Characters / Jack Ryan (2018)

Character sheet for the 2018 series Jack Ryan.

Beware: spoilers unmarked!

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U.S.A.

CIA

Jack Ryan

Jack Ryan, PhD

Played by: John Krasinski

Protagonist of the series. A former Marine Lieutenant, Ryan now works a cubicle in the CIA's Terrorist Finances and Arms Division.

• Adaptational Badass: Unlike book Ryan, who joined a peacetime military and injured his back in a helo crash almost as soon as he was commissioned, this incarnation of Ryan was deployed to Afghanistan and saw combat.
• Badass Bookworm: Jack has a Ph.D in economics and is introduced as an analyst who tracks terrorist activity through financial records. But when sent out into the field, after a little hesitation, he proves himself to be more than capable in a fight.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ryan gives off an air of being a boring paperwork Salary Man, but was a marine before a helicopter crash and Career-Ending Injury. He's not a super-spy One-Man Army, but knows how to handle himself in combat situations.
• Dented Iron: He experienced severe spinal trauma in a helicopter crash requiring, among other things, spinal fusion surgery, and the injury continues to cause him trouble years later.
• Experienced Protagonist: Former Marine who was discharged on medical grounds before he joined the CIA.
• Genius Bruiser: Jack Ryan is a tall and extremely muscular military veteran who is also a brilliant financial analyst.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Eventually becomes this with Greer over the course of the hunt for Suleiman.
• Ignored Expert: As per tradition, Ryan has a keen sense of handling paperwork and field analysis, and is regularly on top of the most dangerous individuals even if his advice is dismissed. He has a habit of speaking up in board room meetings in ways that shouldn't involve him.
• Insufferable Genius: Other characters, mainly Greer, find Jack's deep knowledge of multiple fields grating, especially when he speaks up out of turn. In Season 2, Jim Moreno recalls a wounded Jack explaining his upcoming spinal surgery to the orthopedic surgeon about to perform the procedure.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Ryan is a well meaning, idealistic person working in the CIA who believes he can make a difference in the world.
• Military Maverick/Cowboy Cop: He becomes the secret agent version of these in Season 2 by going against orders to find his friend’s killer. It escalates to the point where November has to talk him down from killing Reyes in the finale.
• Outranking Your Job: By Season 4, he's Acting Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, second-in-command at the CIA, but keeps finding himself needing to do field work.
• Refusal of the Call: At the end of Season 1, we see Greer offer Jack a chance to work out of Moscow Station, a coveted assignment within the CIA. At the beginning of Season 2, we see that he turned down the opportunity in favor of a foreign policy fellowship at the US Senate. Greer eventually susses out that Jack hides behind a desk because he doesn't want to see any more friends and colleagues killed in action.
• Sole Survivor: Ryan ended up this in Afghanistan when the helicopter he was on went down, killing everyone else aboard. He is clearly traumatized and feels quite guilty about this. It is eventually revealed that the reason he feels so responsible is because the bomber who took the helicopter down was a child Ryan himself had allowed aboard.
• Took a Level in Badass: Despite the Adaptational Badass trope mentioned above, he went through this across all three seasons, starting from a rusty-yet-capable wannabe case officer in Season 1 (he was a desk analyst before that), to a fully-fledged but a touch gullible CIA field agent in Season 2, to a capable mission and field assault team leader in Season 3.

James Greer

James Greer

Played by: Wendell Pierce

Secondary protagonist of the series. Green is an experienced CIA case officer who has been demoted and reassigned to Langley after misconduct abroad, and is a Muslim experiencing a crisis of faith brought on by his divorce.

