10 Best moments from Jack Ryan

Prime Video’s Jack Ryan brought the characters and stories created by Tom Clancy in his Ryanverse. The series follows John Krasinski's Jack Ryan, a CIA Analyst, who is pulled out of his desk job to field to investigate various types of crimes involving terrorism, political warfare, and even nuclear bombs.

With four seasons, Jack Ryan is an espionage drama made perfectly for television. The high-octane action scenes and the well-paced narrative make it a must-watch for fans of crime thrillers. The different cases involving counterterrorism, Krasinski's portrayal of Jack Ryan, and his camaraderie with his boss, James Greer (Wendell Pierce), are some of the highlights of the show, besides the action sequences. Here’s a list of the 10 best moments from Prime Video’s Jack Ryan.

Disclaimer: This entire article is based on the writer's opinion. Reader's discretion is advised.

10 Best moments from Jack Ryan

10) Jack Ryan figures out Bin Suleiman’s phone number (Season 1, Episode 2)

Wendell Pierce and John Krasinski in Jack Ryan | Image via Amazon Studios

As I mentioned earlier, Jack and Greer’s rapport is one of the highlights of this Prime Video show, which we get to notice from the beginning of the series. For instance, in episode 2 of Season 1, Greer and Jack get into an argument about not trusting each other enough.

However, the argument doesn’t end on a grim note as they realize that Suleiman was in jail before, and that too, a French prison. This helps them find his prison number, which ultimately helps them open his password-protected cell phone and discover the apartment in Paris that was used by his brother to transfer funds.

9) The rooftop chase in London (Season 2, episode 4)

John Krasinski in Jack Ryan | Image via Amazon Studios

While the distance between locations used in the scene, Leicester Square and Mansion House, is miles apart and has been pointed out several times by fans, the chase scene was still an important and the best moment of Jack Ryan. While following Max Schenkel to capture him, Jack follows him through the rooftops, which depict his strength and agility, but also show how difficult the task is as he stumbles at some points.

This grounded portrayal of the characters in the show makes it more entertaining and realistic to watch.

8) “I always wanted to be a federale.” - Mike ( Season 4, Episode 3)

Michael Kelly and John Krasinski in Jack Ryan | Image via Amazon Studios

Jack Ryan’s friendship with Mike November and Domingo Chavez does provide some lighter moments amid the heavy, action-packed scenes. For instance, in season 4, Jack resigns from his deputy director position and joins Mike and later Domingo to create a ruckus in Mexico to get the attention of the Marquez Cartel and Chao.

To do that, they don the Mexican police gear, which prompts Mike to say the above lines. Jack asks if the CIA is his second, and he sincerely tells him that the CIA is his fourth, surprising Jack and creating a lighthearted moment before the high-octane action scenes.

7) Jumping into the Adriatic Sea (Season 4, Episode 4)

After causing chaos in Mexico, Jack Ryan and his friends, Mike and Dingo, go to Croatia to meet Chao. To do that, they had to attend Olafsky’s exclusive party with Katarina’s help. The party is not just any other cocktail party, but a place where women and weapons are being sold.

While they fail to meet Chao, who is actually in Switzerland, they meet Tin Tun, who is selling one of the most dangerous kinds of weapons, called triggers. The trio can't be in a shady place and not get involved in any battle. Therefore, after several fights and gun battles, they try to know how the triggers work but don’t receive a clear answer and have to escape from the place by jumping into the Adriatic sea at night.

The quick pace and action scenes, and also the humor shared between the trio, ending with them jumping into the sea, is one of Jack Ryan’s finest scenes.

6) Jack Ryan gets ambushed in Greece (Season 3, Episode 1)

Season 3 of Jack Ryan introduces the reactivation of a past secret nuclear mission to develop a megaton nuclear weapon called Sokol. After Jack, with a small team, is sent to hunt for the nuclear material, he meets Yuri, a Russian nuclear scientist who tells them that Sokol is real and reactivated.

