Reacher Season 3 review: Jack Reacher returns in by-the-numbers season

This time around, the chief bad guy, whom he has unfinished business with, is worse than anyone else Reacher has encountered. A baddie making our invincible hero break out in a sweat? Now that’s a differential. Plus, the baddie’s chief hood, who goes by the name of Paulie (Olivier Richters), towers over Reacher. That’s also never happened before: in every other adventure, Reacher has been the tallest and the heaviest guy around– when he hits ‘em, they stay hit.

For a die-hard Reacher fan — at least until Lee Child was writing on his own: his collaborations, which he’s co-authored with his son, have been of dwindling-to-zero interest for me — who has read and re-read every novel, ‘Persuader’ has been the one I’ve never had the courage to return to. Because the villainy on display is truly beyond the pale, even for someone like me who can handle a great deal of blood and gore.

So I began watching Season 3 (six of the eight episodes have been handed out to the press; three are out on the platform, with a new one dropping each following week) with some amount of trepidation. But this time the workman-like handling of the story makes everything so by-the-numbers that I nearly zoned out in the first couple of episodes, in which we are introduced to the characters we will be spending time with. This includes officers of the law Susan Duffy and her two associates, I’m-too-old-for-this-shit Guillermo Villaneuva (Roberto Montesinos), and wet-behind-the-ears-rookie Steven Elliott (Daniel David Stewart), and businessman Beck’s retinue, which consists of Paulie, played by Danish body-builder Richters who glowers well, and surly fellows who stalk in and out, doing bad things. Russian mobsters also show up, just to add to the muscle, and bodies pile up.

Watch Reacher Season 3 trailer here:

The tone remains largely pedestrian throughout, but things do get better when Reacher gets going. And that’s really what we are here for. Alan Ritchson personifies everything that’s so appealing about the guy who will make everything right, not only eventually, and also in the short term, say when he goes after a trio of bullies who are making Beck’s college-going son (Jimmy Berchtold) miserable: three quick blows, three bodies down, woo hoo. Reacher also gets some dour one-liners in, and those are fine too.

The appearance of the sole member of the previous seasons, Neagley ( Maria Sten) perks things up: you wish she had more to do. There are reports that Neagley’s character will get a separate spin-off, which is good news. Till then Reacher junkies like me will have to wait, hoping for a humdinger finale: the last two episodes remain, and I will report back.

Reacher Season 3 cast: Alan Ritchson, Sonya Cassidy, Roberto Montesinos, Johnny Berchtold, Daniel David Stewart, Mariah Robinson, Maria Sten, Olivier Richters, Anthony Michael Hall, Brian Tee
Reacher season 3 directors: Sam Hill, Gary Fleder
Reacher season 3 rating: 2.5 stars