REVIEW: ‘Reacher’ Season 3 Shows Why Alan Ritchson Is Still The Best

Reacher is that peak level of dad TV that knows absolutely why everyone has sat on their couch to press play. With Alan Ritchson as the titular Jack Reacher, the series has doubled down on mystery, 90s-inspired action, and just using Richson’s stature to the highest effect. Reacher Season 3 continues to push Jack’s story in a near-anthology format. Each season is a new case, and each season shows audiences a deeper side to our action hero.

Like Reacher Season 2, Season 3 shifts its focal point but still remains the series we fell in love with. The first season put Jack Reacher in the center of a small town with a personal vengeance driving him. In Season 2, the espionage of it all grew as Reacher took on crooked cops and a larger conspiracy running underneath it all, with Francis Neagley (Maria Sten) taking a more prominent role in the story.

Now, in Reacher Season 3, our lead is sent into a sprawling criminal organization’s deep and dark heart when he attempts to rescue an undercover DEA informant with her colleagues Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy) and Guillermo Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos). Based on Lee Child’s novel Persuader, this season brings secrecy, violence, betrayal, and a whole lot of personal connection to his past to make this season stand out.

The series is developed by showrunner Nick Santora, with Jack Reacher‘s creator Lee Child and Alan Ritchson, all serving as Executive Producers on the project. In addition to Ritchson, Sten, Cassidy, and Montesinos, this season adds Brian Tee, Anthony Michael Hall, Johnny Berchtold, Donald Sales, Storm Steenson, Olivier Richters, and Storm Steenson.

There’s finally someone bigger than Reacher this season.

The joke for Reacher Season 3 that the marketing team was entirely in on is that the only way to top last season’s action is the core conflict centering on Reacher finally fighting a man bigger than him, Olivier Richters. At 7’4,” Ritcher’s action sequences with Ritchson up the ante on everything that we’ve seen in the series thus far—primarily because this is the one person you know he can’t easily smash through.

But even with the inherent humor that comes with this, Reacher Season 3 doesn’t rest on the “he’s big” laurels. Instead, the action sequences ramp up in intensity, especially as Reacher becomes more exposed as he moves between pretending to be an underling and working with the DEA. Richson’s intensity that he brings to both is absolutely intimidating. It all shines during action sequences where Reacher starts on the organization’s side, only to turn and coldly shoot someone in the head.

Reacher Season 3 keeps highlighting just how charismatic Alan Ritchson is as a leading man, even when he isn’t talking all that much. Sure, the series loves to showcase just how good Ritchson looks with his shirt off, but the truth is that his body isn’t just great to look at but a powerful piece of his acting. Line delivery, how he moves through spaces, and his ability to make you laugh make you want to follow him and be entirely scared of him, depending on the situation, make Ritchson one of the best actors on television.

Jack Reacher’s quest for vengeance propels Reacher Season 3. While it may have started professionally, the season’s midpoint, Episode 4, is a monumental shift in how our lead character pursues his mission. The best episode of the season adds more to who we see Reacher as through his relationship with a junior colleague, Dominique Kohl (Mariah Robinson). He bolsters her, cares for her, and fights for her. The kindness that Reacher shows is even deeper than the fighting he does.

It simply does not get better than Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher.

We see Reacher vulnerable as much as we see him standing strong. His purpose after Episode 4 shifts, and so does the season’s tone. You can fall in love with Reacher because a personal sense of morality drives him. He dishes out violence to those who deserve it, protects those who don’t, and always aims to balance his sense of justice with what he needs. It would be wrong to see this big, hulking mass of a man and think he is anything but someone driven by emotion and care for others. That is the series’ strength, and it never runs from it, especially in Reacher Season 3. 

Outside of Ritchson himself, Reacher Season 3 also showcases a unique eye on violence, showing the audience how Reacher views it himself. The series is not scared about showing action and murder and all sorts of things. At the same time, though, it’s when the camera chooses to leave brutality offscreen that allows the action never to reach a point of desensitizing the viewer or the characters—Reacher, for all of his experience in the field, isn’t numb to violence. The importance of who he is is that he never will be.

Reacher Season 3 is difficult to describe because the showrunners have worked so many surprises into the narrative. This allows the series to move across one major plotline in sections that ultimately amass into an act in each section of episodes. The robust nature of the series’ mystery keeps everything cohesive even as there are monumental shifts in motives and operations.

For her part, Neagley continues to stand out whenever she pops up. She’s quick-witted and detached in a way that’s necessary to help her move through the world. And if it wasn’t clear why Reacher trusts her with his life, it is here. Of course, setting her up for the upcoming spin-off.

Reacher Season 3 may stick to a formula, but it executes it with near perfection.

With three seasons now, it’s clear that throwing Reacher into a new mystery with a different mission every season is a move that plays on the genre’s strongest elements. Additionally, it allows the series to keep executing the same formula without ever getting old.

The intro to Reacher Season 3 is similar to that of Season 2, with our lead walking into a new town and finding trouble. He still makes the “still not a cop” jokes, and of course, he still winds up romancing a woman he’s working with on a case.

Oh, and his giant stature remains a joke that never stops paying off. That repetition in other series may feel like a slog, but in Reacher, it feels like a perfected execution of what it does best. The archetypes for each of the characters and situations come together with familiarity. At the same time, the end result and the twists are unique enough to stand out from what came before it.

As a whole, Reacher Season 3 continues to show why Alan Ritchson is the best. He balances a spectrum of emotion and intensity, and everyone around him rises to meet him. Whether through villainy, romance, or friendship, Ritchson’s ability to immediately build chemistry with the others in a scene is unmatched. Between Reacher and Cross or the other Tom Clancy adaptations, it’s clear that the book-to-television pipeline is the strongest it’s ever been on Prime Video.

Reacher Season 3 is streaming now on Prime Video, with new episodes dropping every Thursday through March.

Catch up with reviews of each season:
Season 1 | Season 2