• Acrofatic: Wendell Pierce is a rather heavy guy, but that doesn’t seem to slow him down at all. Shown when Greer is chasing a suspect in a hospital and the man ducks into an elevator. He gets in the elevator on the sixth floor and rides it down to the fourth floor, and when the doors open Greer is waiting for him, gun drawn. He sprinted down two floors and wasn’t even out of breath.
• Adaptational Badass: Book Greer fought his battles with a pen from behind a desk; series Greer is a crack shot with a pistol and proficient with an assault rifle.
• Career-Ending Injury: He discovers a heart condition in the S2 premiere that forces him to begrudgingly retire from field work by the end of the season.
• Experienced Protagonist: Career CIA officer who saw action in the Middle East and parts of Asia.
• Famed In-Story: A great many people within the CIA have heard of and know Greer.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Eventually becomes this with Ryan over the course of the hunt for Suleiman, and when he's promoted to Deputy Chief of Station Moscow, invites Ryan to join him.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: He's fluent in most of the languages spoken across all 3 seasons, including Arabic (he's Muslim), Spanish, Russian, etc. It's more acceptable considering his experience as a CIA agent compared to Ryan, who usually only busts out this trope during dramatic moments to catch others off-guard.
• Knight in Sour Armor: 16 years in the CIA has turned Greer into this.
• The Load: His heart condition makes him this in Season 2 to his teammates.
• Post-Injury Desk Job: To his displeasure, he accepts one at the end of the second season when he realizes he’s a liability in the field, putting him closer to the role of his book/film counterpart.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Initially, he is stern and dismissive of Ryan, but quickly grows to trust and support him.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Greer was Chief of Station Karachi, the head CIA officer in charge of all CIA operations in Pakistan. His reassignment to a desk job in Langley is a massive demotion indicating his fall from grace.
• Twofer Token Minority: Is black and Muslim, which has not really done favors for his CIA career.
  "And maybe some day my black Muslim ass will be Director of the CIA."
• Vegetarian for a Day: His heart condition in S2 forces him to try a much healthier lifestyle in S3... for about one episode. Ryan teases him with a plate of fried street snacks while he's fiddling with a plate of salad he's clearly disgusted by, but he resists... for about five minutes or so. He spent the rest of S3 drinking and eating high-fat food with as much gusto as his younger years, though he's willing to give up on bread.
  "Give me one."

Matice

Matice/Garth/Jeff Spicoli

Played by: John Hoogenakker

A Paramilitary Operations Officer with the CIA's Special Activities Division who provides Greer and Ryan with armed manpower.

• Deadpan Snarker: He gets more than a few quips in over the series.
• Defiant to the End: Cornered, surrounded, and out of ammunition, he feigns surrender before flipping off his opponents and taunting them into shooting him while cackling like a madman.
• Expy: Of John Clark from the novels, who is unavailable thanks to the planned John Clark film series.
• No Name Given: He introduces himself with a string of aliases. The one name he's consistently addressed as is "Matice".
• One-Man Army: While in Venezuela, he takes on a platoon by himself and takes out a good portion of them before he runs out of ammunition.
• Sacrificial Lion: He's killed off midway through Season 2 when the stakes start getting higher.
• Sergeant Rock: It’s unstated what his actual military rank (if any) was prior to moving to the CIA, but he fits the characteristics of this trope to a tee. Especially compared to Officers Greer and Ryan.
• Semper Fi: He uses the USMC battle cry on occasion.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Dude likes to drop F-bombs and literal bombs with great frequency.
• You Shall Not Pass!: He pulls a classic example of this trope, drawing the Mooks away from The Team and then taking down as many as possible.

Marcus Bishop

Marcus "Uber (Select)" Bishop

Played by: Jovan Adepo

A former SWCC^note a Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman who operated boats for special operations who gets roped into working another op by Matice.

• Always Someone Better: He feels his time in the Navy pales in comparison to the military careers of other members of his family.
• Atrocious Alias: Marcus Bishop wants to be called "Black Mamba" but gets saddled with "Uber," after the ridesharing service, because his job is to drive the boat. His colleagues joke that they'll upgrade him to "Uber Select" if he does a good job.
• Getaway Driver: His role on the team is to get the team in and out Venezuela as cleanly as possible.
• Heroic BSoD: Matice accuses him of this after not making it as a SEAL like his father.
• Idiot Ball: The only explanation on why he left the boat.
• Mr. Fixit: His secondary role on The Squad is to make on-the-fly fixes on their boat.
• Refused the Call: It takes Matice a couple tries before he agrees to get back in action.
• Retired Badass: In Florida fixing boats and living with his mom before Matice arrives. Subverted in that he doesn't feel he's a badass because he washed out of BUD/S.

Mike November

Mike November

Played by: Michael Kelly

The Chief of a Station for Caracas, Venezuela. Also the ex-husband of the U.S. Ambassador to the same country.

