Entertainment
The 8-Part Spy Thriller That Inspired ‘Reacher’ Has an Even Bigger Challenge for Season 2
When it comes to spy thrillers on TV, there’s one addition to the genre that was slightly overlooked, but certainly shouldn’t be. Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal, which first premiered on November 14, 2024, received a solid 84% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes following Season 1, and is gearing up for another explosive and suspenseful Season 2.
But as viewers of the show have already gathered, the series, which is based on Frederick Forsyth‘s novel of the same name (someone who Reacher‘s Lee Child credited for changing the rules for thriller writers), Season 2 will likely be much different than the first. After all, while Season 1 presented viewers with a heart-pumping cat-and-mouse thriller, Season 2 will have no choice but to reinvent itself after the events that unfolded in the finale.
The Season 1 Finale of ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Changed Everything
For those who still haven’t watched Season 1 of The Day of the Jackal, note that there are spoilers ahead. In the finale of Season 1, the cat-and-mouse dynamic between The Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) and Bianca (Lashana Lynch) came to its inevitable collision and deliberately flipped Forsyth’s original ending by killing off Bianca instead of The Jackal. Per its producers, the decision came from wanting the adaptation to continue as a long-form series. “It’s about growing the IP… and it is The Day of the Jackal it’s not The Day of the Person Who Kills the Jackal. So it felt appropriate,” lead director and executive producer Brian Kirk told Variety. He continued by calling the finale “the ultimate twist.” “The guy you’ve been programmed to think is going to die — because that’s what you’ve been told — in fact, he doesn’t,” Kirk said.
By doing so, however, the series set itself up for a very different sophomore season. After all, The Jackal and Bianca’s unwavering tension as the assassin and the pursuer throughout Season 1 established them as two engines heading to an imminent and unavoidable crash, making the series all the more exciting and gripping. Now that their chase has come to an end, Season 2 can’t simply give him another target and expect the same tension to take place, it needs instead to establish a new force capable of challenging him without feeling like Bianca 2.0. That by itself presents The Day of the Jackal with its greatest challenge to date: to reinvent the story way beyond Forsyth’s legendary cat-and-mouse thriller in way that sustains Redmayne’s The Jackal and still excites viewers as an ongoing series.
What Can Fans Expect of ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Season 2
Season 2 of the series is already underway. Filming on the new season officially kicked off in February 2026, with set photos showing Redmayne already stepping back into The Jackal’s shoes. In addition to the returning faces, the series has also welcomed new cast members, including Pablo Schreiber, Weruche Opia, and Matt Bomer, with Bomer stepping into the spotlight as the primary antagonist. Details surrounding Schreiber and Opia’s characters — as well as exact plot details — are still under strict lock and key. Meanwhile, the creative helm has also shifted; series creator Ronan Bennett has departed the project, passing showrunner duties to David Harrower (Lockerbie: A Search for the Truth).
Ultimately, while every season of a show should present viewers with new stories, exciting plotlines and fresh twists and turns, Season 2 of The Day of the Jackal has no choice but to completely redo itself. No longer relying on the growing tensions between The Jackal and Bianca, the series will continue to expand beyond the world created by Forsyth, and build a whole new storyline with his novel as just the distant original material. That certainly presents the show with its most difficult challenge yet – but an exciting one at that.
- Network
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Sky Atlantic
- Directors
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Brian Kirk
- Writers
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Ronan Bennett
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