Reacher Season 2's Third Episode Throws The Entire Season For A Loop
This post contains spoilers for the first three episodes of "Reacher" season 2.
After leaving Margrave behind at the end of season one, Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) has decided to continue his isolated, wandering existence in the show's latest season. Frequenting pawn shops to get a change of clothing periodically, Reacher is more than happy to squat in abandoned warehouses and beat up the bad guys during the day, making sure to never leave a trace behind, or linger. However, this equilibrium is shattered when he gets an emergency-coded message from Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), who informs him that their mutual friend from the 110th Special Investigations Unit, Calvin Franz (Luke Bilyk), has been murdered.
Deciding to look into the case together, Reacher and Neagley hunt for clues to decipher the mystery behind Franz's gruesome death and come to the conclusion that all the members of the 110th are being targeted for some reason. Franz had contacted fellow SI Jorge Sanchez (Andrés Collantes) and Manuel Orozco (Edsson Morales) days before his death, and the duo are assumed missing until their bodies are found by the police. This leaves SI member Tony Swan (Shannon Kook), who has been unreachable for days, and when Reacher and co. break into his house, they find Swan's dead dog, who passed away due to dehydration.
As Reacher knows Swan to be the kind of person who would never allow something so neglectful to happen on purpose, they conclude that he must be dead. However, by the end of episode three, the group is rattled by an unsettling reveal: Swan seems to be involved with the conspiracy at New Age, a defense contracting company, which the gang believes is responsible for hiring a hitman to take everyone in the 110th out one at a time.
Is Swan innocent?
After finding a parking pass in an assassin's car, the group tracks it back to New Age, and hone in on an address left behind the hitman hired to kill them. Arriving at the destination, the gang burns the house down to lure the group of assassins out, and a tense confrontation ensues. A New Age employee attempts to flee, but Reacher is quick enough to stop him, and yet the man dies due to cardiac arrest. Piecing everything together, Reacher tells federal officer Guy Russo (Domenick Lombardozzi) that New Age is behind everything, and the latter requests them to stay out of police business so that he can arrange a warrant by lawful means.
Not the kind to sit and do nothing, Reacher and his friends trash the New Age facility, grabbing important files and other miscellaneous stuff to make it look like a robbery. Reacher chances upon a picture of Swan with his colleagues at New Age, and this reveal immediately recontextualizes everything they know so far. This could mean that Swan is not missing because he has been harmed or killed, but is deliberately absent from the scene to evade suspicion. This could also mean that he let his dog die on purpose to make it look like he couldn't come home, which adds a darker tint to his character than we have been led to believe.
The mysterious A.M. (Ferdinand Kingsley) is still on the loose and has close ties with New Age (as the picture also features Shane Langston, who killed Franz and is orchestrating everything), which could point toward a nefarious terrorist plan that Swan might be involved in. However, why would an ex-special investigations officer be involved in something so dangerous? The plot thickens, and long-time friends cannot be trusted.
What happens in the book
While "Reacher" season 2 follows Lee Child's "Bad Luck and Trouble" pretty closely, a few facets of the narrative have been altered for dramatic effect, or for the sake of fleshing out the story in more engaging ways. In the book, Reacher receives extensive cooperation from deputies in LA and the Las Vegas police department, while the show contains this aspect to Guy Russo for simplicity's sake. Moreover, none of the folks in the 110th are directly involved in the New Age scandal, including Swan, who is deemed dead, a victim of the conspiracy that he was close to exposing days before his murder.
The fact that "Reacher" uses Tony's employment at New Age as the catalyst to insinuate his apparent involvement introduces fresh stakes into the narrative. Throughout the first three episodes, it is emphasized that the group's time together as a part of the 110th was considered sacred in comparison to how life turned out later, especially for Reacher, who looks back with fond nostalgia. Everyone has a framed picture of the 110th together at a bonfire party in their homes (except for Reacher, as he doesn't have a home), and Swan potentially being responsible for wanting to kill his friends while being a part of a terrorist plan feels a little too bleak.
It is possible that the Swan reveal is a red herring, and that he is involved, but for the right reasons. Swan could be held hostage, which might explain his disappearance, and his inability to alert his friends of imminent danger. In the meanwhile, it is up to Reacher and his pals to solve this labyrinthine mystery and potentially prove Swan's innocence.
The first three seasons of "Reacher" are currently streaming on Prime Video.