• And Starring: His actor gets this billing.
• Badass Bureaucrat: He's a Chief of Station that is largely out of field duty, but he's still ready, willing, and able to kick ass when needed.
• Big Good: His role in S2, shared with his ex-wife Lisa Calabrese and Gloria Banalde.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: He's the straight man to Ryan's somewhat comedic and usually life-threatening antics in S3, getting wrongly punched in the face twice and having his lunch interrupted by a running Ryan and a chasing group of mercenaries.
• Da Chief: Ryan and Greer’s boss in S2.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments.
• Divorce Is Temporary: Remarried with his ex once and Ryan and Greer think he has one more in him.
• Frontline General: He leads the rescue mission in the S2 finale. He would’ve led the earlier jungle missions, but Ryan and Greer reminded him that would be above his pay grade.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He’s a pretty reasonable guy.
• Red Herring: Seems to possibly be the Mole in Charge. He’s not.
• Retired Badass: After the fiasco in Venezuela, he's officially retired and now has gone into the private sector by S3. It pays pretty well, too, much to Ryan's chagrin. He even has the gall to pitch his business to the Czech president's face by the end of S3.
  Ryan: "Just 'making do', huh?"
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Related to Red Herring above, the tendency of CIA leaders in spy fiction to be evil and his actor to play villainous roles makes November suspect to suspicion.
• Working with the Ex: In the same building, no less.

Sue Joyce

Director Sue Joyce

Played by: Blair Brown

The Director of the CIA.

• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She doesn't appear at all in Season 2.

Nathan Singer

Deputy Director of Operations Nathan Singer

Played by: Timothy Hutton

The Deputy Director of the CIA.

• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He's completely absent in Season 2.
• Da Chief: He spends a lot of his time in Season 1 berating Ryan and Greer for not working fast enough for his liking.

Shelby Farnsworth

Director of Operations Shelby Farnsworth

Played by: Daniel Kash

The Director of Operations of the CIA.

Domingo Chavez

Domingo "Ding" Chavez

Played by: Michael Peña

A SOG officer who crosses paths with Jack Ryan.

• Adaptational Back Story Change: In the novels, Ding is a former US Army Ranger who gets plucked from the field by John Clark to become an intelligence officer. In the series, he's a former Navy SEAL with no connection to Clark, who's been Adapted Out because the character is being used in a separate film series.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: Ex-Navy SEAL who gets recruited to the CIA as a SOG officer. Truth in Television since the unit is on the few places where the CIA gets to recruit SOG officers for paramilitary missions.

United States Air Force

Tombstone

Victor "Tombstone" Polizzi

Played by: John Magaro

A self-loathing drone pilot guilt-ridden over the various bombings he's carried out.

• The Atoner: Even before learning he had accidentally bombed an innocent man, Tombstone desperately tries to atone for his actions.
• Manly Tears: He's clearly struggling to prevent himself from breaking down in front of one of his victims' father, before finally crumbling when the man offered him tea like he's no less important than any other guest.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: He's deeply guilt-ridden over the bombings he's carried out and the people he's killed, which is made worse by his colleagues' insistence on congratulating him for his kills.

United States Army

Robert Phelps

Colonel Robert Phelps

Played by: Conrad Coates

The commander of USAMRIID.

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• One Degree of Separation: He contacts Cathy and has her analyze ED-27, than reports her findings to Greer and Ryan.

The White House

Pres. Andrew Pickett

President Andrew Pickett

Played by: Michael Gaston

The President of the Unites States.

Marcus Trent

Secretary of Defense Marcus Trent

Played by: Al Sapienza

The Secretary of Defense.

Bobby Vig

Director of National Intelligence Bobby Vig

Played by: Ron Canada

The Director of National Intelligence.

Other Government Officials

Sen. Jim Moreno

Senator Jim Moreno

Played by Benito Martinez

An old friend and commanding officer of Ryan’s now serving as a U.S. Senator.

