Summary
Reacher keeps ramping up the moral complexities in the fourth episode, and the cost is high because they lose one of their own in the process.
This recap of Amazon’s Reacher season 1, episode 4, “In a Tree,” contains spoilers.
Read the season 1 review.
Reacher season 1, episode 4 recap
Reacher has three dead bodies now, not two. After he finds Spivey in the trunk, he checks what he has on him and gathers up the sicario’s assassin toys in the car trunk. Reacher then folds the two special forces soldiers in unspeakable ways to get them in the trunk.
Reacher updates Finley and Roscoe that he found Spivey dead in the trunk and killed the South American because they charged him. Yes, you have now spotted a lie. Roscoe catches it as well as he comments on how the killers were put into the trunk and made to fit like a game of Tetris. She also spotted an exit wound out of their stomach. This earns Roscoe a question on what he did overseas that KJ is interested in? Reacher found out that the men abused small children when guarding a small town. So, he provided the area with his sense of martial law.
Does Roscoe have a problem with killing people who hurt children? Does he ask her? No, she replies. Good, now let’s hide those dead bodies at the airport, he says.
After hiding the bodies, Reacher gets them a suite near the airport with the killer’s counterfeit cash he took off them. Reacher sets it up for maximum security when they get to their room. He moves the bed so it faces the door. He also barricades it. They then get a call from Molly Beth. She has the files. Reacher wants to hang up the phone, but Roscoe makes him talk to her. She lets him know all the good things Joe said about him.
This makes Jack mournful, but it gets Roscoe hot and bothered. He goes to shower and orders her to watch the door. But of course, she doesn’t listen. She enters the bathroom naked as she was born and opens the shower door. His response? “Who’s watching the door?” Good question, no? They make love by testing the industrial strength of the hotel’s glass shower wall. We assume it held up just fine.
After a night of what I can only assume is the closest thing we will get to watching bigfoot mating, they head out to visit one of the deceased, Pete, and his house. They find his ex-wife, and she tells stories of how she knows he was engaged in illegal activity. (Pete had a lovely house, paid off his parent’s mortgage, and had a very comfortable life). They look through his garage, he finds something and tells Roscoe they need to leave. His working theory? That Pete was driving the counterfeit money and took some for himself. He was then killed for it.
Later, the FBI agent helping out Finley gives Reacher a break. He located Joe’s motel room. Another couple of South American special forces soldiers already raided his room when they headed out. They couldn’t find his briefcase, but he was a Reacher after all. They find his garment bag, check the seams, and find a piece of paper. It has a notation for a Kliner grey file, an address, and two phone numbers.
They couldn’t talk anymore about it because those special forces soldiers came back. They split up, and Roscoe later realizes Reacher did it to draw the soldiers to him. After killing them both, Roscoe slaps that granite jaw and tells him never to do that again. But how did they know they would be there? Either way, for some reason, all that animal feed, Hubble having Joe’s number in his shoe, and the information they found in Joe’s bag was even more confusing. They consisted of two professors and a number to the Memphis Environmental Protective Agency.
This has us introduced to one of the few book series recurring characters, the private eye Frances Neagley. He gives her the rundown, the brother was killed, and he needs to know the initials that go with the number for the EPA he found. To be continued.
Meanwhile, every time we have a scene of Reacher protecting someone, we receive a flashback when Joe and Jack were teenagers. Joe covered for his brother when he stood up for someone and beat up a general’s son. These scenes establish Reacher’s guilt that is driving him.
The ending
Molly Beth meets them at the train station. They see her get off, and she meets Reacher’s eyes. Remember, he looks just like Joe. She never arrives when they wait for her to come up the escalator. Reacher finds her down the train station tracks. She is bleeding from her stomach. Molly Beth is about to die, and as she looks up, she says, “Joe!” She then passes away in Reacher’s arms.
The files are missing.
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