The fourth season of Prime Video’s ‘Jack Ryan’ follows the titular character on his latest mission, which involves looking into the CIA just as much as the threats from criminals outside America. We find Ryan and his colleagues trying to create a cleaner image for the agency, especially after the revelation of the previous Director’s shady projects.
During this clean-up, he comes across a man called Domingo Chavez.
Set months after Jack Ryan season 3 ends, season 4 begins with Jack as the new Acting Deputy Director of the CIA. As Elizabeth Wright awaits her Senate confirmation hearing to become the CIA’s new Director officially, Ryan is summoned by the Senate to answer for the agency’s potential involvement in the assassination of Nigeria’s President.
Jack uncovers 9 CIA off-book black ops overseen by Thomas Miller, the former CIA Director, that compromises the United States. Meanwhile, a convergence forms between an international drug cartel and a terrorist organization that Domingo Chavez is caught up in at the behest of Miller’s CIA regime.
Who Is Domingo Chavez & Why He’s Important In Jack Ryan Season 4?
As Jack Ryan learned, Domingo Chavez might be the deadliest operator the CIA ever employed. Chavez’s CIA file states he was born in East Los Angeles on January 12, 1976. Domingo was at the top of his BUD/S Navy SEAL particular warfare training course and became the Rainbow Division leader.
Chavez’s missions for the CIA, designated Operation Pluto, sent him and Rainbow worldwide to perform over 15 successful SOG missions, including black ops hits.
Chavez’s missions were run by an agent named Walters, or so Domingo believed, but Jack informed Domino that former CIA Director Thomas Miller personally financed Operation Pluto.
Jack shuts down Pluto, and as he investigates how deep Pluto goes, he recruits Chavez’s help. At first, Domingo threatened Ryan to turn Pluto back on as Acting Deputy Director. Still, they both quickly realize something bigger is at play that now involves them both, the Mexican Triad and the Silver Lotus crime organization in Myanmar, and it all ties back to Miller’s dirty secrets.
Ryan believes Miller is working for the Triad and used Chavez to eliminate the Triad’s competition. But Miller is murdered, and it’s Domingo who finds his body. Ryan and Chavez join forces in Jack Ryan season 4 because Chavez is the critical operative in Operation Pluto and wants answers just like Jack does.
Is Domingo Chavez Based on a Real Person?
The characters in ‘Jack Ryan’ are based on the characters created by Tom Clancy for his spy-thriller novels. While Ryan often takes centerstage in his stories, he has also made incredible supporting characters, without whom Ryanverse is incomplete.
Domingo Chavez is one of them. Better known as part of the Rainbow team in the ‘Rainbow Six series, Chavez had a turbulent life that turned him towards the military. The books explore his backstory, tracing his origins from the streets of East Los Angeles to joining the CIA’s black ops program.
The show, however, introduces us to Chavez right in the middle of a conflict, keeping his backstory in the shadows, which gives him an air of mystery.
When Clancy created characters like Ryan and Chavez, with an extensive history in the military before they turned to espionage, he looked at the people serving in the military and based his characters on them. Clancy never confirmed if he established Chavez on a specific person, but he was well-known for his respect and fascination with the military, even though he had never served in the armed forces.
The research for his stories put him in touch with people in the military, giving him a sense of their lives and characters. “The nicest part of it all is meeting the people in the service. The guys in uniform are like cops and firefighters. They’re basic, solid people, and they’re risking their lives for people they don’t know,” the author said.
When Michael Peña got to the role of Chavez, he thought about poring through the books and doing his research before filming started. However, he realized that the TV show was different from the books.
The characters, especially, were a different iteration than those in the books. “This time, all the research conflicted with what he does. So I kind of just based it off the show to blend in more to the show,” he said.
This change is quite apparent as Chavez had a different demeanor in the books, while Peña’s version is more about living in the shadows and has a different approach to problem-solving than his book counterpart.
Considering this, it looks like Clancy used bits and pieces from the real-life military people he had the pleasure of being acquainted with to create a fictional character, Chavez.
About Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (also known simply as Jack Ryan) is an American political action thriller television series based on characters from the fictional “Ryanverse” created by Tom Clancy that premiered on Amazon Prime Video.
The first season follows the CIA analyst as he discovers a string of dubious bank transfers carried out by a rising Islamic extremist named Suleiman. The second season sees Jack in the middle of political warfare in a corrupt Venezuela. The third one will see Jack on the run and in a race against time.
Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland created the series, and Cuse serves as an executive producer alongside John Krasinski, Michael Bay, and Mace Neufeld, among others. Krasinski also stars in the series as the title character.
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