• Deadpan Snarker: He gets a few snarks in before he dies.
• First-Episode Twist: Of S2 — he gets assassinated at the end.
• Nice Guy: He is a good friend to Ryan and gets along well with his colleagues.
• No Party Given: Your best guess if he’s a (D.), (R.), or (I.).
• No True Scotsman: Reyes calls him this since he was raised in the U.S., but he flings it back in the President’s face.
• Officer and a Gentleman: He has to have been an officer to outrank Jack, and is definitely a good guy.
• Old Friend: He has a strong bond with Jack.
• Plot-Triggering Death: His death shifts the plot of season two into high gear, as Jack spends the series trying to find the truth behind his death and connect Reyes to it.
• Sacrificial Lamb: He is built up to be a major character, only to be assassinated at the end of the S2 premiere. Though Genre Savvy viewers will see him marked for death from his first on-screen interaction with Ryan.
• Semper Fi: He, like Jack, was a Marine.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: He is given little characterization aside from being a rare honest politician and good guy with no obvious flaws, so his death can be played for tragedy.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He lasts a grand total of one episode before being assassinated.

Sen. Mitch Chapin

Senator Mitch Chapin

Played by: Michael O'Neill

A U.S. Senator and friend to Moreno. Seems to hold a senior position on the Committee on Foreign Relations.

• Big Bad Duumvirate: With Reyes for season two, as he conspired with him to assassinate Senator Moreno.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Reasonable Authority Figure on the outside, Corrupt Politician on the inside.
• Broken Pedestal: Ryan doesn’t know him well, but he seems visibly affected to see that a respectable, sitting U.S. Senator is so despicable, cementing his series-long arc of growing cynical.
• Corrupt Politician: He owns half of a shell company, has a Senatorial colleague assassinated, and even backs a human-rights-violating dictator.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Given his political authority, he is a downplayed example of this trope, but he still hardly appears in the season and might be forgotten about by the casual viewer. Nevertheless, he is the one who hired Max to kill Moreno.
• Eagleland: Right before he gets arrested, he justifies his actions as being for the sake of saving the US from the threat of China (all the while he would profit hugely). He could be sincere or not, and frankly Ryan doesn’t care.
• Evil Old Folks: Rather elderly, and a Corrupt Politician who has a fellow senator assassinated.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses and is a Corrupt Politician.
• Hidden Villain: His duplicity is not revealed until the very last minutes of season 2.
• Man Behind the Man: To Max, whom he hired to kill Moreno, and conspires with Reyes on the mining scheme.
• Manipulative Bastard: Gets Moreno and Ryan to go to Venezuela, where he has the former killed and nearly kills the latter.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He hires mercenaries to do his dirty work for him.
• No Party Given: Much like Moreno, he doesn’t state which party he caucuses with.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: He paints his actions as patriotic and in the name of US security. In truth, he had a U.S. Senator murdered and betrayed CIA operatives to a corrupt, foreign dictatorship that loves to pump out anti-American propaganda. He would also gain massive wealth and political power as a result of his cooperation.
• Orcus on His Throne: He may have caused the season-long conflict, but he virtually makes no action during the season as Reyes and Schenkel act on their own.
• Post-Final Boss: After the climactic raid on Miraflores and the main plot threads are wrapped up, Ryan gets him arrested in the final scene of S2.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He gives off this vibe when Jack and Moreno come to him for help. In truth, he intended to get Moreno and Jack killed.
• Revealing Cover Up: His call to Thorne when he thinks Ryan is closing in on him is the missing piece that lets Ryan put the pieces together.
• Walking Spoiler: Him being a double agent for Reyes who hired Max to assassinate Senator Moreno is only revealed in the last scene of season 2.
• We Can Rule Together: He desperately offers Ryan a seat in Congress when he realizes Ryan’s figured him out.

Civilians

Cathy Mueller

Cathy Mueller

Played by: Abbie Cornish

A doctor specializing in infectious diseases, and Ryan's love interest.

• Adaptation Dye-Job: Zigzagged. While this is the first time Cathy Ryan has been portrayed as the blonde that Tom Clancy wrote her as, Abbie Cornish has green eyes rather than the canonical blue eyes Tom wrote her as having.
• Adaptational Name Change: Cathy's last name goes from Muller in the books to Mueller in this series. It makes sense as they're not yet married.
• Damsel in Distress: Greer saves her in the S1 finale.
• Disposable Love Interest: She disappears without mention in S2. While common in the genre, it is unusual in this case. Of course, she did not really fit in the Venezuela narrative anyway, as very little of S2 took place in D.C. as opposed to S1.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: She bucks Secret Service protocol to evacuate the hospital right in front of the lead Service agent.

