Hoogenakker as Black Ops operative Matice as he's been promoted to a series regular in season two.
There will be a host of new faces joining the cast in season two, led by Noomi Rapace as German intelligence agent Harriet 'Harry' Baumann and House of Cards star Michael Kelly as CIA field officer Mike November.
They'll be joined by Jovan Adepo as former special Navy crewman Marcus, Jordi Molla as Nicolas Reyes (a leader of a South American country), Cristina Umaña as politician Gloria Bonalde and Francisco Denis as senior government official Ubarri.
Tom Wlaschiha – Game of Thrones ' Jaqen H'Ghar – has also signed up for a key recurring role in the new season, playing Max Schenkel, a mysterious foreign operative who crosses paths with Jack.
But Tom Clancy's other best-known protagonist, John Clark, won't be appearing in the show, despite showing up in many of the Ryan books and on screen in the movie franchise. "No, [he won't be appearing]," Cuse told Digital Spy. "He's kind of his own separate thing."
[Willem Dafoe as John Clark in Clear and Present Danger]
(The announcement that Michael B Jordan would be playing Clark in two new films based on Clancy's novels explained why the rights to the character were all tied up.)
Instead, Matice (John Hoogenakker) fulfils some of the same functions as Clark. "When you watch your show, if you liked Matice, he's our version of that guy [Clark]," Roland explained.
Behind the camera, award-winning director Dennie Gordon will direct and executive produce three of the eight new episodes. Co-executive producer Phil Abraham will take the helm for two episodes as well and John Krasinski will join them both as another executive producer too.
Jack Ryan season 2 plot: What will it be about?
Amazon Prime have now released an official synopsis for season two of Jack Ryan:
"In the second season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, after tracking a potentially suspicious shipment of illegal arms in the Venezuelan jungle, CIA Officer Jack Ryan, portrayed by John Krasinski (A Quiet Place), heads down to South America to investigate.
As Jack’s investigation threatens to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy, the President of Venezuela launches a counter-attack that hits home for Jack, leading him and his fellow operatives on a global mission spanning the United States, UK, Russia, and Venezuela to unravel the President’s nefarious plot and bring stability to a country on the brink of chaos."
While some characters have continued, season two will be its own self-contained story like the first season. "We see each one of these seasons like a different book in the series," Cuse told The Hollywood Reporter.
Roland added: "You should be able to watch it in the same way that you can go to an airport bookstore and grab a Tom Clancy Jack Ryan book and never have read the previous one, and still enjoy it. In that same way, you should be able to enjoy our show. It shouldn't be so serialised that you can't jump in at any moment."
As such, season two will move on from terrorism to a dangerous, declining democratic regime in South America, with Ryan having to confront the forces in power.
"In the same way that Hunt for Red October is very different than Clear and Present Danger, we're taking these two characters of Jack Ryan and Jim Greer and putting them in a wholly different story — in this case, a political thriller in South America that's kind of an allegory for the decline of democracy," Cuse teased.
Of course, while that South American setting does make it seem like the second series will stick closely to the events of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger, don’t expect it to. Season one veered from the source material quite radically, and season two looks set to do the same.
"We tried to adapt a book," executive producer/writer Graham Roland reveals. "We spent about a month on it that spring of 2015 after we took the project on."
But it quickly become apparent to him and Cuse that Clancy's novels are "geopolitical thrillers of their time", explaining that "trying to take a book that had been written 30 years ago and translate it to today was just not going to work".
“We see each season as like a book in a novel series," says Cuse. "The characters of Jack Ryan and Jim Greer carry forward, but the story otherwise is wholly different.
"[Season two is] a very different environment and a very different story, but still following these two central characters on another adventure."
"That was one of the main reasons for signing on to the show is when they pitched it to me," says Krasinski. "Maybe movies isn't the best place for Jack Ryan, because it's only two hours and Tom Clancy's books are so rich with detail."
"Long-form television, where you have eight parts to deal with the story... it's actually more like the book experience."
"I think it would've been hard to make another two-hour Jack Ryan movie that would really revitalise the franchise. But the idea of doing an eight-hour version for television allowed us to expand the notion of what the franchise was, and what it could be."
And Amazon certainly seems to agree – they greenlit season two before season one had even aired (following a 400 per cent increase in subscriptions after an eye-catching Superbowl trailer), and they’ve done the same thing again – season three has already been announced.
And while the season one finale ended with Greer promoted to a new post in Russia and offering Ryan to come along with him ("I booked you a flight to Moscow"), don't expect Russia to play a major role in season two.
We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article.
"Russia and Greer's geography is an impediment to how these two guys are going to sync back up in season two. I wouldn't look at it as, 'They're going to be going up against Russia next year'," Roland explained.
Cuse added: "Part of the fun of the story is unwinding out of the end of season one, when we know Greer is off to Russia. How do these two characters get back together? What are their relative roles, and how are they involved in this? There's a little bit of carryover where you benefit from seeing season one, but really, you could watch season two and it will be its own narrative."
Some filming for season two took place in central London in October 2018 and, while it's a remote possibility that the city could be doubling for another, the fact that John Krasinski was shooting in the instantly recognisable Leicester Square suggests that Jack will be taking a trip to the United Kingdom, too.
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan is available now on Amazon Prime Video.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account.
You Might Also Like
