Reacher Season 2 Review: A Sharp, Self-Aware Action Caper
Jack Reacher is larger-than-life in more ways than one. The jacked, fight-ready ex-military investigator protagonist of Lee Child's long-running book series (it has 28 novels and counting) cuts an imposing figure, but he also looms large as a sort of modern legend. Child has spoken before about Reacher as a sort of knight-errant, a being with no beginning and no end who appears when called to rescue the innocent and punish the evil. By now, he's more myth than man, and Prime Video's slyly hilarious, action-packed adaptation knows it. In the new second season, "Reacher" has earned its confidence, and while it occasionally struggles to mix levity and heaviness, the strange brew mostly works.
"Strange" is the key word here, as "Reacher" season 2 highlights — and celebrates _ how truly unusual the popular franchise's particular appeal is. Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) has all the ra-ra spirit and obsession with punishment one would expect from a military propaganda figure, but he also calls out corruption (often in the military and police force), loves dogs, respects women, and lives like a nomad. He talks like a fan of Sherlock Holmes stories, acts like an alien on their first-ever trip to Earth, and kills like he's a judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. The series seems cannily aware of the place where Reacher could live in pop culture, but it's not interested in watering its plot down into a simple patriotic shoot-'em-up story. Instead, it functions as both a wry commentary on the action genre and a genuine caper all its own. New fans will likely find something to love in this quick, punchy eight-episode season, while longtime readers should appreciate the show's ability to capture its protagonist in all his silly, epic glory.
Reacher gets the band back together
The new plot pulls from the eleventh book in the Jack Reacher series, "Bad Luck and Trouble," which sees Reacher and his former special investigations teammates on the hunt for someone who seems to have been throwing people they know out of helicopters. Thanks to a two-year time jump between seasons and the hero's single-minded approach to each case, "Reacher" may as well be an anthology series — although the show does manage to deepen our hero's characterization by dropping hints that he misses what he had in Margrave, Georgia. While the lone wolf version of Reacher in season 1 sometimes felt a bit like an empty automaton, the special squad reunion gives Ritchson a bit more to work with emotionally. His casting remains excellent; while the series loves its one-liners, we often learn the most about Reacher through minuscule gestures and expressions, relayed perfectly by Ritchson.
The series' one-liner game has improved this season, as has its writing overall. "Reacher" is definitionally not a realistic show, and the dialogue often reflects that, yet it achieves a certain satisfying sense of simpatico in scenes that see Reacher and former teammates — including Shaun Sipos' David, Serinda Swan's Karla, and Maria Sten's Neagley, the show's secret weapon — sit around a playground, casino, or diner working their way through the particulars of the latest conspiracy. There's something here that feels like it's been lost on TV in recent years, a simple love of narrative problem-solving that harkens back to the network procedural days of decades past. The results of the group's investigation don't matter as much as the feeling they — and we — get when they're together. That being said, between an appearance by "Terminator" actor Robert Patrick in the villain role and a truly wacky climax, this case is memorable enough.
A (mostly) satisfying subversion of the typical action hero
Not everything about "Reacher" season 2 is a rollicking good time. The show occasionally has trouble squaring its somewhat contradictory ideals, as when a subplot featuring "The Wire" actor Domenick Lombardozzi devolves into an unconvincing philosophical conversation about "good cops" and "bad cops." With an even darker storyline than last season, it's also impossible not to miss the small-town charm of Margrave, at least a little bit. Some of the show's attempts at humor fall flat, the merciless killing eventually starts to feel less and less justifiable (this can't all be above board, right?), and an innocuous romantic subplot is a bit undercooked. Most of those factors, though, just seem to be part of the original Jack Reacher recipe, meaning that even when the show isn't particularly great, it's still true to its source material. Would you ask James Bond not to bed a woman who might later try to kill him? Exactly.
Overall, the sophomore season of "Reacher" is an entertaining mix of contrasts: compassion and vengeance, quirkiness and rigidity, status quo and subversion. Unlike many of its contemporaries, the action on "Reacher" never looks muddy, and the whole show is well-shot. "Reacher" is at its best when it takes a playful approach to its genre and reputation, offsetting serious moments with deadpan humor and a slight but unmistakable edge of self-awareness. "He's like that angry, pissed-off detective from that movie," David tells the crew in one scene, in reference to Lombardozzi's character. When Neagley asks "Which one?" David answers, "All of them." The same might be said of the titular character himself: he looks like every meathead action hero rolled into one, but "Reacher" works as well as it does because he's actually something so much weirder.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10
"Reacher" season 2 will premiere with the first three episodes December 15, 2023, on Prime Video, with one episode available each Friday.