Daniel Nadler

Daniel Nadler

Played by: Matt McCoy

The leader of a group of Doctors Without Borders physicians taken captive by Suleiman’s terrorist cell.

Middle-East

Suleiman's Terrorist Cell

Mousa bin Suleiman

Mousa bin Suleiman

Played by: Ali Suliman

A sophisticated and financially-skilled sheikh who seeks to establish a caliphate to wage war on the West.

• Acquired Situational Narcissism: He was a business graduate who couldn't find a job due to the prejudices he had to deal with, fell in with extremists and travelled to Syria to join the fight against Syrian dictator Assad. His intelligence made him a very useful fighter which garnered the respect of the fighters around him, respect which went to his head and made him increasingly ambitious and ruthless in his terrorist activities in order to maintain and increase his prestige amongst his followers. For all his rhetoric and sympathetic backstory, he is really just trying to feed his ego by becoming an infamous terrorist.
• Bait the Dog: Suleiman initially comes off as a likable and sympathetic Noble Demon, but as the series goes on, he shows that most of these qualities were a front.
• Big Bad: Of Season 1.
• The Chessmaster: His plans depend on predicting the likely actions of players in complicated Batman Gambits.
• Clark Kenting: The world's most notorious terrorist, who has just managed to get at the friggin' President with a biological weapon and had earlier killed over 300 people in a French church, gets past a customs agent at a private airport (along with his son) wearing nothing more than a pair of glasses.
• Complexity Addiction: Both of the terrorist plots his cell executes are multi-step plans:
  • In the first, his operatives kill a French priest in order to stage a gas attack at his funeral.
  • The second is even more complex - he infects a group of hostages from Doctors without Borders with Ebola, knowing that one of them is a close friend of the President and will likely meet with him personally soon after his rescue. This is done not to infect the President, but to get him placed in quarantine, where he - and the rest of the staff and patients of Washington Memorial Hospital can be the target of a dirty bomb. The cell also bombs a pizzeria so that they can infiltrate the hospital disguised as one of the ambulance crews bringing in victims from the attack.
  • Suleiman's complexity addiction is part of how Ryan figures out his ultimate plans. Knowing the first attack was a multi-step process, he realizes the Ebola outbreak and the Cesium smuggled into the country are likely part of the same plan.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Inverted. Suleiman graduated in the top 5% of his class with a business degree, but his insecurity along with the prejudices of his prospective employers prevented him from getting a job as a young man, despite being years ahead of his time in predicting the rise of digital banking. When he became an Islamic extremist, however, his skills were invaluable to making and laundering money, resulting in his particular network being vastly more financially sophisticated than most others, enabling them to be well-financed and much harder to track.
• Dark Messiah: He is charismatic enough that he inspires Arabs across ethnical and religious sectional lines.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: He accomplishes the nigh-impossible feat of getting Muslims of all sects to work together. His inner circle is still a boys' club, though.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He cares deeply for his wife, brother, and children. Subverted for his wife when she betrays him. His love for his son in particular is exploited by Ryan and is what ultimately gets him a bullet to the heart.
• Evil Counterpart: Both he and Ryan are brilliant financial analysts. The difference is that Ryan uses his skill set to serve his country while Suleiman uses his to commit acts of terror.
• Evil Genius: He is gifted in finance and also a brilliant tactician and leader.
• Final Boss: Textbook example when Ryan hunts him down in the S1 finale after his terror attack fails.
  • Final Boss Preview: Their final encounter is foreshadowed by their skirmish which ends in a stalemate at the end of the series premiere.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He went from a meek accountant that a French businessman would write off to the most dangerous terrorist in the world.
• Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: It’s ultimately his unjust incarceration that drives him to radical terrorism.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Initially, he does not appear as heartless as other terrorists as he seemed to treat the hostages pretty well. He even provides them with medicines and vitamins they really needed, in fact he gives them more than enough. Turns out the medicines were covered with Ebola and he intentionally got the hostages sick to spread the virus to U.S officials. In other words, he was using them as living weapons while under a guise of kindness.
• The Man in Front of the Man: When caught, he poses as a bodyguard to a Decoy Leader.
• Manipulative Bastard: Suleiman is very charismatic and good at persuading terrorists from other cells to join him, and he is also able to trick the Americans into thinking he was just a bodyguard when they had him in custody. But the real coup he pulled was tricking his doctor hostages into poisoning themselves with Ebola disguised as vitamins and medicines, and bonus points for tricking the lead doctor into asking for them rather than just offering it himself. His attacks in general operate on killing a small number of people in order to exploit how larger numbers react to such attacks as well.
• Middle Eastern Terrorists: Hinted to be of French-Arab descent.
• Narcissist: He always appears well-dressed and groomed and at one point orders a new recruit to tidy himself up and dress better, telling him that doing so will improve his self-respect. He thinks that one reason he failed to get a job in the French banking sector is that he didn't dress well enough, and beyond his vanity, he displays an utter Lack of Empathy for any of his victims; moreover, he is implied to get his own sense of self-worth from how how successful a radical terrorist others see him as. He also sees his wife and children as extensions of himself, and at least some of his terrorist acts may have been driven by petty revenge against countries he feels have wronged him personally.
• Sinister Minister: He is both a sheik and very evil.
• Start of Darkness: Suleiman keeps getting flashbacks that seem like they were the tipping point, but are actually just another step on the path: He and his brother are caught in American carpet bombing and gruesomely injured, but he still aspires to be a French banker. Then Suleiman was unable to secure a job due to racist and dismissive attitudes of the French banks, but he's still content to live a lowly life in Paris. Then he's subjected to a random incident of police brutality and imprisoned. It's in prison where he finally becomes radicalized.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: His first encounter with Ryan ends in stalemate as he escapes the CIA black site.

