‘The Day of the Jackal’ Finale Recap: A Thrilling Conclusion & Vision for Season 2

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the two-part Season 1 finale of The Day of the Jackal.]

The Jackal lives! At the end of the two-part finale for The Day of the Jackal, which arrived on Peacock Thursday (December 12), the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) finally confesses the truth of his double life as an international assassin to Nuria (Úrsula Corberó), who takes it surprisingly well, considering. After promising her he’ll quit his lethal profession after one final job, he adds a few other bodies to his kill count. 

First, there’s Jimmie, the Spanish gangster who Alvaro wants to do business with but who Nuria fears might expose the family. Then, there’s an innocent Croatian fishing boat captain who is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, after taking out a few security guards, the Jackal finally gets to Ulle Dag Charles a.k.a. UDC (Khalid Abdalla). This stops the release of River — and thereby, a tranche of damaging-to-the-ultra-wealthy bank documents — for the benefit of Winthrop (Charles Dance) and his elite ilk. 

A subsequent insult from Isabel (Lia Williams) helps Bianca (Lashana Lynch) decide to leave MI6 and finally patch up her personal relationships with her husband and daughter at long last. Like the Jackal, though, she’s immediately drawn back to business. She knows that Jimmie’s death is Jackal’s doing, but what she doesn’t know is that the upper crust also wants all loose ends tied up, so her former boss comes hat in hand to ask her to end the Jackal — and potentially lose her own life in the process. With that, they’re both heading to his home in Spain at the same time, poised to crash into one another at last.

Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Ltd.

While Bianca’s road trip with Vince (Nick Pyne) is relatively uneventful, Jackal has a much harder road than he’s used to. After a breathtaking evasion of the police and a devastating car crash that nearly kills him, Jackal happens upon an unsuspecting and kind couple — Trevor and Liz — and hijacks their camper. Though he seems to quite like them and denies he wants to kill them, he does ultimately do so after they attempt an attack on him. His devastation over their deaths is written all over his face and even more apparent in his voice, as he calls Nuria to tell him he’s en route, but they’ll have to go somewhere else. She rightly intuits from his words they’re no longer safe at home.

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Once he makes it back to his mansion, Nuria and the baby are gone, and Bianca is there waiting for him instead. The tense, intelligent cat-and-mouse game that’s been afoot all season long concludes with the Jackal fairly blithely dispensing with his ravenous pursuer with a quiet shot. Afterward, he flees to find Nuria and is stopped by another crash. Wounded, he later meets with Zina (Eleanor Matsuura), who has just survived an assassination attempt of her own, and reveals who’s now after them both. With this information in mind, Jackal heads off to see “someone” — presumably his now-estranged wife. 

The conclusion of the UDC plotline is absolute — although we do have to wonder whether Teddy’s insistence that he takes his usual daily swim is a setup, he is dead, and the River release has been postponed “indefinitely.” The ending also leaves no lingering question about Bianca’s fate. Her death is artfully shocking in its bluntness. It’s the first time an adaptation of the Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name allows the Jackal to win, and both deaths provide a level of story satisfaction that is not undermined by the cliffhanger ending.

Renewed for a second season, the series now has an opportunity to turn in on itself and follow the Jackal as he works against the employers he’s been servicing this whole time — and potentially expose MI6 for their corrupt subservience to the one-percenters who pull the strings — as he tries to rekindle his relationship with Nuria, with all the cards on the table this time. Even if it did end with this, it would still be gratifying enough. There is no groan-worthy question mark about the fates of the story’s principles that forces the issue. The questions we had in the premiere are more than answered in the finale, and it leaves us wanting more, not needing it.

It’s a tricky mark to hit, balancing both finishing the plot at hand and dangling more drama ahead, but the Jackal was right on target here.

The Day of the Jackal, Streaming Now, Peacock