Simplicity, man. Predictability, even. There’s something comforting about Amazon’s Reacher, much like (in the show) peach pie or (as in the book) scrambled eggs in a diner. Yes, the show is formulaic as hell and largely rests upon the appeal of a brick sh*thouse uttering deadpan one liners as he sees fit, but the series is a blanket of the right kind of nostalgia. It also somehow constantly throws lives into peril while also calmly reminding us that everything will be alright because not only does Reacher have the brawn, he’s also got the brain. I mean, c’mon: he can chase the blues while deducing a crime back to its early inception after hearing the barest of details.
In short, he’s a simple man but also brilliant, and so are Lee Child’s books and this show. (I’m also not here to bash the Tom Cruise movies, other than acknowledging that the 6’2″ and jacked Alan Ritchson fits the bill of a 6’5″ hulking slab of concrete more convincingly for obvious reasons. Other than that, let’s simply pretend that the Cruise entries don’t exist.)
This series was tailor-made to run forever, by the way, and Season 2 flows so confidently that it’s no wonder that Season 3 is already filming. We’ve got an endlessly roaming protagonist who surfaces in different locales for each season. Add a few ingredients to connect these stories, and you’ve got yourself a TV show, buddy. Punch a few windows while defending civilians against criminals while you’re at it. That’s the good stuff.
Now that we’ve covered the obvious (and banal) points of appeal for Reacher, let’s go in a different direction before addressing what the show does in Season 2. What I want to acknowledge here is that — and seriously, put aside all physicality of this character — Reacher as a show treats women incredibly well. Jack Reacher himself? Even more so. We’ve already seen how he can make abusive men wither away into a tiny spot on the ground, but Season 2 goes even further to showcase women who are as fearless as Reacher and can genuinely take care of themselves, which is, dare I say, invigorating to behold.
During Season 1, we saw this happen in Margrave when Officer Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) insisted that she did not need Reacher to physically protect her. Granted, yes, she had a different reaction to danger from the book, published in 1997, and in the 2020s, Lee Child went expressed that he appreciated this change to the character, which Reacher himself respected with no arguments or offense taken. This switch-up felt authentic, too, given that Reacher’s attitude towards women is rooted in the deep reverence that he holds for his late mother. The show also worked this point so gracefully that it somehow hasn’t angered the anti-woke crowd over “strong women” (yet).
Still, Jack Reacher also remains the crowd-pleasing, quintessential 1980s action hero who can defeat any opponent like Arnold back in the day. He now fights alongside two different kickass women (sadly, Roscoe is not present, although there are first-season callbacks) in Season 2. One of these ladies is a character who we briefly met already, and that would be Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), a no-bullsh*t member of his old U.S. Army military-police unit (a.k.a., the “Special Investigators”) who sends up a flare when other members begin mysteriously falling out of helicopters. This seems tied to a dastardly scheme led by a sketchy security whiz portrayed by Robert Patrick, and yes, there’s a Terminator joke up in here. Another member of the unit, Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), has already been spoiled by a trailer as a prospective Reacher love interest, but like Roscoe, she can save her own ass, too.
This season hops forward (after the show covered the first novel, Killing Floor) to the eleventh book, Bad Luck and Trouble. Once again, the season’s mystery becomes personal, but it’s also one that affects Reacher’s entire former Army unit. So, we get to see him reunited with surviving members as well as in flashbacks with the old crew. This gives us a chance to see what life was like for him while interacting in a group dynamic, years before his loner routine. Reacher was the commanding officer of his unit back in the day, but in the present, he’s working alongside them as equals. He also gets to see their more established lives and how they have moved on without him, to families, jobs, goals, and so on. They give him hell, but he can handle it.
Yes, the world has been moving on without Reacher in the Army. This, at times, appears to unsettle him, which is fun, but at the same time, this show knows better than to change this tiger. He will continue to roam when this mission is done. Because again, this series feels committed to tweaking the formula but staying simple. Granted, there are a few blips in the second act that get bogged down in making the mystery more complicated, but the season recovers for a grand finale.
A few more strong points from this series:
(1) Plenty of films and TV shows successfully revolve around an unstoppable “force,” often an ominous one, that shows up and wreaks havoc, like Anton Chigurh or the Joker, but I do really not mind that Reacher delivers an unstoppable force that happens to be inherently good for a change.
(2) This show is low-key funny, especially considering the random garbage (whatever is in a vending machine, fries, diner sammies, and so on) that supposedly fuels Reacher’s jacked physique. His only “workout” is beating up bad guys? Sure, why not, and IRL, Alan Ritchson also knows that Popeye’s serves a purpose. What I’m trying to say is this: Reacher does not take himself seriously, and neither does the show, and they’re better for it.
In Season 2, Ritchson continues to be the right guy for the gig, too. He can convey wordless volumes or believably utter the most adept inferences imaginable. His inherent detective-ing truly flows seamlessly. Yes, it makes sense that Reacher would be so tactically wise due to his background, but we also don’t even have to question how he became who he is. He simply is, and the show continues to deliver this in a believable way.
Now, is the “No one messes with the Special Investigators” motto too corny for its own good? Obviously, but it flies, and the same goes for Reacher.
Amazon’s ‘Reacher’ is back on December 15.
