Reacher Season 4 Features One Of The Wildest Fights In Jack Reacher History [Set Visit]

This article contains spoilers for "Reacher" Season 4, Episode 8, "Cut."

"Reacher" Season 4 had to address a major problem caused by Season 3: The writers somehow had to top Alan Ritchson's brawl with Olivier Richters, which remains the most brutal and challenging battle yet seen in the Prime Video series. Luckily, "Reacher" Season 4 adapts the Lee Child book with not only the most bonkers reveal in the entire series, but also two very different adversaries for Jack Reacher. The book includes a wild climactic battle between Reacher and these new enemies, which, thankfully, has been left intact in "Reacher" Season 4. /Film attended a set visit where the cast and crew revealed how they approached such an unusual fight scene.

"Gone Tomorrow" is the thirteenth book in Child's series and sees Jack Reacher go head-to-head with two Al Qaeda assassins in Lila and Svetlana Hoth. The deadly duo prove to be a tricky matchup for the ex-military policeman, who, in the book's final chapters, lays siege to their apartment block hideout before confronting the pair having used his last bullet to kill their final goon. 

After Lila and Svetlana force him to undress to prove he has no hidden firearms, Reacher is relieved to find they miss the knife taped to his back. A battle of blades ensues, and it's one of the most unique fights in Jack Reacher history. The hulking hero suddenly finds himself having to cope with two lithe knife experts whose tactics involve reducing his strength with every slice. But he proves almost as adept with a blade, and we get one of the bloodiest fights in Reacher history, with the titular hero patching himself up with duct tape after all's said and done. Now, that fight has been translated to the small screen, and it's just as compelling in live-action.

"Reacher" Season 4 has made big changes to the book on which it's based, most notably by removing references to Al Qaeda (though the secret villain of "Gone Tomorrow," Osama Bin Laden, does get a name check in Episode 4) and shifting the action from New York to Philadelphia. Thankfully, the knife fight with Lila and Svetlana Hoth remains.

Since "Gone Tomorrow" is one of the few Jack Reacher novels narrated in the first person, we get Reacher's insights into how each cut affects him and his opponents, with descriptions of blades grazing bones and blood "sheeting" out of deep wounds. It's intense stuff, and something the "Reacher" Season 4 team were no doubt daunted by. Of course, the show changes the characters to Lila and Amisha Hoth (Agnez Mo and Anggun, respectively), two Indonesian assassins who attempt to develop a chemical weapon to sell on the dark web. But the pair remain handy with a blade, and use their karambits to torture many a victim.

In the finale, however, they turn their attention to Jack Reacher himself, who, after barreling his way through wave after wave of henchmen, finally confronts Lila and Amisha on the upper level of their abandoned building hideout. Fans of "Gone Tomorrow" then get the knife fight they've been waiting for, as Lila and Amisha deliver a flurry of lacerations, slowly diminishing Reacher's energy in the process. It isn't quite the same as the book — for one thing, Ritchson's bruiser doesn't have a knife in this version, just a two-by-four and a sheet. But that actually adds something to the fight, which stunt choreographer Buster Reeves explained that he choreographed "as if it was a T. rex fighting two little velociraptors."

"Reacher" Season 4 sees Alan Ritchson continue to pack a punch and play the hits. But the villains this season are an all-new challenge. For Buster Reeves, it was simply a matter of using a tried and true trick: drawing inspiration from nature. The stunt maestro said that, for Jack Reacher's epic Season 3 clash with Olivier Richters' Paul Van Hoven, he consulted the National Geographic archives and ended up not with an answer but a question: "What would it look like if a polar bear fought a gorilla?" With Season 4's villains, however, the dynamic is totally different.

For Agnez Mo, that's a hugely positive thing. "I think it's just different, because I think the past seasons have always been, just, strong man against another strong man," she said. "This one, there's emotions attached to the fighting. There's a reason why sometimes [Reacher] would pull back, because he remembers that, 'Wait, this is the woman that connects with me.'" That's a totally new threat to Reacher, and a new challenge for Alan Ritchson. As the star put it during the set visit:

"It feels like we're kind of cutting our feet out from under us. The way that these characters are developed and the way that they're depicted on screen and their villainy comes to life, you quickly realize he's met his match in a very different way. He's outmatched by these women, who are absolutely lethal."

In the end, eschewing the "strong man against strong man" dynamic for the final fight and sticking with the book's climactic battle worked well for the show. Now, having given Reacher every kind of physical challenge imaginable, the writers will have to figure out what to do next.