Ali bin Suleiman

Ali bin Suleiman

Played by: Haaz Sleiman

Suleiman’s younger brother and second-in-command.

• Being Evil Sucks: Ali starts coming to this realization in Paris when hiding with a foster parent who reminds him of all the old dreams he lost sight of in pursuit of his terrorist goals. He is mortified when he is ordered to murder the man and his children, but luckily can't go through with it. He dies bloody and alone in the dark French woods, visibly miserable with how things have turned out for him.
• Middle Eastern Terrorists: Hinted to be of French-Arab descent.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Chooses to spare the family he stays with in France, despite being ordered to leave no witnesses. This allows Ryan to learn how he communicates with his brother, when Jack notices the kids in the house seem uninterested in the video game on the television.
• Sacrificial Lion: After getting a ton of characterization and being shown to be remarkably sympathetic, he's killed off midway through Season 1 to show how dangerous things are.

Yazid

Yazid

Played by: Kamel Labroudi

• Hate Sink: He is the only one of Suleiman's terrorist cell to have no redeeming qualities. He's just a sleazy, perverted bastard through and through.
• Made of Iron: He survives numerous injuries, including being blown up in a drone strike.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Yazid had introduced himself as a creep and a scumbag from the get-go, but getting spotted trying to rape Hanin by a drone operator earns him a missile.
• Red Right Hand: Yazid's rotten teeth mark him as a scumbag even among terrorists.
• Two-Faced: After being wounded in Victor's unauthorized drone strike.
• Undignified Death: Yazid bleeds out on a beach in Turkey, a few feet away from his targets.

Ibrahim

Ibrahim

Played by: Amir El-Masry

• Evil Genius: He does much of the technical work for Suleiman, and plays a large role in the plan to spread EVD-27.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: He initially escapes, but is tracked down by Matice and assasinated a few months later.

Abbas al-Fathi

Abbas al-Fathi

Played by: Chadi Alhelou

• Heel–Face Turn: He ultimately chooses to help Hanin and her children escape from Suleiman, and dies refusing to betray them.
• Redemption Equals Death: His refusal to run on Hanin results in Yazid shooting him dead.

Ansor Dudayev

Ansor Dudayev

Played by: Goran Koznic

• Demoted to Extra: The pilot sets him up as a major character, but he quickly recedes into the background until getting killed at the end of the first season.
• Western Terrorists: Unlike the rest of Suleiman's group, Dudayev is a Caucasian Chechen.

Civilians

Hanin Ali

Hanin Ali

Played by: Dinah Shihabi

Suleiman’s wife and mother to their children.

