Summary
Reacher hasn’t changed much in Season 3, which is likely what series fans will have been hoping for. Ritchson remains note-perfect in another simplistic but reliably entertaining outing.
The way Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books work is by never changing under any circumstances. They’re modern riffs on the old-school story of a noble stranger – a gunslinger or a samurai or whatever – riding into town, sorting out the local problems, and then leaving. Reacher never evolves or learns anything. He’s an avatar of macho stoicism, and stories about him are deliberately simplistic. Except, that is, Persuader, the seventh Reacher novel which also forms the basis for Season 3 of the very good Prime Video adaptation.
Don’t get me wrong, Persuader has all the hallmarks of a standard Reacher story, but it plays with the formula in interesting ways, which I suspect is how the source books for each season are selected. For one thing, Reacher is working with the DEA, albeit unofficially, and for another, the plot is predicated on him going undercover in the personal detail of a shady rug mogul who may or may not be using an expansive import/export network to move around more illegal goods.
Like the book, Reacher Season 3 begins with Reacher ingratiating himself into the gang before wheeling back to explain how he got there, which as far as structural flourishes go is the most imaginative the entire franchise gets. It only lasts an episode before unfolding in a more familiar rhythm, but the gimmick of Reacher trying not to blow his cover – usually in his inimitable way – is fresh-feeling enough to justify another run of episodes.
To be fair, this show doesn’t need the gimmicks. Alan Ritchson (Titans; Ghosts of War; Fast Ten) is so perfectly cast as Child’s wandering hero that the thrill of watching him slap people around never really wears off. The plot is just an excuse for him to do that as much as possible. But his one-man-army antics work better in literary form because readers are privy to his internal monologue. On TV, he needs people around him, which is why Bad Luck and Trouble, the eleventh novel in the series and the one built most obviously on a team-based dynamic, formed the basis for the second season.
Olivier Richters and Alan Ritchson in Reacher Season 3 | Image via Prime Video
Season 3 doesn’t leave Reacher feeling too isolated, though, since he’s working with a new team – DEA agent Susan Duffy (the great Sonya Cassidy doing a less-than-great Bostonian accent) and her colleagues Guillermo Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos) and rookie Steven Elliot (Daniel David Stewart). It also ropes Frances Neagley (Maria Sten – Channel Zero) back in, despite her not being in the book that I can recall, because she’s the most overt bit of serialization in the series beyond Reacher himself, and also because Reacher’s personal motivation for accepting the mission is to track down a truly nasty villain from their military past.
It virtually all works, despite it never really striving to be anything beyond what the first two seasons were. A flashback episode – which adds crucial context to Reacher’s aforementioned motivation – is the nearest things get to experimental, which is saying a lot. Beyond that it’s just Ritchson stripping down to his undies with surprising frequency, saying macho stuff, and beating people up. Three seasons in, I don’t think anyone is expecting anything else.
Persuader does have a USP, though, which is the only villain in the franchise physically bigger than Reacher. His name is Paulie and he’s played here by Olivier Richters, a 7’2 behemoth who legitimately towers over Ritchson. You know from the second you see him that there’s an inevitable confrontation coming our way, but you’ll have to wait a while for that. It’s probably worth the price of admission on its own, though.
Long-time fans need not worry that Reacher has lost a step in Season 3. It’s unambitious entertainment operating on the same reliable, competent basis that the books do, and provides a welcome vehicle for escapism that isn’t trying to be too clever or cool for its own good. Reacher rides into town with a moral code and big muscles, he beats up the bad guys and he invariably gets the girl. It’s a tale as old as time, skilfully told once again.
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