‘The Day of the Jackal’ Just Gave Us The Jackal’s Brutal Origin

With The Day of the Jackal ramping up to its inevitably bloody conclusion, we are nearing the point where our characters’ motivations are revealing themselves, as well as their true nature. We’ve seen how Eddie Redmayne’s Jackal truly has no remorse for those that he kills, such as Rasmus (Andreas Jessen), and that Bianca’s (Lashana Lynch) obsession for catching The Jackal is outweighing the need to pull her family back together. The latest episode of The Day of the Jackal gave us the backstory of The Jackal, which gives him a bloody origin that saw him start in a similar place as Bianca. Whilst we understand how this traumatic experience formed The Jackal, we can still see how that cold-blooded killer was always inside him, waiting to be unleashed.

Eddie Redmayne’s Jackal Murdered His Covert Squad After a Job Gone Wrong

The Jackal’s name was apparently Alexander Duggan, who was a fantastic but underpaid sniper for a black-ops group committing “sabotage, arrests, and assassination.” The choice of name for the series is key, as Paul Oliver Duggan is the name of a dead child who Edward Fox‘s Jackal, in the 1973 film, uses to forge an identity. Despite the switch to making Duggan his seemingly true name, the fact we have witnessed him take on so many different identities up to this point means we barely recognize him as anything other than The Jackal.

On a job gone wrong in Afghanistan, rather than simply kidnapping a target at a wedding, a panicked confrontation leads to the other soldiers riddling the compound with bullets, killing every man and woman at the celebration. The savage massacre haunts not only us but has a profound effect on Duggan. With his role as a sniper, this kind of inefficient and unnecessary destruction goes against everything that makes The Jackal who he is. In his own kind of justice, Duggan blows up his team, sparing his spotter and close friend, Gary (Gerard Kearns) by having him check out a fake landmine with Duggan. We don’t know where they’ll go, but most likely, they’re going to the business person who previously hired the two for a hit and had powerful connections. It is a mystery what has happened to Gary, which means he is no longer at Duggan’s side in the present.

The Jackal’s Origin Does So Much To Complicate Our Feelings Towards Him

Despite our lack of sympathy for The Jackal, his violent beginnings feel like the most just action he’s taken this season. On the one hand, he killed men who deserved it, as they seemed to enjoy their slaughtering of the men and women at the wedding. However, with The Jackal only deciding this was too far after being introduced to a way out – the shady business person – this means he isn’t totally ruled by morality, but practicality. As Gary notes, this isn’t the first time one of the gunners has lost their heads, so presumably, there will have been other times when The Jackal turned a blind eye, only acting now that he had another method of using his talents to make money.

This origin also draws a parallel between him and Bianca, who have now both been shown to have worked for the government, committing, at best, morally gray acts with the supposed intention of saving people. In the end, both characters have had their moralities exposed through this origin, and it shows how neither are guided by altruism but by selfish motivations such as being the best at their job or desiring more respect/pay. What this tees up for the finale is fascinating, as we will have two uncompromising forces opposing each other, and we now understand exactly how far the pair are willing to go to achieve their goals.

Overall, The Jackal’s backstory is a bloody, literally explosive reveal about the character that shows not only his morality but also that he hasn’t really changed in nature but simply changed from being employed by the British army to a freelancer. The covert group that The Jackal was a part of was not only an effective show of The Jackal, but it further blurs the lines between whom the “good guys” are, as we see how even the supposed law enforcers are just as brutal as criminals. Drawing this parallel between Bianca and The Jackal makes it even more complicated as to how we will feel no matter the outcome of the finale. All that is guaranteed is violence.

The Day of the Jackal is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.

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