Prime Video’s Reacher is a binge-worthy take on your favorite airport novel hero
Lee Child's big character Jack Reacher is a better fit for the small screen
The idea of a streaming series based on the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child sounds like such a no-brainer, it’s tempting to wonder what took so long—until you remember the ill-fated attempt to turn the novels into a movie franchise starring Tom Cruise. Even those who have never read the books probably recall the casting controversy that erupted when Cruise was announced as the big screen’s Reacher. The character in the books is a 6-foot-5, 250-pound hulk of a man. Tom Cruise is… not. That might not have mattered so much if the movies had been well-received, but neither critics nor audiences were overly impressed, and the would-be franchise cratered after the thoroughly mediocre second installment, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
To the uninitiated, the size of the actor may seem like a minor concern. But Reacher is such a stripped-down, elemental character, taking away his imposing stature is akin to replacing the Batsuit with a Speedo. Reacher’s persona exemplifies the novels in which he appears, which are made of reliably sturdy but familiar building blocks. That’s not meant as a criticism; many novelists would sell their grandmothers to be able to do what Child makes look so easy. The Reacher books are ideal airport purchases precisely because you know what you’re getting and are unlikely to be disappointed when you arrive at your final destination.
In that respect, Reacher is a solid adaptation, perfectly suited to bingeing on a snow day or stormy winter’s night. It’s as if it was designed to fill the role previously played by Bosch on the Prime Video roster: enjoyable comfort viewing based on a long-running book series, plenty of action, nothing too taxing on the ol’ brain cells. Season one is a straightforward adaptation of the book that kicked off the Reacher series, Killing Floor. It doesn’t take long for the first episode to establish the character and his world: Jack Reacher (no one calls him by his first name, not even his mother) is a former special investigator for the Army’s Military Police, now a drifter who roams the country carrying nothing but a toothbrush. He loves the blues, and the opening of Reacher finds him stepping off a bus in Margrave, Georgia, just because he heard bluesman Blind Blake may have been murdered there.
As in most of the novels, Reacher isn’t looking for trouble, but it finds him anyway. When he stops at a diner for some coffee and peach pie, his snack is interrupted when he’s arrested for murder. (His efforts to get a taste of that slice of pie become a running gag through the season.) It seems a body was found near where Reacher was seen getting off his Greyhound bus; when the corpse is later identified, it turns out to be someone with a close personal connection to Reacher.
The murder is only the first of many, and when Reacher’s name is cleared, he sticks around town to find out who is responsible, much to the chagrin of the local police, including chief detective Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), a transplant from Boston, and Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald), a young officer with deep family roots in Margrave. Despite initial distrust, the trio eventually unite to investigate the connection between the murders and an international counterfeiting ring being run out of a respected local business.
In developing Reacher for television, writer-showrunner Nick Santora was not about to disappoint the fans with a mental picture of the title character in their heads. Alan Ritchson, perhaps best known for playing superhero Hawk on the HBO Max series Titans, certainly fits the clothes (usually just jeans and a T-shirt). He towers over his castmates, and boasts the hulking physique familiar from the pages of Child’s books. His performance is hard to gauge at first—is he wooden, or just so deadpan it barely registers?—but eventually his innate likeability takes over.
Humanizing Reacher is essential, because the character is basically a superhero without tights. He’s got the deductive mind of Sherlock Holmes, but you count on at least one scene per episode where he beats the crap out of five guys attacking him at once. Some of the fights are more inventive than others, and the twists and turns of the plot generally arrive right on schedule, but that’s all part of what makes Reacher the television equivalent of an airport novel. It’s not going to challenge your expectations, but it will fulfill them in a mostly satisfying way.