‘Reacher’ Season 3 Review

A Major Improvement Over Season 2, But Still Missing Season 1’s Magic

Amazon’s adaptation of Lee Child’s Reacher novels has returned to Prime Video and I’m happy to report that Season 3 is a huge step up from last season.

Season 2 of the crime drama was a bit messy. The plot holes, the sloppy fight scenes and way too many characters in Reacher’s team. This time around, while Reacher (Alan Ritchson) has help, he’s mostly the one-man army we know and love. He also looks better: Leaner and more natural-looking.

Season 3 is based on the book Persuader by Lee Child. I’ve read every one of the Reacher books so far and of those, Persuader is my second favourite after the first, Killing Floor, which was the book they adapted into Season 1. It’s a much better choice than Bad Luck and Trouble, the novel they used for Season 2, which I personally consider one of the weaker Reacher novels. We really didn’t need a full team of investigators in Season 2.

The good news is that Reacher is back in a big way and while Season 3 isn’t perfect, it’s still plenty of over-the-top fun. There is nothing glaringly lacking like so much of Season 2, and the idyllic Maine setting is a much better fit for our nomadic protagonist. It still falls short of Season 1 but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Mostly, the story works best if you just don’t think too hard about any of it and let the action play out like the grandiloquent, comic-book action show it’s meant to be. I think it all works a bit better in the book, but that might be something to do with the medium rather than the story itself. This is, overall, a pretty faithful adaptation of Persuader, with a few big changes. On screen, the goofiness of the plot just stands out more.

And that’s fine! Honestly, I watch this show for the same reason I read Lee Child’s novels. It’s fun, has exciting action and suspense, and Reacher is both smart and lethal. That it’s all way over-the-top and a little ridiculous doesn’t bother me, as long as it works.

It falls short of Season 1 in some key ways, however. The fight scenes still aren’t as good. The cinematography is a big step up from Season 2, but Season 1 still had the most interesting camera work. And while I like Duffy, her accent is a bit much. Cassidy is British trying to do a thick Boston accent, and it just sounds off. Still, I can look past that pretty easily. I like Duffy as a character, though she’s definitely too emotionally involved and that makes her a bit sloppy as a DEA agent.

The big changes from the book also make sense. Beck’s wife was alive in the novel and there’s a very uncomfortable storyline involving her and Paulie and her son that the show was wise to cut. Neagley (Maria Sten) is not in the book, but is featured quite a bit in the third season. This leads to a pretty good action scene, but is mostly an unnecessary addition. The show’s creators are clearly intent on making Neagley a series regular despite that being a major departure from the novels, so I guess it’s best to just accept it at this point (and she’s getting her own spinoff, which I find very strange).

Reacher had to face off against some very bad dudes, and the expected gratuitous action and violence comitted, our nomadic protagonist will be in the wind again, in search of some other adventure, some other nefarious criminal organization whose plans he’s destined to foil. This season isn’t as strong as the first, but it’s a fun enough action-thriller and it’s clear they’ve righted the ship after it very nearly sunk in Season 2. Hopefully Season 4 can recapture more of that Season 1 magic.