Reacher Showrunner Has Good News for Season 2 Episode Count

By Kofi Outlaw

If you loved Amazon Prime Video's Reacher series, showrunner Nick Santora has some good news for you: season 2 could bring more episodes! When asked in a recent interview whether Amazon had locked in another eight episodes for Reacher Season 2, Santora responded by saying "That's really an Amazon call; if they want more, I'll give them more! I like writing." Reacher Season 1 was eight episodes long; it's debatable if more of the show would've automatically equated to "better." 

Reacher has been a dark horse success story for Amazon – one of the few new series to gain both acclaim and popularity during the COVID-19 era. As discussed on our ComicBoon Nation podcast, Reacher made some of the best TV content out of the clearly limited set pieces and actor groups allowed under COVID restrictions. At the same time, even the eight episodes we got began to feel somewhat circular by the end. So again, Reacher Season 2 wouldn't automatically benefit from having more episodes. 

Indeed, a lot of viewers have come to something of a crossroads when it comes to streaming series. Franchises like the Marvel Netflix (now Disney+) shows burned out on trying to fit upwards of 13 episodes in a season; Amazon has done well in keeping series like The Boys and Reacher at that eight-episode count. 

In the case of the Reacher series, there's even more incentive to keep the episode count on a tight leash. Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels have alternated between investigations in metropolis settings (NYC, Paris) and small-town/rural areas across both America and England. Either way, the Reacher TV series will see each season set in one central locale – so again, that playground could start to fill confined and circular after so many episodes. 

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(Photo: Prime Video)

While Nick Santora won't reveal which Jack Reacher book he's looking at for Reacher Season 2, he did say that there's no problem having plenty of premium book content to choose from: 

"It's tough. There are 26 [Jack Reacher] books, and then there are short-story anthologies," Santora told TVLine. "And there's so much thought that has to go into our decision. Do we want it to be similar to Season 1, because Season 1 was successful? Do we want to go a little different? There's so much that Lee gives us to choose from... But it's a not a problem when you have too much good material to choose from. The problem is when you're staring at an empty space, asking, 'What am I going to write?'"

Reacher Season 1 is streaming on Prime Video. 

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