Fans of the Jack Ryan book series may recall that Jack was hesitant to accept pain medication after he was hospitalized in the novel 'Patriot Games.' In the book, Jack implies that he is fearful of developing a dependency on prescription drugs because he's experienced difficulty tapering off before. The continuity of this character detail is maintained in Episode 102, when Jack refuses the doctor's Hydrocodone prescription after an MRI exposes the old and new damage to his lower back.
In Episode 102, Jack insists that coworker Noreen Yang has a crush on a "targeter from PAD." PAD is an acronym for the Pakistan-Afghanistan Department, a unit within the Counter Terrorism Center. Targeters are CIA analysts that specialize in finding and fixing the agency's sights on individuals who could potentially be recruited as CIA informants or who should be viewed by the agency as high value targets.
The "Hawala" system Jack mentions at the beginning of Episode 102 is a system of money transfer that circumvents institutional banking by relying solely on a trust-based, low or no-commission sequence of transactions through hawala dealers. The transactions are unofficial and unregulated.
When Suleiman returns home in Episode 102 and approaches his wife, he speaks in both Arabic and French. The French phrase he utters is, "Mon coeur, mon bijou," which translates directly as "My heart, my jewel."
John Krasinski has said that the "fish out of water" aspect of Jack Ryan's story is part of what drew him to the role of CIA analyst-turned high value field operative. According to Krasinski, Ryan, as a character, has always seemed more accessible to him than Jason Bourne, who is a fictional black ops CIA officer, or James Bond who is a fictional agent for MI6, the UK's secret intelligence service.