After two films starring Tom Cruise in the lead role, Lee Child’s beloved Jack Reacher character moved to the small screen and became an instant hit. Reacher saw the lead duties handed to Blue Mountain State and Titans alum Alan Ritchson and delivered Amazon’s Prime Video one of its biggest streaming success stories to date. The series broke records and drew critical acclaim in its debut season last year, and returns this month for a second installment. Like the Jack Reacher novels, the new season adapts a different story with an almost entirely new cast of characters. The places and faces may have changed for this new installment, but the quality certainly doesn’t — Reacher is as good as ever in Season 2 (maybe even a little bit better).
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The first season of Reacher kicked the show off by adapting the first book in Child’s popular novel series, Killing Floor. Season 2, on the other hand, jumps ahead in the original series to tell the story of Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th Jack Reacher book Child published. This story sees Reacher reuniting with a few members of his old military unit to uncover a conspiracy after several of their other comrades turn up dead. Those still left alive not only need to stop whoever’s behind the murders before they become the next victims, but they also want to be sure to exact revenge for their fallen friends.
While it may seem strange for a show to jump 10 whole books in a series for just its second season, Bad Luck and Trouble is perhaps the perfect choice for Reacher‘s sophomore season. The first season put Reacher in a place he wasn’t familiar with and alongside a group of allies he’d never met. He had to learn who he could trust and how they worked. They had to figure out how exactly to deal with his unique characteristics. That element of unfamiliarity between the characters helped create a lot of tension, but Season 2 flips that idea on its head to keep you on your toes.
This time around, Reacher knows all of his allies and he trusts them with his life, as he has in the past. As the audience, however, we aren’t so trusting of those in the group, save for Maria Sten’s Frances Neagley, who appeared in a couple of episodes of Season 1. This allows the show to alter the way we watch the story unfold, as well as alter how Reacher operates.
Make no mistake, this is still the hulking, enigmatic badass you came to love in Season 1. Ritchson’s performance as Reacher continues to be the centerpiece of the entire series, and every minute he’s on screen, it becomes more and more clear that this is one of those rare opportunities where just the right actor and character found their way to one another. Jack Reacher needs a level of physicality that very few can provide, but his quirks also require a very subtle and clever — almost childlike — comedic ability. I never thought that years of playing Thad Castle could help someone become one of TV’s most interesting action heroes, but here we are. There’s a boyish charm deep within the brooding physicality of Ritchson’s Jack Reacher that could have only been cultivated by starring in something as relentlessly silly as Blue Mountain State, and he shows an incredible amount of restraint bringing just the slightest pinch to the surface exactly when the moment is right.
It’s initially disappointing not to see some of the faces that made Reacher Season 1 so special. Malcolm Goodwin and Willa Fitzgerald were so vital to the magic of Reacher in its first season that you wonder how it could be remotely as engaging without them. Fortunately, Season 2 is up to the challenge. Sten returns as Neagley and makes remarkable use of her extended screen time, crafting a character that’s every bit as layered and interesting as Reacher. Serinda Swan and Shaun Sipos join the party as Reacher’s other former allies, each crafting something so different from what we’ve already seen on the show to this point. Domenick Lambardozzi may be the most delightful new addition, though, playing a detective with a chip on his shoulder who serves as a pitch-perfect foil to Reacher’s brand of vigilantism. This series is superbly cast from top to bottom and, while Ritchson is clearly the linchpin, Reacher doesn’t hum the way it does without this kind of precision in its casting department.
It’s also worth noting that Reacher Season 2 ups the ante in terms of its action and set pieces. It’s got the same balance of humor, heart, and excitement as the first season, but the big moments here go so much bigger. Without getting into spoiler territory, there’s a sequence in an early episode of the season where Reacher and the team raid a potential enemy hideout that is just so expertly crafted on every level. The stunt and effects teams on Reacher do such a great job of proving you don’t need to spend every dime you can get your hands on to make effective action sequences that keep you on the edge of your seat.
Reacher isn’t just one of Prime Video’s biggest original shows; it’s also one of its very best. Ritchson is at his very best and he’s surrounded by a stellar cast and crew that continually go to great lengths to create the kind of action drama TV fans miss so dearly.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Reacher Season 2 premieres on Prime Video on December 15th.
