My point is this: there was not a single time during the entirety of this research project where I felt 100% assured in my progress and decision-making. Not when committing to a primary source 8 or so weeks ago, and definitely not when I impulsively decided to end my paper with, "After all, that's about as paradoxical as the show itself" less than 24 hours earlier. It's been a hectic flurry of blog posts and acquiring secondary sources and then having to get rid of secondary sources because I had no room for them and 3 am delirium, and yet, in spite of it all and in some warped way, I really enjoyed it.

To some extent, I don't think my midnight madness was all that necessary, but some part of me felt it was. I was thoroughly invested in my topic and ended up falling into a kind of Jack Ryan rabbit hole that made me question what exactly my argument was every 2 or so minutes. Equal parts entertaining and frustrating. There were definitely points along the research project where the very notion of Jack Ryan was mentally repugnant. And this is a show I used to binge-watch - repeatedly - in order to wind down. But in those adrenalized 2 am moments doing the last of my primary source analysis, I found myself rejuvenated in my passion for the series, interestingly reliving some of the same emotion I'd had upon first watching it for some scenes and feeling differently for others. For example, I don't think there'll ever be a time where I can stomach the almost-r*pe scene between Hanin and Yazid without physically retracting from my computer and cringing away squeamishly. In that case, it was a matter of "grab the timestamp and run." But in other scenes, like the Ali vs. Jack scene (which I've discussed in these posts maybe around 32 times by now), it was intriguing to realize that my perception and emotions had noticeably shifted since my first viewing, even when I wasn't intentionally trying to watch for a facial expression here or listen to some line of dialogue there. I remember being concerned the first time around for Jack's safety (yes, Jack!) after he'd shot Ali, thinking the latter's show of emotion was simply a ruse so that Jack would let his guard down (how absurd). Now I watch that scene with a profound admiration for Haaz Sleiman's (who plays Ali) acting and feel incredibly moved by Ali's persona in the show. It's interesting to consider that merely thinking about how the tropes and techniques films use to sway our perception can change it altogether. As in, if we take a second to evaluate how and why we're feeling, those conceptions can fundamentally evolve.