The Day of the Jackal – Season 1 Episode 7 Recap & Review

Pandemonium In The Concert

Episode 7 of Day of the Jackal starts with us back in Tallinn. Jackal meets Leonora at the library, where he brings up that Intelligence agents are in the vicinity and wants her people to help get them off his scent. She’s impressed and with “guns” incoming on Friday, the Jackal is under pressure to deliver. He doesn’t want to get too close here, but Leonora does call in some favours to slow down MI6.

While Jackal fools around with Rasmus, Nuria is lost in her own thoughts back home. Her family are worried about her, but she continues to try and trust her husband, despite his obvious unfaithfulness. Nuria’s brother pushes for 40 grand in order to get the bar he was speaking about earlier in the series up and running. Nuria is conflicted but eventually agrees to let him into Jackal’s secret room, although she’s not particularly happy. Jackal isn’t either, as he watches the footage himself and sees Alvaro stash the gun and money in his pockets.

There’s been nothing back on the dust prints (nothing on the hair, DNA or Jackal’s bag then?), and given Bianca only caught sight of the Jackal at night, the sketch doesn’t really look much like him. But, miraculously, a police officer – the same one who questioned Jackal that night – recognizes the face and calls it in.

However, on their way out the building, there’s a hit against Bianca and Vince’s lives. They manage to avoid being killed, with the attackers stopped outside, but it’s certainly a close call. Despite being slightly delayed, the pair show up at the apartment but find it  empty, given Jackal is luckily over at Rasmus’ place.

They speak to the Hungarian officer, who brings up that Jackal had a British passport under the name of Peter. Well, it’s going to be difficult to find Jackal, as he hunkers down in the restricted section of the concert hall, high up and away from unsuspecting security intel, using Rasmus’ card to break in. This is somewhere that Rasmus showed him earlier in the episode and contextualizes why he got romantically involved.

Buying excessive food from the vendor for the concert the night before is explained here by him needing to wait for the big talk with UDC the following day, but Jackal is haunted by the ghosts of the past.

The recurring flashbacks we’ve been seeing stems from an operation in the Middle East that’s gone wrong. We don’t see much around this though, but we do see how conflicted Jackal is over everything. Nuria is the wildcard here, and when they first met, she was full of life and working as a waitress. Believing this may be the end of the road for him, a single tear falls from Jackal’s cheek.

The big day arrives and security is super tight. Bianca looks around and almost spots where Jackal is. The big speech goes ahead though, and Jackal leaves his hiding spot and methodically works his way to the sniping spot.

UDC takes to the stage, and behind bulletproof glass, Jackal preps for the shot. It’s an incredibly tense affair, but someone else races on stage and messes everything up. UDC is taken out, the operation is a botch, while it’s absolute pandemonium in the arena. The Jackal does manage to get away though, but Rasmus sees him leave and unfortunately, he’s forced to choke him out and kill the guy.

The Episode Review

The Jackal slips away again and this time, Bianca comes super close to actually finding him. She figures out quite quickly that there’s a second shot, and that Jackal is in the building, but in the chaos of it all, he manages to slip out of her grasp once more.

The entire scene inside the concert hall is incredibly tense and unexpected that someone would just jump on stage like that. The repercussions for failing to kill UDC however, is going to have big ramifications on Jackal’s life. Seeing more of his past is definitely welcome and the show has done really well to keep this part of him somewhat of a mystery across the series.

The subplot involving Nuria is clearly going somewhere, especially with her brother taking off with a gun and money, but for now that’s still unclear exactly where that one’s going.

What’s clearer however, is that Jackal and Bianca are on a collision course, and right now, anything could happen.