Reacher’s Best Fight Yet Was So Worth the Wait

Three seasons of Reacher down, probably quite a few more to go. Amazon’s adaptations of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books have, thus far, been successful. Sure, Season 2 (an adaptation of Bad Luck and Trouble) was slow in spots. But to be fair to even that letdown of a season, Bad Luck and Trouble wouldn’t exactly be the first novel that springs to the minds of the source material’s fans if asked which Child books seem tailor-made for bingeable television. This is what made the announcement that Persuader would be Season 3’s book so exciting. Like Reacher Season 1’s adaptation of Killing Floor, Persuader is very much tailor-made for TV adaptation. And, for the most part, Season 3 did very well with the task.

This is especially true considering the fact the fight choreography was overall unexciting and uninvolving in Season 2. Persuader offered a, well, big, chance to rectify that detriment in the form of Paul ‘Paulie’ Van Hoven, the one man in the canon of Jack Reacher books who makes Mr. Reacher’s already impressive size look comparatively miniscule.

Was Reacher vs. Paulie Worth the Wait?

The most crucial casting to get right for Season 3 was Paulie, and the show’s producers did just that by casting Olivier Richters. The Dutch bodybuilder, who also played Ursa in Black Widow, Hauke in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Krom in Borderlands (a film in which he was one of the very few successful elements), nailed Paulie. Naturally, the viewer is forced to believe that his size is intimidating, but Richters also nailed the character’s daunting, cold-hearted, masochistic persona.

For the most part, Reacher Season 3 sticks with the plot of the book. The only big changes were the excising of Elizabeth Beck (a character which only served to make Paulie more hateable) and the addition of Reacher fan-favorite character Frances Neagley. It works and, to the former point, there are still plenty of reasons to root for Reacher in his fight with Xavier Quinn’s near-kaiju-sized henchman.

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Speaking of which, to answer the central question: Yes, the Reacher vs. Paulie fight was very much worth the wait. It takes Reacher back to the hard-hitting, bone-crunching mano a mano fight scenes that served as highpoints in many of Season 1’s episodes. The entire fight sequence runs for about five minutes (not including cuts to other characters as they storm Zachary Beck’s mansion to rain on Quinn’s party parade), feeling perfectly paced, not too long and not too short.

There’s a groin kick, face bashing via shovel blade, an attempted hanging by chain, and grunts galore. In other words, this fight is going to be mighty hard to top in later seasons. There have been plenty of other memorable Jack Reacher antagonists (Hook Hobie in Tripwire, for instance), but none who make for as convincing a physical counterpart as Paulie.

So, which of Child’s novels will be the next to be adapted by Amazon? Will it be one of the many he wrote on his own or one of the more recent ones, co-written with his brother, Andrew? The second book, Die Trying, is very adaptable, as is the aforementioned Tripwire (the third), and The Hard Way (book number 10).

And a comparably big question…will they ever adapt one of the two books used for the Tom Cruise movies? Never Go Back doesn’t seem particularly worthwhile, but One Shot? That would make for a great season of television.

Let’s just hope that whatever comes next, they don’t continue to have Reacher hook up with whatever female counterpart he has that year. It worked great with Willa Fitzgerald’s Roscoe Conklin in Season 1; still made sense with Serinda Swan’s Karla Dixon in Season 2; but felt entirely forced with Sonya Cassidy’s Susan Duffy in Season 3.

Reacher is streaming Seasons 1-3 on Amazon Prime Video.