The Day of the Jackal – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Botch Job

Episode 2 of The Day of the Jackal begins with a look at the political landscape in Germany. It’s in tatters, to be frank. Many are calling for the upcoming elections to be suspended in light of the assassination. As for Bianca, she receives a call from Allison, who’s livid over Emma being behind bars. The thing is, Emma is actually dead but Bianca doesn’t tell Allison for fear of messing up her operation. She uses this as leverage to get Norman Stoke’s phone number.

However, this death is on Bianca’s head, which isn’t great. MI6 are going to clear up the mess, but while some want to close down the case, for now Sparrow is their only lead so they’re going to keep this pretence going for the time being.

Meanwhile, the Jackal (whose name here is apparently Charles but who knows what’s real!) has his next target, which happens to be the tech mogul, Ulle Dag Charles (UDC). He’s also intent on finding who’s withholding the money from him. While he works to get his funds back, he’s intrigued by this other job to tide his family over. He has a strict no-posting rule for social media too, keeping himself anonymous, which we see during a family dinner. It’s not just Nuria wrapped up in this though, he also has a son too.

The Jackal gets the details surrounding the origin of the funds, and it’s coming from Munich. He leaves right in the middle of his son’s birthday party, which Nuria is not happy about. Still, she drives him out to the airport all the same. This seems to be a regular occurrence, given Nuria senses he’s “in the zone”.

For the Jackal, this is serious. He has a whole number of different passports for different nationalities, he’s an expert with languages… and he drives right past Nuria in a taxi and she notices while heading home. She’s rattled that her husband is keeping secrets and worries that he may be cheating.

The origin of this hit on UDC happens to be coming from New York. The shadowy businessmen there contemplate whether he’s worth investing and bringing in, with the crux of the issue being UDC’s new project, River. The tech mogul is promising “global economic justice”, and he intends to redistribute wealth. That comes from total financial transparency for everyone to see.  While he himself has nothing to hide, he knows that others most certainly do.

Bianca is on the case and does some serious digging on this one. Using her contacts and tenacity, she tracks down the make of a bag, which the Jackal has conveniently ripped the logo off of. She deduces, from this, and the accuracy of the sniper shot, that the guy they’re after is British and potentially ex-army.

Bianca has all the details, and she decides to do some digging into the army bases around the UK. Specifically,  looking out for exceptional candidates with sniper rifles and those who are right-handed.

With the group in on this, Sparrow pulls through and gets Norman’s number, handing it over to Bianca. She finds out that Norman Stoke is in Belarus, so off she goes. She knows full well that she’s jumping head-fist into the lion’s den.

Allison manages to get Norman’s number while the Jackal also decides to go ahead with the UDC hit. He and Leonore bargain on the final number, eventually agreeing that the job needs to be done by the 28th, before the official release of River. The Jackal is warned not to attract any attention either. This is, of course, easier said than done, given he’s out for blood. For now though, Rodin is the codeword for UDC and Jackal is going to be the codeword for, well, the Jackal.

Our killer finds out that the payment withheld to him was made from a company account, called HelleLinie from the looks of it. He follows the trail back to two names – Hans Lange and Elias Fest. The same Elias of course, whom he spared in Munich.

Speaking of trails, Bianca follows hers but realizes that Norman was waiting for them all along. There are bombs rigged on the doors and with her teammates down, Norman slips away. Bianca does, however, find the suitcase that Charles initially used outside in the woods. She stuffs it in the back of her car, along with her dead teammates, and heads back to MI6, ready for the firestorm that’s coming her way.

The Episode Review

The screw is starting to tighten and it’s clear that this Jackal has some vulnerabilities. We see a much more human side to him in this show, but of course business comes first. That much is obvious from what’s transpired but the fact that this business may have originate from Elias, explaining the “Fuck You” retort, which is a nice little twist. 

Meanwhile, we have Bianca who continues to flirt that line of morality but right now, accompanied by little consequences for her actions. She’s brash and incredibly reckless, as we know, but she’s also always right so there’s little for her to learn. The ending, with the operation against Norman, has cost the lives of two people (three if you count Emma who needlessly died for Bianca’s crusade) and the show hasn’t really seen Bianca even remotely affected by this.

The Diplomat, by comparison, has come out recently and shows that main character as a strong, independent female but also with these moments of vulnerability. We’re not seeing that from Bianca right now, making for a pretty cold character that’s difficult to really empathize with fully. I’m hoping this is just a facade for her though and we see more of her character play out in the episodes ahead.

Hopefully things improve because she’s the weak link in this high octane thriller.