• The Determinator: She’s nearly unstoppable when it comes to her children’s safety.
• Mama Bear: Does whatever it takes to protect her children.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's very curvy and busty underneath all that conservative clothing, as shown during her sex scene with Suleiman. Her husband's men all lusts after her.

France

DGSI

Sandrine Arnaud

Captain Sandrine Arnaud

Played by: Marie Josée-Croze

A DGSI officer who works with Ryan and Greer in tracking down Suleiman's funds.

• Defrosting Ice Queen: She starts off as being no-nonsense and cold, but gradually warms up to Ryan.
• Sacrificial Lion: She's killed halfway through Season 1 to show how serious things are.

Germany

BND

Harriet Baumann

Harriet Baumann

Played by: Noomi Rapace

A German intelligence agent and former special forces tasked with hunting down the rogue Schenkel.

• Boom, Headshot!: How she kills Max.
• Cunning Linguist: Jack quickly notes her multilingualism. The cunning spy part takes a second or two.
• Honey Trap: She seduces an oblivious Ryan and then bugs his hotel room.
  Greer: She worked him. (cue embarrassed Ryan)

Max Schenkel

Max Schenkel

Played by: Tom Wlaschiha

A former BND agent turned assassin for hire.

• Ambiguously Bi: He chooses a gay target to romance, yet also has an implied romantic past with Harry and also fathered a daughter.
• Casting Gag: His most prolific role is playing a master assassin on Game of Thrones. To say the least, the actor’s a good fit for the role.
• Cold Sniper: He shows zero emotion when performing an assassination.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His daughter is the one person he loves. When it looks like Jack is threatening her, he caves to his demands.
• Evil Former Friend: He was quite close with Harry and possibly more than friends.
• Eye Scream: Gets a nasty one from Ryan.
• The Heavy: Even though Reyes and Chopin are in cahoots, everything Max does, including the assassination, are done independent of Reyes’ schemes. After assassinating Moreno, he operates pretty autonomously from his Hidden Villain boss and works to cover his own tracks.
• His Name Is...: Played with. He coyly taunts Ryan that Reyes is not his employer, but seems keen on keeping his lips sealed aside from that. Harry kills him before he could say more anyway.
• Le Parkour: He impressively shows off this skill when chased by Ryan.
• Master of Disguise: Travels to London incognito as a woman.
• Omniglot: He speaks German, Spanish, English, and probably many more.
• Papa Wolf: He is very protective of his daughter, teaching her to defend herself, and is enraged when Ryan kidnaps her.
• Professional Killer: His job after leaving the BND.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Inverted with him and Harry.
• The Stoic: Almost constantly.

Venezuela

Reyes Administration

Pres. Nicolás Reyes

President Nicolás Reyes

Played by: Jordi Mollà

The corrupt leader of Venezuela.

• Big Bad: Of S2, as the dictator of Venezuela who is tied to the assassination of Senator Moreno. Jack spends the season trying to bring him to justice.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: He conspires with Senator Mitch Chopin, though he is by far the more direct enemy to Jack.
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to his childhood best friend Ubarri, whom he grows to distrust and eventually kills.
• The Generalissimo: He rules as this type of dictator, though with the less extravagant title of President.
• Hate Sink: As a stand-in for Nicholas Maduro, whom the show is mocking, he shows himself to be a power-hungry dictator trying and failing to present himself as a legitimate and fair leader.
• The Heavy: He is part of a Big Bad Duumvirate with Senator Chapin, but he is the one who the story focuses on, with his brutal rule and the attempts to force him out and bring him to justice for his crimes being the main focus of the season. Chopin, meanwhile, is offscreen for most of the season and is quickly detained in the final scene.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He is a clear stand-in for Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, right down to the first name.
• Not Me This Time: Anyone who knows him knows that he has blood on his hands, but he insists to both Ryan and Ubarri that he wasn't behind Senator Moreno's assassination.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He was not directly involved in ordering the hit on Moreno. Less for ethical reasons and more because he knew assassinating a US Senator would piss off the Americans and bring his corrupt regime under more scrutiny.
• President Evil: He is the president of Venezuela and a dictator who jails anyone who speaks out against him, rigs elections, and is indirectly involved in the murder of a US senator.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: He goads Jack into shooting him in the S2 finale. He knows his days in power are numbered, but Ryan shooting him would ruin the agent's career and possibly lead to incarceration.
• Villainous Breakdown: He suffers a noticeable one in the S2 finale when he realizes Gloria will likely win.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Downplayed; he is very unpopular with the Venezuelan people overall, but he does have a good number of citizens whom he has brainwashed into believing he is a good leader and the Americans are the bad ones, as shown when they protest against the American presence and joyfully attend his rallies.

