The Day of the Jackal Episode 1 Recap
Grab your passport(s). We're recapping Episode 1.
Day of The Jackal (2024) Season 1 Episode 1 Recap
We meet The Jackal, who is hired in Munich to kill Manfred Fest, a magazine mogul and controversial candidate for Germany’s Prime Minister. After wounding Fest’s son, The Jackal lures Fest to a hospital and shoots him dead from long range.
The Jackal then travels to Paris, by way of Nuremberg, where he logs into a chat room, invoices the Munich client, and gets his next job offer from another user. Before accepting, The Jackal wants to meet the user and demands a retainer for $500,000.
In Sweden, while posing as a birdwatcher, meets a mysterious fixer who wants to hire him for a new target: Ulle Dag Charles (UDC), a well-known and polarizing tech mogul who is on the verge of launching a controversial financial tracking software called River. The Jackal raises his price to $10,000,000.
He then heads to a beautiful villa in Spain to visit his wife Nuria and son Carlito where he logs back into the chat room to learn that he won’t be paid the rest of the money for the Munich job after all.
Meanwhile at MI-6, one of the agents — Bianca Pullman — theorizes that The Jackal used a weapon most likely built by elusive gunmaker Norman Stoke, based on the size of a gun needed to shoot the distance to the hospital. She believes she can track down Stoke through an informant she has in Belfast, Northern Ireland — Alison, who’s married to Stoke’s brother Larry.
Alison refuses to cooperate, so Bianca has Alison’s daughter Emma arrested in London at a UDC protest. Things go wrong when Emma collapses in prison from a suspected cardiac event. Bianca rides with Emma in the ambulance to the hospital, but Emma falls into cardiac arrest.
Key Cast and Characters in Season 1
The Jackal (Eddie Redmayne)
An elusive assassin who’s a master of disguise and an elite marksman. Goes by the username “Norman Guerre” in his chat room. Has a family in remote Spain.
Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch)
An MI-6 agent and guns expert who appears to prioritize her job over her family. Brash and upfront, she pushes her way into the Fest investigation. Goes by the alias “Nadine” with her informant.
Paul Pullman (Suli Rimi)
Bianca’s husband who wishes his wife would make time for him and their daughter. An academic whose latest project is called “Problematic Violences and Self-Authorship: Traps of the Messianic and the Tragic.”
Jasmine Pullman (Florisa Kamara)
Bianca’s daughter and a savvy high-schooler. She is disappointed when her mother skips parent-teacher evening.
Ulle Dag Charles (UDC) (Khalid Abdalla)
A controversial figure who’s seen interviewed on TV in Episode 1. He is promoting a mysterious financial software called River which is the focus of protests in London. Fest says UCD’s real name is Sulieman and that while the tech figure promises to save the world, he really seeks to destroy it.
Manfred Fest (Burghart Klaußner)
A magazine mogul and populist politician who’s running for Prime Minister in Germany. He draws protesters who call him “fascist” before getting shot at long-range by The Jackal.
Elias Fest (Lucas Englander)
Manfred Fest’s son who was wounded by The Jackal disguised as a janitor as a way to lure Manfred to the hospital where he is assassinated.
Norman Stoke
One of the few people — if not the only person — capable of creating guns that can be dismantled and still work perfectly.
Alison Stoke (Kate Dickie)
Norman’s sister-in-law and Bianca’s informant, based in Belfast, Ireland.
Emma Stoke (Katherine Devlin)
Alison and Larry Stoke’s daughter, wrongfully arrested at a protest for UDC. She has a cardiac event in jail and goes into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.
Nuria (Úrsula Corberó)
The Jackal’s wife in Cadiz, Spain.
Carlito
The Jackal’s son.
Songs from Episode 1:
"This Is Who I Am (‘The Day of the Jackal’ theme song)" by Celeste
"Everything in Its Right Place" by Radiohead
"Tessellate" by Alt-J
"Blame" by Gabriels
"Underneath It All" by Scala and Kolacny Brothers
"Friend or Foe" by Jordan Rakei
Episode 1 Easter Eggs:
“Ulle Dag Charles” is a near-anagram of Charles de Gualle,” The Jackal’s target in the original novel.
The Jackal drives a vintage Alfa Romeo, also driven in the 1973 film (though a different model).
Watch every episode of The Day of the Jackal on Peacock and learn more about Season 2.
