In the last episode we saw Jack Ryan become a verified agent again, with Elizabeth as well. Although he did manage to stop the Sokol nuke, that still leaves him with a lot of fallout in its path to deal with. Luka is now working alongside Jack, his team and President Kovac, last we saw them they were on their way to Moscow.
Read the recap of Season 3 Episode 6 here.
The official synopsis for episode 7 reads “In Moscow, Jack teams with Luka to expose the high-ranking cabal members within the government who are now orchestrating the secret Sokol plan.”
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR JACK RYAN SEASON 3 EPISODE 7
There is a lot going on in this episode, look away and you just might miss something. Secret meetings, crooked captains, plans for war, its all boiling down to this.
As we saw in the previous episode, Elizabeth is now in charge of the Sokol team and has replaced Miller. We first see her brief the President about what happened with the Nuke in episode 7, and she brings him up to speed on their investigation. She highlighted the fact that the US and Russia are being goaded into a war and begs the president not to take Military action as that would mean their plan is working, but unfortunately she does not have any concrete proof, however the president agrees not to go to DEFCON 2 for now.
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In Moscow, Luka and Jack are working together to take down Alexei Petrov, Luka is supposed to be meeting with him, and Jack is watching and listening closeby waiting to record him confessing, but things soon go sideways when its not Petrov who shows up but members of the GRU to capture Luka. Luka quickly disposes of the mic and is shoved into a van by the men, when it drives off Jack Jumps into a car and follows. Luka smartly uses his cigarette box as a mic so that Jack can hear what’s going on. They reach a warehouse, and when Jack sees him go inside, that’s his cue, after conversing or more like gloating to Luka, he confesses he had Popov killed and was working with Petr and Jack captures his confession.
He also mentions project crossbow again, which Luca first brought up in the previous episode. Petrov blames Luka for Sokol’s failure and instructs his man to kill him, but they don’t get the chance as Jack who has no infiltrated the warehouse takes out that man with a gun pointed at Luka’s head and enough of Petrov’s men allowing them to get to cover. Luka then grabs a gun and the two get into a gunfight until the remaining Russians escape.
After they have reached safety, Jack and Luka have an emotional
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moment, when Jack finally asks the question he’s been dreading, “I need to know, Matoksa, a lot of people died that day and I need to know why you were there.” Luka is nothing but truthful with Jack as he says, “Because I gave the order, to kill them. I have a lot to make up for Jack.”
When Greer meets with an informant named Vova and asks him about Petr, he explains that they were called the “clean-up” brigade and would be sent to “clean up accidents”, he says he will help set up a meeting with Greer, but when Greer goes inside the building where the meeting is supposed to be, Vova attacks him and tries to kill him. After getting the upper hand on him, Greer demands the name of the person who sent him to kill him. It turns out, it was, Captain Rolan Antonov.
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Meanwhile in Russia, President Kovak has asked for a meeting with Petrov, she confronts him with the truth, and he tries to convince her to to step away from NATO. We then learn this was a distraction, as we will see later in the episode.
Elizabeth still has no solid evidence to present to the Oval Office, meanwhile things are getting tense as the Americans are preparing for war with all the Russian military action going on. She then calls Greer who tells her that the US embassy in Russia is being shut down. Elizabeth asks for any hard proof, Greer says he will try contacting Ryan.
Greer and Ryan have a secret meeting in the park, but it is interrupted when a GRU member tries to assassinate them, but is instead killed by Luka. Luckily Jack’s quick reflexes save them both. Ryan gives Greer the recording where Petrov admits he was a part of Popov’s murder and Greer gives him Rolan Antonov’s name. In that moment Luka says he thinks of Jack as a good friend.
We find out, that all this time Mike has been on his own mission to arrange a secret meeting with Natalya Popova,
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wife of the late Defense Minister Dmitry Popov. After commandeering Natalya’s car, he tells her she can find out who killed her husband, and he drives her to meet President Alena Kovac and Greer. After telling her the truth, the Kovac then plays the tape with Petrovs recording on it. Alena asks for her help in setting up a meeting with the Russian president, a now furious Natalya agrees to help them.
Jack and Luka go to Antonov’s house to see what they can find. They run into some hostiles, but Jack and Luka easily manage to take them out. There they find a
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goldmine of documents that contain a workup of every US vessel in the Baltic. When Luka points out a picture of the most lethal weapon in Russias’s fleet, the pieces start falling into place. In order to launch that vessel you would need an order from the Kremlin, and it turns out he has one, from the new defense minister Petrov, which is why Popov was killed in the first place. Luka points out, “This was Peter Kovac’s plan all along.” That’s when Jack realizes Antonov has been compromised by Petr and Petrov.
After a dissapointing meeting with the president, Elizabeth walks out to a number of missed calls from Jack. As soon as she calls him Jack tells her everything they’ve learned about Antonov and the warship, and that they had it wrong all along, you can see an upset Jack tell Elizabeth “Sokol, it was never just about a nuke or starting a war, it was always about power.”
That’s when the two of them put together the fact that it was a coup by Petrov and the Kremlin, that they were now in the middle of. Jack then tells her he’s headed for the Baltic, but Luka decides to go after Antonov on the ship. When Jack tries to convince him otherwise, Luka simply says, “What would you do?”
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When Elizabeth takes this information to the Oval office and the president, the fact that Captain Antonov is compromised and a coup is at hand the president still doesn’t think the fact that her sources are reliable is enough to move forward.
What’s great about this season is its use of characters. This season has been able to highlight and build each character and actor with the use of the multiple storyline arc. With just one more episode to go, things are escalating for Jack Ryan, and his team, for some reason, it doesn’t feel like Luka is going to survive this season. We are about to see, as his tactical teammate put it, if Jack really is willing to bet his life on this, and I think we all know the answer is yes.
Fangirl and Writer with a huge passion for entertainment.
