Though based in Washington, D.C., Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan is all over the place -- literally.
I don't know whether producers were hoping nobody would notice the obvious inconsistencies in Amazon's Jack Ryan, or were just assuming that nobody in the Washington, D.C., vicinity would actually sit down to watch it. Whatever the case, we did watch it, and from the weird-looking crabs Jack hits with a mallet, to his inefficient, backtracking, geographically impossible commute to his desk job at the CIA, D.C. residents noticed it all.
The Crabs
Viewers took to Reddit to complain about the fact that though Jack's supposedly eating at a D.C.-area crab place, the crabs are evidently not our crabs. #notourcrabs (can we get that hashtag to trend?)
#notourcrabs
The Geography
We know Jack's smart. I mean, he's Jack Ryan -- the beloved former marine and CIA operative who shows up in most of Tom Clancy's books. But somehow he hasn't figured out the most efficient way to get to his CIA office in Langley, VA. (Or, maybe, producers just wanted to show off just about every corner of Washington, D.C.?)
Played by John Krasinski (no complaints there), Jack rows a boat up the Potomac River, then hops on a bike and rides through Georgetown ...
"This is already starting to not make sense," writes Natalie Delgadillo at DCist. "According to Google Maps, it is indeed possible to bike from the Potomac Boat Club to Langley—it's a six-mile ride that would take about 37 minutes via the Capital Crescent Trail.
"Instead, we see Ryan cycling deeper into the city via Georgetown. ... In the next cut, Ryan is cycling along the Tidal Basin, passing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. You're real far from work now, bud.
"Suddenly, Ryan is cycling away from a clear shot of the Capitol Building in the background. And still we're supposed to assume he is biking to Virginia—maybe just on the longest, most circuitous morning commute known to man."
Someone, get Jack a map!
But seriously, maybe he knows something we don't? I mean, traffic's pretty bad these days. Maybe we should all take a cue from Jack and see if heading in the opposite direction gets us to our destination any faster. It'd be scenic, at the very least.
A reporter from WUSA9 even decided to try out the route:
And then there's this:
All told, the new web TV series from Amazon Video is getting good reviews, and viewers seem to really be enjoying it -- if they can just get past the fact that the D.C. that Jack hails from seems to be a completely different city from our reality.
What did you think? Have you watched Jack Ryan yet? Notice anything else that was wrong? Tell us in the comments!
#notourcrabs
Speaking of crabs, have you heard about the PETA billboards in Baltimore?