Gen. Miguel Ubarri

General Miguel Ubarri

Played by: Francisco Denis

Reyes' close friend and advisor.

• The Dragon: Subverted. While he is officially Reyes' Number Two, the course of season 2 shows that Ubarri is Locked Out of the Loop while Bastos is much more of a true Dragon.
• Everyone Has Standards: While he's likely put up with Reyes' corruption in the past, the atrocities the President commits during S2 drive him away from his former friend.
• The Good Chancellor: He tries. It doesn't end well for him.
• Heel Realization: He slowly realizes over the course of the season how tyrannical Reyes really is.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Reyes hides his more despicable acts from him.
• Mildly Military: He holds the rank of general, but he's never seen doing anything military related, instead acting as a regular political advisor.
• Red Herring: Early in S2, he's a suspect for Moreno's death and seen as a possible Evil Chancellor or Starscream. In actuality, he's considerably removed from Reyes' crimes.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Downplayed. He does get killed by a paranoid Reyes, but this is before he can even take up November's deal of selling out Reyes.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Despite making a deal with November to flip on Reyes in exchange for asylum, his season 2 arc of growing away from Reyes is rendered pretty meaningless when he's abruptly killed.
• Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: See Red Herring above.
• Slashed Throat: His cause of death.
• Token Good Teammate: He is the only one among Reyes' inner circle who begins to question his evil acts, and eventually outright challenges him. Unfortunately this gets him killed by Reyes.

Mateo Bastos

The Head of Security for Reyes.

• Bad Boss: Near the end, he uses one of his own men as a Human Shield to protect himself from Greer.
• The Dragon: He does the physical work for Reyes, and controls his military forces.
• Hate Sink: He is a cruel enforcer of the loathsome Reyes, but also lacks his love for his son, making him even worse. Throughout the show, he demonstrates himself to be the absolute worst that the Venezuelan regime has to offer.
• Torture Technician: He is in charge of torturing the prisoners in his prison camp, and eventually makes Greer his next subject. He also tortures a group of rebels into making false confessions at one point.
• Would Hurt a Child: When he goes after the family of a bodyguard that his associates bribed, he makes sure not to spare the bodyguard's kids.

Civilians

Gloria Bonalde

Gloria Banalde

Played by: Cristina Umaña

A candidate challenging Reyes in the next presidential election.

• Big Good: She is the leader of the anti-Reyes citizens and leads them in opposing his dictatorship.
• Gender Flip: Essentially one of Juan Guaido, the real-life politician whom she references.
• I Will Wait for You: She still holds out hope that her husband is still alive, somewhere. She turns out to be right when he is rescued from a prison camp ran by Reyes' forces.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: She is a Gender Flipped stand-in for Venezuelan populist leader Juan Guaido, who is known for opposing the Venezuelan government.
• Rebel Leader: Though not a violent revolutionary, she is the voice and face of the anti-Reyes movement and aims to become president herself to instill her own reforms.

Britain

MI6

Jeremy Bright

Jeremy Bright

Played by: Neil Stuke

An MI6 agent and a friend of Harriet.

Eprius

Rupert Thorne

Rupert Thorne

Played by: Anthony Head

The CEO of Eprius.

• Boom, Headshot!: How Max dispatches him.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He frequently works with very shady individuals, and loans out his services to whoever can pay with no regard for morality.
• Evil Old Folks: Has a head full of white hair, and has no real ethics or morals.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He freely admits to Ryan and Harriet that he only does business with whoever can pay him the most, and that he has no real stake in why or for what whoever wants Eprius's service wants it outside of getting paid.
• Smug Snake: Thorne's initially quite smug when dealing with Ryan and Harriet. Unlike most examples, though, he's well-aware when he's out of his league.

Jost Van Der Byk

Jost Van Der Byk

Played by: Arnold Vosloo

The leader of a group of Eprius PMCs stationed in Venezuela.