As the plan to cause tension around the world goes on after a Russian diplomat is killed in Prague, Jack reaches their extraction location in Greece, near a beach with Yuri, but is ambushed. While the whole extraction team is killed, Jack single-handedly saves Yuri by not wasting any of his bullets and shooting point blank, killing the people who ambushed him.

The scene doesn’t end there as Jack and Yuri are followed through Athens, where his quick thinking helps him kill more of those people, depicting one of the most adrenaline-filled scenes, and that too at the beginning of a new season.

5) Ryan saves Luca (Season 3, Episode 7)

In episode 7 of Jack Ryan, Jack travels to Russia to bust the Russian politicians’ plan to work on Sokol with Luca Goncharov’s help. As Luca goes to meet the Russian defense minister, Alexei, to get a confession from him, he finds his life in danger.

After being taken to a remote location, which Jack also follows, Alexei confesses to being responsible for the former defense minister, Popov’s death, and also reveals his plans about activating the crossbow as Sokol has failed, and orders Luca to be killed. As he is just about to be assassinated, Ryan comes in and shoots the assassin in the head, helping Luca to escape the location.

4) “You and I both know this starts with missiles, but that is not where it ends.” - Jack Ryan (Season 3, Episode 8)

John Krasinski and Abbie Cornish in Jack Ryan | Image via Amazon Studios

The escalation of an impending nuclear war reaches its limits when US and Russian warships, USS Roosevelt and Fearless, engage in some firefights and are about to launch their missiles, which will be the start of World War III. Jack asks the Commander of Roosevelt not to engage in any fights to avoid a world war and says this dialogue. The Commander asks Jack if he is ready to risk the lives of all the sailors on the ship, to which Jack replies that if this move ends up saving millions of lives, he is ready to take the risk.

Fortunately, Luca informs that Fearless’ Captain Antonov is under arrest, and they successfully manage to de-escalate the situation between the US and Russia, making it one of the most intense yet profound scenes of the Jack Ryan series.

3) Jack’s team gets caught in the Venezuelan jungle (Season 2, Episode 3)

After being informed about shipments being transported to a jungle in Venezuela, Jack wants to find it. He, along with a team, goes into the jungle to find out about the shipments, takes some pictures to prove what they saw, and comes back. However, Jack’s obsession with finding the shipments and nuclear weapons results in the whole team being caught and ambushed.

The intense gun battle in a four-minute scene is one of the best action sequences of the Prime Video series and deserves to be one of the top 5 moments of the show.

2) Jack Ryan saves his life, bargaining with a live grenade (Season 1, Episode 1)

The premiere episode of the Prime Video series is among the best episodes of Jack Ryan as it perfectly sets the premise. From picking up Jack from a social gathering in a helicopter to revealing the identity of the terrorist Suleiman at the end of the episode, after a brutal fight, resulted in an impactful episode that brought anticipation and excitement to the series.

In addition to introducing the plotlines, the show also highlighted Ryan’s intelligence and quick thinking when he saved himself with a hand grenade. After being attacked by Suleiman’s men, who we later learn came to rescue the bodyguard and were almost killed until Jack bargained with a grenade in one hand and its pin in the other. The attacker then does not shoot Ryan on the bodyguard’s order, which Jack realizes is actually Suleiman.

1) Jack exposes Senator Henshaw (Season 4, Episode 6)

The finale of the Prime Video series was not at all exempt from the intense storytelling, as several loose ends were tied in the end. The most intriguing one is Jack exposing Henshaw.

After being brutally tortured by Lemos, Jack is saved by Dingo, and with Chao’s flash drive, they locate Zeyara’s bombs being sent to the US. After several fights in Texas, where the bombs were located, Jack finally finds out how Henshaw was connected. He uses this information during his hearing in DC when Henshaw comments about another CIA agent going rogue.

He reveals the document signed by Henshaw, which sped up the shipment that they had just traced back to Texas, confirming his involvement in Zeyara’s criminal adventures. Jack finally leaves the hearing, winning and successfully bringing Zeyara Lemos down.