REVIEW: ‘Reacher’ Season 2 Changes Gears But Still Hits

Amazon Studios’ Reacher Season 1 was a sound action presentation that didn’t try to do spycraft and instead brought a sledgehammer to every problem to solve. That said, Reacher switches gears in Season 2 and gets louder and larger while also fine-tuning the series into something more brash but also more focused at the same time with elements of a Tom Clancy-style of story. Created by showrunner Nick Santora, Reacher Season 2 is eight episodes long and doesn’t waste any time developing a new mystery for its titular character with even bigger stakes than last season.

Based on the books by Lee Child, and specifically Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th book of the series, Reacher bridges a military story with a detective one in Season 2. Moved on from the small town mystery, Reacher is still living as a wondered. He has no phone, little money, bartering and hitchhiking his way from location to location with his drifter lifestyle. Then, his past catches him.

Reacher Season 2 starts with a brutal moment, a mysterious death. The mangled body finds its way to Jack in a coded message informing him that a member of the 110th – his elite group of Army Special Investigators – has been murdered. And once again, despite his loner attitude, he is pulled into a team. This time, it’s an old one filled with his former military cohorts.

A former military police investigator, Jack Reacher, reconnects with the 110th MP special investigations as we see into his past and learn more about the people who helped make him who he is. Together, they unpack the past and their connections to each other while investigating a case of a murdered comrade that quickly evolves into something infinitely larger. To accommodate the shift with a wider ensemble cast made up of old members of his unit.

Made up of Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos), Swan (Shannon Kook), Manuel Orozco (Edsson Morales), Jorge Sanchez (Andrés Collantes), Stan Lowery (Dean McKenzie), Calvin Franz (Luke Bilyk), and led my Reacher, the 110th made a lot of enemies, and when they start turning up dead, the remainder members of the special investigators turn over every stone they can to find out who is hunting them.

But their investigation runs parallel to Guy Russo’s (Domenick Lombardozzi), and the NYPD has to be navigated as a roadblock and a partner. At the same time, villains are circling the group with equal fervor. One is the man behind the phone for a private defense contractor, played by Robert Patrick, and the mysterious mercenary A.M. (Ferdinand Kingsley), a chameleon with no clear purpose until it hits the story out of nowhere with great effect.

Reacher’s second season is also just as engrossing as the last, even without a returning cast. That is Alan Ritchson’s power as an anchor for a story. His Reacher holds it all in place, and his charisma makes everything work perfectly to the point that I’m excited to see what happens next with the series and what new cast comes into play.

The appeal of Reacher Season 1 was the titular character’s brash and brawler sensibility. The hand-to-hand combat was next level, and the embrace of late-90s action tension fit was the perfect addition to other action offerings with intrigue like the Tom Clancy world on Prime Video. This distinguished the series against Jack Ryan and for the better. Additionally, the small-town mystery made an impact and allowed the already mountainous Alan Ritchson to stand out even more. This second season is bigger, and not just because of cast size. There is more action, which includes larger set pieces and more gun fights.

Reacher Season 2 packs in more action and more drama.

Alan Ritchson is physically bigger (an accomplishment in and of itself), but so is the storytelling. This season manages to hone in on his past through flashbacks that link to the present. The threading of the past and present in the story works beyond just adding exposition.

Each moment from a younger 110th informs the ways that every character on screen reacts and responds to the others around them. Often moving from one similar situation, romantic or otherwise, to another, the flashbacks are used with narrative care that pays off as the mysteries start to unravel and the dots begin to connect. The ensemble cast and Ritchson at its core are just stellar. The chemistry and relationships we see run deep and are easily traced from the past to the present.

On the action front, which the first season of Reacher blew out of the water, there are more guns and less hand-to-hand combat. Still, when Jack is allowed to be a behemoth, like, say, holding a man against a car by the neck until he blinks in surrender, it is astounding to watch.

One of the best things about the fight choreography and use of strength for Ritchson’s time as Jack Reacher has been how different he is from the other action heroes in film or TV. He isn’t nimble, he isn’t necessarily going to choose to be a sharpshooter all of the time, and he just doesn’t fall down.

He embodies a more visceral kind of action that, when leveraged against his fantastic comedic timing and line delivery, makes the series something to praise. Reacher Season 2 maintains its unique style by digging into deeper intrigue. Jack may not be a spy, but the level of finesse that takes precedence with the group is clear.

That said, Reacher Season 2 may have changed gears, but it still hits when it needs to with emotional impact and a stellar mystery of corruption that pays off. Prime Video’s top-tier action offering, the mixture of detective work, heroism, and thorny corporations, make it all stand as tall as Ritchson in the series line-up. Even when it stumbles, Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher is something I need more of, and quickly.

Reacher Season 2 is streaming now, exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

Catch up with reviews of each season:
Season 1 | Season 3