What's Working and What Is Not in the Third Season of 'Reacher'

We’re halfway through season 2 of Reacher, Amazon’s surprisingly successful series starring Alan Ritchson as the hulking, eponymous Jack Reacher. The series has had its ups and downs — season one was a blast, a clever, humor-filled story that managed to be both intense and amusing, with a dark streak of humor that made it addictive. Season Two was … fine. It wasn’t quite as engaging as its predecessor, but Ritchson continues to shine as the hulking super detective and sometimes, that’s all we need.

Season 3, thus far, finds itself somewhere between the two. It’s been a lot of fun, with a good mystery at its heart and some pleasantly weird vibes to it as well. Reacher finds himself working undercover at the mansion of Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall!), dealing with his creepy, nefarious henchmen, and trying to unravel the mystery of Beck’s illegalities. Thrown into the mix are Beck’s isolated, oft-bullied son Richard (Johnny Berchtold) and Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy) the no-nonsense DEA agent who recruited Reacher, and a surprisingly quirky setting on the coast of Maine, and we’ve got ourselves a decent little party. The season is based on the novel Persuader, and generally speaking, has hewed fairly close to the source material, something the show has been good at doing.

So, what’s working?

— Reacher himself. Alan Ritchson, after a lengthy but fairly unimpressive career, has found the role he was born to play. He devours the role of Reacher and is finally an actor with the size and features to resemble the ridiculousness of the novels. He’s a beast of a man, but he also carries the quiet, sardonic attitude as well as the sense of menace that is sometimes subtle and sometimes … not. Thanks to top-notch fight choreography, Reacher feels tough, and the brutality of the show’s fights is vivid and enthralling. Yet he also carries the innate intelligence of the character well. Even when his Holmesian intuition is downright silly, Ritchson handles it with aplomb.

— Anthony Michael Hall as Zachary Beck. Hall has evolved into a fascinating actor in the decades since he was the skinny Brian in The Breakfast Club. Here, he’s tasked with a complicated duality — he’s an asshole and definitely not a good guy, but also… maybe not as bad a guy as we think. Even when he’s barking orders and cursing out his assistants, there’s an undercurrent of desperation that bolsters his character.

— The supporting cast. The terrific Maria Sten as Frances Neagley returns, albeit briefly, and her wry performance is always welcome. Brian Tee (a prolific actor who’s starred in everything from Chicago Med to The Wolverine) is excellent as the main villain, Quinn. A special shoutout to the casting of Olivier Richters as Paulie — in the novels, Paulie is an absolute mutant of a man, a giant who dwarfs even Reacher. Richters, a professional bodybuilder, is a terrifying monster of a man, a 7’2”, 350-pound giant who exudes enough menace to make up for any acting shortcomings.

— The fighting. The show has its share of gunfights, but it shines when it comes down to fistfights. Reacher punches, kicks, headbutts, and eye-gouges his way through every fight with an unrestrained style that announces that rules are for losers. He breaks arms, shatters knees, and kills people in all manner of inventive ways, often simply out of practicality. Worried about a henchman giving you away? Smash his head into a desk hard enough to kill him, then break his legs and arms so you can fit the body into a small space to hide him! It’s perfectly, horrifically sensible.

What’s not working?

— Not much, really. This third season of Reacher is firing on almost all of its cylinders, creating a fun, havoc-ridden, body-strewn amount of mayhem mixed in with a solid detective story. I won’t even criticize Sonya Cassidy’s preposterous attempt at a Boston accent too much. The British actress is chewing her way through every drawled “ah” without blinking, and even if it sounds like Mayor Quimby on helium, I have to respect the hustle.
Episode Five of Reacher returns today, and I can’t wait to see who gets punched to death next.