Reacher: One of the most addictive modernday action series is back with a bang (or 12)
One of the most addictive modern-day action series is back.
After two less-than-imposing – or impressive – cinematic outings with Tom Cruise, Lee Child’s most famous creation Jack Reacher found his real swagger and natural home on the small screen in 2022.
Not only did Alan Ritchson almost seem larger than the mountain of an ex-military man depicted in more than 25 novels, but telling the story across six-and-a-half hours, rather than two, allowed the series’ light touch and delightful character interactions to shine, just as much as the propulsive set-pieces and compelling drama.
First, here’s the bad news. By adapting the 11th novel – 2007’s Bad Luck and Trouble – for this second, eight-part season of Reacher (now streaming on Prime Video), that means there’s no room for the first effort’s unsung MVP and breakout star – Willa Fitzgerald’s Officer Roscoe. However, that’s offset by the return of the brilliant private investigator Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), and also the introduction of
Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), as this story focuses more on Reacher’s “vocational” and “professional” history.
Both women are former members of the 110, a crack squad of military “special investigators”, led in a rule-breaking, laissez-faire way by Reacher himself.
Bonded for life by their no-nonsense, shoot-first, party-hard approach, when a distress message is delivered via ATM to our man, he instantly abandons his drifter lifestyle and heads straight for Williamsburg,
New York.
Arriving at their “diner date” just 90 seconds after his coffee is poured and three minutes after his meal arrives – thanks to Neagley’s impressive intuition and nous – Reacher is horrified to learn a colleague has been murdered two years after another died in a mysterious crash, and Neagley is struggling to get hold of others.
If he wasn’t already invested enough, Neagley provides just the right motivation: “You really want to let some other cops handle our dead friend’s case?”
However, as they are joined by Dixon and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) in making enquiries, it’s clear someone doesn’t want them getting too close to the truth.
“The assholes snapped my toothbrush in half,” Reacher opines, with deadpan delivery, a moment that’s reflective of both the inevitable, but exciting escalation to come and the pitch-perfect, late-20th-century action-movie tone of the series (the soundtrack is littered with 80s tunes, one-liner kiss-offs abound and there’s even an adroit Terminator 2 in-joke, that’s truly fabulous given the casting of a certain actor as this season’s main bad guy).
Fans of pyrotechnics, car chases and fist fights will certainly not be disappointed by what’s on offer here, but it is really in the quieter, more introspective moments (of which there are plenty) that Reacher and its star Ritchins really shine.
Season 2 of Reacher is now available to stream on Prime Video.