Plot: Reacher is pulled from his vagabond life by a coded message informing him that a member of the 110th – his elite group of Army Special Investigators – has been murdered. He and some of his former military cohorts reunite to investigate and soon realize the case is bigger than they ever could have imagined.
Review: After two feature films starring Tom Cruise, the Prime Video version of Reacher brought Alan Ritchson into the title role to personify the physical stature of Lee Child’s vision for the character. The first season of Reacher was not quite a mystery and not quite an action series but was closer to the novels than Cruise’s take on the tale. Fans took to the new Reacher, and a second season was ordered early, with a third on the way before the sophomore run even debuted. Luckily, the second season of Reacher is even better than the first, with an adaptation of the eleventh novel in the series, taking Reacher into a different type of story than we have ever seen before. Alongside Jack Reacher, we meet many of his Special Investigators unit members, giving this season an ensemble feel with a group of awesome new characters to crop up in future seasons of the show.
Picking up a little under three years since the first season’s events in Margrave, Georgia, Jack Reacher is wandering the country when he receives a coded message from Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) informing him that one of the Special Investigators was found thrown from the sky in a forest. Reacher makes his way to meet here, and the pair realize a connection between their former unit and a conspiracy larger than they could have imagined. What starts out as Reacher and Neagley looking into the cause of their friend’s death soon brings in other colleagues from their past, including Dave O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) and Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan). They also run up against new foes, including Langston (Robert Patrick) and Andrew McBride (Ferdinand Kingsley). They also encounter a police detective (Dominick Lombardozzi) as they look into who is taking down the investigators.
While the first season boasted flashbacks to Jack Reacher’s childhood, the second season lends much more backstory to Reacher’s military career. Each episode showcases the germination of the Special Investigators and how important they were to Reacher’s history. Each member we meet is a major element in Reacher’s life, including Neagley, who appeared in the first season. Maria Sten holds her own alongside Alan Richtson, forming a solid partnership. Shaun Sipos brings a lot of snark and humor to Dave O’Donnell, something that balances the stoic Reacher. Serinda Swan is equally able to go toe to toe with the other characters and serves as a potential love interest for the otherwise hermitic Jack Reacher. This group makes a bold case for Reacher to deviate from the formula of the novels and keep this crew united for future seasons. By skipping ten novels in the literary timeline, there is room to change dynamics from Lee Child’s original text to accommodate this.
While Jack Reacher remains fairly silent in the books, Alan Ritchson continues to shine with dialogue tailored to the character. Unlike Tom Cruise, Ritchson brings a hulking presence that is coupled with his intelligent performance as a brilliant and methodical character. Robert Patrick plays an excellent villain here, a typecasting he has become very good at evoking, and even delivers a hilarious reference to Terminator 2: Judgement Day. As good as Ritchson is here, he is balanced by Maria Sten, who could easily take on a spin-off centered on Frances Neagley. The entirety of this season worked better for me than the first because of the team approach that Reacher and his colleagues take as well as the more personal focus of the narrative. The Reacher novels have successfully put the title character through the wringer in various settings and situations, but I really liked the military-themed focus of this arc.
The eight-episode second season features episodes directed by Sam Hill, Omar Madha, Carol Banker, and Julian Holmes. Showrunner Nick Santora wrote the premiere episode, with Scott Sullivan writing three entries and the remaining four from Penny Cox, Cait Duffy, Michael J. Gutierrez, and Lillian Wang. The entire series makes great use of the novel Bad Luck and Trouble with only a few significant changes from the source material. Much of the plot remains intact from the book, so fans of the Lee Child novels will be pleased. But, there are numerous tweaks and updates to accommodate the new timeline while setting the stage for any number of directions that season three could go in. What is noticeable this season compared to last is the humanity within Reacher, thanks to seeing him interact with those closest to him. This season, there is also a brutality to the violence that increases the stakes even if they never feel like risking Reacher from coming out anywhere but on the winning side.
Everything about the second season of Reacher is an improvement over the first, a rarity on television. More often than not, shows enter a sophomore slump by trying to double down on what made the first season work well. Here, Nick Santora and his writing team have taken Jack Reacher’s story in a very different direction from last season while maintaining the moral core and rules that the character lives by. This season is more fun, funnier, and worth investing in than the last time around and will surely build new fans for the franchise. This is a great take on Jack Reacher, and one I hope will carry through into the third season and beyond. Reacher is back and has finally proven to be the definitive take on the fan-favorite character.
Reacher season two premieres on December 15th on Prime Video.