Everyone’s favorite dad show is back, complete with bursts of earned violence, strong moral backbone, and nicely timed Gen X needle drops. By now, the formula for Prime Video’s hit Reacher is pretty well-established. Streaming media’s darling drifter wanders into another violent dilemma, from which he has to extricate himself and those he deems worth saving. It’s a modern TV riff on The Incredible Hulk in many ways with the massive Alan Ritchson serving as both Bruce Banner and the big green guy, beating up the baddies and setting the wrong things right before hitting the road again. The nostalgically charismatic lead, clever plotting of Lee Child’s books, and dialogue that rarely takes itself too seriously blend to create some much-needed escapism in an era that’s increasingly worth escaping. One could easily envision Prime running this thing for the next decade. (After all, there are 30 books and counting to use as source material.)
The three-episode season premiere of Reacher wastes no time but does start with a bit of a feint by allowing us to think that poor record selling Reacher happened to stumble on the attempted kidnapping of affluent Maine kid Richard Beck (Johnny Berchtold). After Reacher saves the young man and takes him back to his daddy, Zachary (Anthony Michael Hall), he ends up at the Beck compound, offering to help figure out why poor Richard was almost kidnapped for a second time. A lengthy prologue involving a game of Russian roulette, the introduction of Beck’s current musclemen, and a credit drop 21 minutes into the season is really a misdirect: Reacher didn’t happen upon the kidnapping; he staged it.
The show jumps back a few days to reveal that the carefree nomad is actually on the trail of a villain from his past, Quinn (Brian Tee), when he’s approached by DEA agent Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy) and her hapless colleagues Guillermo Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos) and Steven Elliot (Daniel David Stewart). They suspect that Beck’s “rug business” is about a lot more than transporting floor coverings, and they’re especially worried about a CI who was undercover in the operation and has now gone missing. They want to stage the kidnapping of Richard to get Reacher into the operation to figure out exactly what Beck is smuggling in those trucks and what happened to their ally.
So it’s a season that could be subtitled Undercover Reacher as he works his way through the Beck organization to get to the truth for Duffy and figure out the connection between villains Quinn and Beck. Quinn is cleverly sketched in these three episodes as the Keyser Söze of Reacher’s world, a legendary villain who we learn once did something horrible to one of Reacher’s allies but is only seen in glimpses from afar. It’s sort of a “final boss” setup to the season as Reacher has to work his way through Beck’s organization to get to the man that we learn is actually in charge of the whole thing.
Who are the sub bosses? Well, Reacher dispatches two in the three-episode premiere. First, there’s Angel Doll (Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz), who becomes suspicious of the kidnapping story when they’re trying to retrieve evidence from the car and he doesn’t see the brain matter of the supposedly exploded bodyguard. And then there’s the truly idiotic Chapman Duke (Donald Sales), who goes with Reacher to the home of the alleged kidnappers in the third episode only to take a bullet between the eyes from our morally righteous hero. It leaves Beck with a need for a new head of security, which gets Reacher into the No. 2 position before the first night of this new season is over. But this also leaves one massive roadblock in the form of a bodyguard Paulie (Olivier Richters), who is actually more a captor than a protector. Richters is one of the few people in the history of television bigger than Alan Ritchson. Nicknamed “The Dutch Giant,” the athlete-turned-actor is seven-foot-two-inches, claiming the title of the “tallest professional bodybuilder.” The inevitable showdown between him and Reacher should be a blast.
This trio of episodes mostly sets the stage for what should be another entertaining season. There’s not enough Neagley (the great Maria Sten) so far, but that will change. (She’s still listed as second in the credits and does have a brief appearance in the second episode.) There is a coterie of good, bad, and in-between guys like fans have come to expect. After a second season that was more of a Reacher team-up with his former colleagues from the Special Investigators, this outing seems to get back to the basic structure of the first year with a strong female cop ally that will almost certainly become a love interest as she partners with Reacher to take down a corrupt, violent organization. To that end, Cassidy is effective as Duffy, finding a New England tone of righteous moral indignation that fits the character (and will likely attract Reacher to her before long). She has good comic timing too, often landing a joke with a sly smile or awkward stare.
As for the rest of the supporting cast, it’s a little thin thus far, although Berchtold does solid work in the third episode as Richard reveals the depths of his problem in that he’s basically being held prisoner in his own home. Hall isn’t given as much to do as one would expect, but that could change as it’s also revealed that Zachary is more of a prisoner than a warden in this situation. If anything, this trio of episodes sets up potentially strong characters and performances to come when Tee finally steps out of the wings to claim the role as the true villain and Reacher eliminates the final underlings.
If there is a downside to this start to the season, it’s that it’s almost half over and it’s really just getting started. The eight-episode order for every outing of Reacher (at least so far) can sometimes make for seasons that are forced to stretch six hours of plot into eight chapters. Could everything accomplished in these three chapters have been done in two? Probably, but every season has had a bit of a lull after the stage-setting premiere, and the show usually ramps up the pacing again mid-season. Stay tuned. Reacher isn’t going anywhere. Yet.
Stray observations
- • This season is based on the seventh book in the series, 2003’s Persuader. It’s worth noting that season one hewed to the plot of Child’s debut, but the second one jumped to the eleventh book, so creator Nick Santora is willing to jump around the literary chronology.
- • It’s smart of Santora & co. to drastically jump settings each season from Georgia to NYC to Maine, allowing that alone to flavor the storytelling and remind us how much our hero is a true drifter.
- • There’s a little less humor in these episodes than in past seasons—maybe they’re running out of jokes about Reacher’s size—but I did enjoy Reacher’s refusal to eat “lavender infusion’ ice cream.
- • Hall’s appearance reminded me of the underrated USA adaptation of The Dead Zone. It doesn’t quite escape the shadow of David Cronenberg’s movie, but Hall is quite good in it if you want a bit of nostalgic basic-cable sci-fi. (It’s on Prime too.)
- • The needle drops in Reacher are catnip for the target audience, but sometimes the producers dig a little deeper too. Well-known tracks in these episodes include “Blood And Roses” by The Smithereens, High Fidelity hit “Dry The Rain” by The Beta Band, and “Firestarter” by The Prodigy. And “Dead Language” by The Defiant and “All My Feelings Denied” by Thee Headcoatees are rarer cuts (at least to my ears).
