As the fifth episode of The Day Of The Jackal begins, the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) hangs out in Tallinn, Estonia. He’s shown with Zina Jansone (Eleanor Matsuura) who warns him they didn’t pay him to go rogue in Munich. Zina urges him not to make enemies of these people. She tells him to ask Norman Stoke (Richard Dormer) if he doesn’t believe her. They continue talking later as Zina insists she wants him to succeed more than anyone. She tells him she’ll be staying in Tallinn until the delivery.

London, England – Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch) and Vince Pyne (Nick Blood) meet Larry Stoke (Patrick O’Kane) in the hospital. Bianca smothers him with a pillow and demands answers. They suggest he can do five years if he tells them what they need to know. Bianca continues torturing him when he refuses to cooperate.

Tallinn, Estonia – Norman gets a message about a job. The Jackal calls him about getting another weapon. He asks what has been going on with Norman who tells him about the police visiting him. Norman insists he’s 100% secure now. The Jackal surprisingly says he doesn’t like risks. He says the distance to the target is 75 meters. The Jackal already has an idea to beat the metal detector and ultra-sensitive scanner. He talks about helping him since he’s been injured. Otherwise, they may not make the deadline.

London, England – The torture of Larry continues. Larry eventually claims Norman is in Budapest. He tries to describe the area to them. Larry explains he’s in a big white building. Bianca asks how he found out where she lived. Larry admits Norman told him because Norman can find stuff like that out. Nuria (Ursula Corbero) looks at the Jackal’s stuff and ignores his call. At the office, Damian Richardson (Ben Hall) tells Bianca that he has an update on Alexander Duggan. He was a loner and a details freak. His unit specialized in eliminating Taliban leaders. The unit was taken out by an IED in Helmand in 2013. Bianca urges him to check to see if Duggan’s body was recovered.

Damian tries to tell her that paranoid levels in the office are going through the roof. Bianca ignores him. Bianca and Vince work with an analyst (Karishma Navekar) to try to find Norman’s place in Budapest. There is a convenient breakthrough when Bianca looks at a newspaper and realizes UDC is Rodan. She tells Osita Halcrow (Chukwudi Iwuji) moments later. She explains she needs to find Norman first. Osita tells her to let him know when she’s ready to roll.

Budapest, Hungary – The Jackal meets Norman who remains cautious.

London, England – Vince learns there are still many possible locations for Norman’s hideaway. Bianca argues with Angelda (Diveen Henry) before Paul (Sule Rimi) comes outside. She’s told that Jasmine (Florisa Kamara) is fine. Bianca asks if he’s going to stay with his ex-wife. They argue for a while until Paul says he doesn’t recognize her anymore.

Budapest, Hungary – Norman takes the Jackal back to his hideaway. The Jackal looks at the weapons Norman has been working on. He also remembers Gary Cobb (Gerard Kearns) being injured in combat. Norman learns what the Jackal needs and that he’s going to take the weapon inside in a boot. Norman says fracture boots are made of plastic and polymer so they’ll get through the scanner easily. He doesn’t think they can make the whole thing out of plastic. They can make a disposable barrel and get up to seven or eight shots. Meanwhile, Nuria asks Alvaro (Jon Arias) if he can fix the door so Charles won’t know they’ve been inside his room. She pleads with him to just fix it.

Norman and the Jackal get to work. During a break, they sit down for a drink. They begin talking about women. Norman insists you can’t have a wife in their game. The Jackal tries to find out where he went previously. Norman says he went to Belarus and the clients had English accents. He tells him about the woman who shot him. The Jackal learns he got a tip-off and that’s how he got away from the MI6. Norman claims it was just a message telling him to clear out. The Jackal warns him something will have to change if he stops being discreet.

London, England – Bianca gets a call saying they might’ve found Norman’s location. It’s an abandoned factory at a place called Lorinci. Bianca and Vince rush to the airport. They question whether they can trust Osita.

Budapest, Hungary – Norman tells the Jackal to try on the boot. Then, he begins showing him how to build it. The Jackal is told where he can practice with the gun without attracting attention. He’s told he’ll get eight shots with the gun. Bianca and Vince arrive in Budapest. As they drive to the abandoned property, the Jackal goes out into the woods to practice with the gun. He works on setting the sights until everything is perfect. Back in the car, the Jackal calls Nuria who claims she’s alright. She says she just needed some time to think. Bianca and Vince drive by and he pulls out behind them. The Jackal says he’ll be gone for a few days or a week at most. He sees them stop at the compound. Nuria tells Alvaro that he’s still lying to her. Bianca is told they can cut the power to the compound.

The Jackal sits nearby and waits. He sees the vehicle return before the power is cut. The Jackal tries to call Norman to warn him, but he’s sleeping inside. When Norman picks up, the Jackal tells him to get out now and clean up. When Bianca and the others barge in, a gunfight occurs. He’s eventually taken into custody and tortured. Norman refuses to cooperate with them. Bianca looks through the stuff and possibly finds the Jackal’s belongings. She believes he’ll come back so she wants Linda and Tamas to watch the street. Bianca tries to find out who tipped off Norman. She says Larry told them where he was. The Jackal eventually shoots Norman in the head and kills him. The police come after him, but the Jackal begins escaping on a horse.

He eventually rides into the woods and gets knocked off the horse. Bianca searches the woods for him. The Jackal jumps into water and nearly loses his gun. He gets it back and gets away. Later, he emerges from the water. It appears he finds a place to hide the gun before lying down. Before long, a man confronts him with a rifle and knocks him out. The man ties him up and leaves him inside.

 

The Day Of The Jackal Review

Watching this episode of The Day Of The Jackal will surely cause viewers to lose thousands of brain cells. Along the way, they’ll likely find themselves going bald from pulling out their hair in frustration. The series obviously could’ve been a gripping drama with a thrilling cat-and-mouse game.

Instead, it’s become an unbelievable mess that just keeps getting dumber by the minute. Bianca is running around abusing prisoners while miraculously pulling clues out of her backside. It’s hard not to chuckle when the Jackal said he didn’t like risks. After all, the character has been a stupid fool from the get-go.

Both of these characters deserve long, painful deaths at the hands of the most brutal psychopath known to man. There’s really nothing redeemable about this series. We have all the side dramas that just drag the suffering out for 10 full episodes. We have borderline bad performances and some of the dumbest action scenes in any cat-and-mouse thriller.

We already know that Bianca isn’t dying and the Jackal isn’t getting caught, at least not until the final episode. That’s a shame really, but that’s the reality with a show like this. Therefore, the close calls don’t have the type of impact they should. At the very least, we learned that Eddie Redmayne on a horse can outrun a vehicle and Lashana Lynch couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

Huffing gasoline would kill fewer brain cells than watching The Day Of The Jackal. Based on this episode, Richard Dormer should’ve been the Jackal but no one would look good with this shoddy script. The episode scores a 3 out of 10. Recaps of The Day Of The Jackal can be found here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. See what others are saying here.