Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

What's the status of the second season, currently underway? How does it differ from season one? Cuse: We're two months into shooting the second season already. We're really thankful for Amazon's belief and support of the show. They greenlit season two way out in front of [the first season premiere]. We started working on scripts for season two how long ago, Graham? Roland: I think we opened up the writers room for season two on Oct. 4, 2017. Cuse: So, it's almost a year we've been working on season two already. We see each one of these seasons like a different book in the series. In the same way that Hunt for Red October is very different than Clear and Present Danger, we're taking these two characters of Jack Ryan and Jim Greer and putting them in a wholly different story — in this case, a political thriller in South America that's kind of an allegory for the decline of democracy. As Graham said, part of the fun of the story is unwinding out of the end of season one, when we know Greer is off to Russia. How do these two characters get back together? What are their relative roles, and how are they involved in this? There's a little bit of carryover where you benefit from seeing season one, but really, you could watch season two and it will be its own narrative. Is that a goal for you, that each season should feel self-contained, without needing to watch the previous season first? Roland: Absolutely. I think one of the things that we both talked about when we started coming up with the architecture of the show was that you should be able to watch it in the same way that you can go to an airport bookstore and grab a Tom Clancy Jack Ryan book and never have read the previous one, and still enjoy it. In that same way, you should be able to enjoy our show. It shouldn't be so serialized that you can't jump in at any moment.

Let me ask you something -- you've been doing this for how long?

Mena Massoud as Tarek Kassar in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (1x01)

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan  -- 1x01 ‘Pilot’

Stills of John Krasinski as Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (via Entertainment Weekly)

“Imagine if you were in your desk job and you got called to come outside the building, and then were picked up in a black car and flown to all these crazy places in the world that you didn’t think you were going. That’s basically what Jack experiences in this show.” -- John Krasinski on Jack Ryan