Where the commute from hell begins. (Photo by hyeonsuk lim)

Where the commute from hell begins. (Photo by hyeonsuk lim)

In the long tradition of D.C. shows that appear to be very confused about the city’s basic geography, we have Amazon’s new web series, Jack Ryan. If the opening sequence of the pilot episode is any indication (truthfully, this is all I have watched), the show seemingly unfolds in a kind of alternate-universe D.C. whose map only loosely resembles the real one.

The show is approximately the trillionth revival of the Jack Ryan character (or is that just how it feels?), originally created by writer Tom Clancy in his Ryanverse novels. This time, the former marine and CIA operative is played by the ever-lovable John Krasinski.

The problems begin right as we first meet our titular character on what is presumably his commute to work at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. We first see Krasinski-as-Ryan rowing underneath the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge on the Potomac River. He drops off his boat at the Potomac Boat Club, an actual rowing club that faces the Potomac on one side and K Street NW on the other.

Then the camera cuts to Ryan biking through Georgetown (you can see a street sign that reads 35th Street NW). This is already starting to not make sense. According to Google Maps, it is indeed possible to bike from the Potomac Boat Club to Langley—it’s a six-mile ride that would take about 37 minutes via the Capital Crescent Trail.

Instead, we see Ryan cycling deeper into the city via Georgetown. Yes, the Potomac Boat Club is in that neighborhood, but Ryan is presumably trying to go in the opposite direction.

It only gets worse from there. In the next cut, Ryan is cycling along the Tidal Basin, passing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. You’re real far from work now, bud.

Suddenly, Ryan is cycling away from a clear shot of the Capitol Building in the background. And still we’re supposed to assume he is biking to Virginia—maybe just on the longest, most circuitous morning commute known to man.

Finally, Ryan is seen cycling through what looks like a smaller neighborhood that, to the trained eye, does not look like D.C. at all, but maybe some place in the suburbs (points for realism if he’s supposed to be going to Langley!). I Googled the name of a shop clearly seen in the background of this shot (Albright’s Gun Shop), and it’s in Easton, Maryland. Trying to make one place look like another one nearby is a much more forgivable foible than the utterly nonsensical commute, definitely planned out that way to give viewers a chance to see some iconic D.C. sights while Ryan heads to his job outside the city.

After that, mercifully, we see out titular character pulling up to the CIA headquarters and running inside.

Washingtonians immediately took notice of the scenes.

Amazon, too, appears to have noticed that this sequence makes no geographical sense. In a piece of “general trivia” on the show, it explains: “Jack ends up cycling along the Tidal Basin, next to D.C.’s Thomas Jefferson Memorial building, and the United States Capitol building is clearly visible in the background of a subsequent shot. Since both of these structures are in the opposite direction to Langley from the boat club, it is suggested that Jack either went home after his morning workout or that he took a scenic detour on his way to the office.”

Presumably, then, the service would like us all to believe that Ryan biked from Georgetown through the entire city before heading all the way to Virginia in the morning for his job as a financial analyst at the CIA. Cool, definitely. Sounds legit.

These were apparently not people’s only complaints about the realism of the series:

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