The first season ofReacherwas immensely successful. It introduced us to a fascinating character who had been largely underrepresented in his 2012 film debut. Reacher has captivated audiences with his personality and size, and Ritchson’s portrayal has ledaudiences to forget about Tom Cruise’s movies.
However,Reacherseason two has been a bit bumpier than the first. The showrunners are starting to show some of their cracks, which might mean that a novel show is about to become a cliché mess. But what are the problems? How can they be solved? And will audiences care either way?
Spoiler Alert for Episodes 1-5 of Reacher Season 2
Reacher Features a Solid Main Character
As stated, this incarnation of Reacher is far closer to that of the original Lee Child’s novels than those we’ve seen before. Childs described him as having “a six-pack like a cobbled city street, a chest like a suit of NFL armor, biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue.” The show’s producers made sure that their Reacher would fit this description. They found him inAlan Ritchson with the best performanceof his career. The 41-year-old actor seems to have been created specifically for the role.
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As for his personality, Ritchson imbues Jack Reacher with the calm of someone who has seen and done things that others will never understand. He trusts very few people, but the ones he does are given the privilege of complete confidence. He has a very specific moral compass and is prone to statements like, “I’m a man with a rule: people leave me and my pals alone, I leave them alone. They don’t, I don’t”.
He understands the gravity of his presence and does not hesitate to be the winner in any physical altercation. His military background has given him a place to hone and prove his skills, and now, as a wandering man with nothing to his name except the literal clothes on his back, he is Bruce Banner, and the Hulk rolled into one.
Reacher Season Two Brings the Cliches
Reacherfeatures a time jumpfrom season one to season two. We are a few years ahead, and Reacher must team up with his former military team to try and solve the mystery of why they keep turning up dead. The intrigue involves top US officials, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and corporate greed.
The team is made up of Reacher, Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos). The team comes together partly out of loyalty and partly for self-preservation when they find that three of their nine teammates are dead. Who killed them? What was the motivation? Reacher is forced to reckon with his past and the lives of those who served under him. It is also an issue of trust, as the one person they need to find may be one of the people who was once his closest ally.
Although this plotline is fascinating to watch, the second season of the show attempts to create something much bigger than season one. Where the first season took place in a single small town, this new season sees Reacher and his team traveling the country. This means that suddenly, we are looking at the passage of time in an entirely different way. People travel to Boston, Colorado, New York, and back in a very loosey-goosey fashion. Whereas season one felt like we were living day-to-day, season two attempts to give us stakes without a proper timeline. They are on a race to find information, but it appears time speeds up and slows down at will.
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Then, we have the fact that Reacher is given a love interest. This is a fiercely independent man who seems to have trouble with attachment. Yet, in both seasons of the show, he has found a physical relationship that appears to exist for two reasons: A chance for Ritchson to take off his clothes and for us to see that he’s just as human as the next guy.
However, where his first season relationship with Roscoe seemed like two similar people with intense superiority issues coming together, season two’s Karla is shown as a crush he had while leading his team that is now okay because she’s no longer his subordinate. The thing is, Reacher doesn’t strike one as the kind of person who would even allow himself to have those feelings for someone who was working for him, let alone harbor them for decades.
Then, we come to the very basicaction movie tropesand clichés. The bar fights, the easily won fight against a biker gang, the idea of beating someone up who is fighting you by mistake and then shaking hands after you’ve throat-punched them. These kinds of things feel thrown together. Not to mention the over-the-top break-in at New Age, where they slam a truck through the front doors, steal more information and electronics than they could possibly have access to, and get out without a single security guard or police officer showing up for quite some time. For a company that is doing secret military projects, they seem cavalier about their security.
Episode Five of Reacher Season 2 Hurts the Most
In episode five, we have more clichés than ever. We can run them down: get in anywhere with a clipboard, avoid automatic gunfire by climbing into the backseat of the car, get full cooperation from a government agency with a man who categorically states “unless we kill them all first,” and send a guy into a building that was 100% going to be rigged to explode. Should we even mention the “don’t I know you from somewhere?” guy?
Reacheris fun and has seen enormous success on Prime Video, as it wasAmazon’s #1 series in 2023, but it needs to avoid getting sloppy. The writers should focus on engaging storylines with excellent writing to continue past the already-announced third season.Reacheris one of the most compelling characters on streaming TV, but keeping himself grounded and free of the most pressing clichés seems to be the one thing he can’t do.
