Jake Green

Infobox character | name = Jake Green


first = Pilot
alias =
gender = Male
age = 32
occupation = Former Ravenwood employee; Sheriff of Jericho [http://www.cbs.com/primetime/jericho/video.php?cat=2&video=5&page=1&inner=174444]
title =
family = Johnston Green (father)
Gail Green (mother)
Eric Green (brother)
spouse = Emily Sullivan (ex-girlfriend)
relatives = April Green (sister-in-law)
portrayer = Skeet Ulrich
creator = Stephen Chbosky

Johnston Jacob "Jake" Green, Jr. is a fictional character on the US post-apocalyptic drama "Jericho". He is played by Skeet Ulrich. He is a primary character of the series.

Overview

In the Pilot, Jake returns to Jericho, Kansas, after a five-year absence, to pay his respects to his recently-deceased grandfather. When he arrives in town he tells friends different stories about what he had been doing while he was away, including playing minor league baseball and serving in both the Army and Navy. Eventually it is revealed that he came to claim money that he inherited from his grandfather, which his father Johnston, also then Jericho's mayor, refuses to hand over. Despite the urging of his mother, Gail, to stay, Jake leaves a few hours after arriving.

However, while driving on the highway on his way out of town, his watch dies, and the radio station he is listening to turns to static just as a mushroom cloud appears in the direction of Denver, Colorado. Distracted, he doesn't see an oncoming car stray into his lane, and there is a collision. The two people in the other car die and Jake injures his leg. While Jake is walking back to Jericho, two children approach him; they have come from a school bus that crashed nearby. Jake returns to the bus with the children, where he finds the driver unconscious. He performs an emergency tracheotomy on a girl who injured her throat when the bus crashed. Jake then drives the bus and its passengers back to Jericho, earning new respect from his father.

The next day, as a storm harboring deadly radioactive fallout approaches town, Jake takes charge of getting the decrepit fallout shelter underneath the medical center up to scratch. However, when his efforts fail, he leads a group of survivors to the town's salt mine where, after sealing the mine entrance with explosives, Jake rushes off to rescue his former fiancé Emily, who was unwittingly in the company of two escaped prisoners posing as Sheriff's deputies. Shooting one of the prisoners dead, Jake takes cover with the hostages in a farmer's storm cellar.

As the storm disappears and the town faces an unknown future, Jake starts to take on a leadership role in trying to get help for the citizens of Jericho. Jake frequent leaves Jericho for supplies and information, and other missions, including rescuing his brother from New Bern, training the rangers in gun skills and defending the town from Ravenwood. Later on, when New Bern attacks Jericho, Ex U.S. Army ranger Johnston Green is killed by a gunshot wound, and Jake is looked at as the new leader.

Following Jimmy Taylor's injury during the battle with New Bern, Jake becomes new sheriff of Jericho appointed by Major Beck.

In the season 2 finale, Jake helps Robert Hawkins to deliver the package to Texas and expose the truth behind the September attacks. In an ambulance in Texas, a wounded Rob asks Jake, "How does it feel, makin' history?"

Initially, the show sheds little light on Jake's background, and when asked he provided different answers, which may or may not be true. However, he has displayed some surprising and remarkable abilities, which occasionally stretch credibility, such as performing an emergency tracheotomy, and is shown to be very knowledgable about mechanical devices (such as a ventilation system and a flight data recorder) and explosives. In one episode, both Stanley Richmond and Robert Hawkins question Jake about his intricate knowledge on how water pumps work, and he gives Hawkins the flippant answer that he was once a pool man.

Jake is also shown to be accurate with a revolver at a distance, shooting and killing an escaped prisoner from many yards away. He is also shown wearing dog tags after showering. In episode 5, Robert Hawkins looks up Jake on the Department of State database, and finds that he has visited Qatar and several countries in Latin America, and that his passport (issued March 2, 2004) is flagged. It is later revealed in the episode "The Day Before" that the FBI has flagged Jake's passport for non-cooperation on an undercover mission against a private military company, a splinter of Ravenwood.

It is revealed in the ninth episode, "Crossroads", that Jake was once engaged to Emily Sullivan before he left Jericho, although there appears to have been some kind of falling-out between them, which is revealed (or implied) in the episode to have been as a result of a failed robbery attempt that left Emily's brother dead. However, it is clear that schoolteacher Heather Lisinski is interested in Jake, after he rescues her and the students from the stranded school bus in the pilot episode. He offers to walk her home in the fourth episode, but they are sidetracked by events. In the seventh episode, Jake is kissed by Heather—unexpectedly and passionately—before Jake and Eric leave to retrieve medicine for their father.

At the beginning of the series, Jake says that he had been living in San Diego, and that he had temporarily been in Denver before he came to Jericho. This would have placed him in two major cities very close to the time that they were attacked.

In episode 8, "Rogue River", Jake tells Payton (the military contractor) in the hospital that he "drove trucks" in Iraq while working for "another contractor", and had known a lot of Ravenwood members previously. To add to episode 8, in episode 12 it is shown that Jake is a skilled aircraft pilot; a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Jake has done work in Iraq and Afghanistan for a private military contractor, Ravenwood, prior to the events of the show. In episode 14, "Heart of Winter", he reveals to Johnston Green that he "killed a little girl" in Iraq. He does this while in a near-death state, and doesn't elaborate until the second season, seeming tormented by it.

References