Tell Your Dad: ‘Reacher’ Is Back With a New Season

Reacher is an unabashed fantasy about vigilantism that justifies its hero’s murderousness by making him the smartest, kindest, and most level-headed and upright person in the world.

He’s a righteous avenger who does what others can’t and won’t but nonetheless want, and in its third season, Nick Santora’s Prime Video series—based on Lee Child’s best-selling novels—peddles more of the same virtuous viciousness, this time with Reacher taking on nefarious drug runners and a “psycho” fiend from his past. Having now settled into a comfortable aggro-bada-- groove, the show has lost a touch of its novelty and excitement. Yet courtesy of Alan Ritchson’s stoic lead performance as the noble behemoth, it remains satisfyingly mean, macho, and—literally and figuratively—muscular.

An adaptation of Child’s Persuader, Reacher’s latest go-round, premiering on Feb. 20, begins with 20 minutes of misdirection before settling into its narrative involving former military police officer-turned-nomadic do-gooder Reacher (Ritchson) partnering with DEA agent Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy) to find the latter’s confidential informant Teresa (Storm Steenson), who’s gone missing while digging up dirt on wealthy rug merchant Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall).

Duffy is convinced that Beck is responsible for Teresa’s disappearance. And to her, Reacher is just the man for this job, particularly because he’s hot on the trail of a former nemesis named Xavier Quinn (Brian Tee) whom he believes is in the area and may be connected to Beck, whose operation—complete with a host of bodyguards led by towering bruiser Paulie (Olivier Richters)—reeks of criminality.

Reacher and Duffy decide that the best way to get to the bottom of this mess is to have Reacher go undercover inside Beck’s opulent waterfront mansion. Despite the fact that his method of convincing the bigwig to hire him is, per the studio, a spoiler, it’s giving nothing away to reveal that he successfully infiltrates the guy’s inner lair.

This isn’t to say that he’s welcomed with open arms exactly; Paulie bristles at having to put up with another buff dude, and the hostility is mutual, initially peaking with Reacher pulling a prank on the goliath that causes him to punch himself in the face. Still, Reacher solidifies his new position in the organization via his close bond with Beck’s son Richard (Johnny Berchtold), a sensitive kid who’s tormented by bullies (giving Reacher an opportunity to crack a few jerks’ skulls), paints in his room, and is missing an ear due to a years-earlier kidnapping plot that’s left him physically and emotionally scarred and on the outs with his jerky dad.

Duffy is a tough-talking federal agent with a Southie mouth and the courage to back it up, and she’s paired with loyal vet Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos) and goofy young Eliot (Daniel David Stewart). They’re all impressed and intimidated by Reacher, whose massive size and no-nonsense attitude indicate that he’s going to do whatever it takes to accomplish his task, regardless of any legal or ethical obstacles in his path.

Reacher revels in Ritchson’s stony demeanor—which often leads to wry humor—but at this stage in the series, its storytelling is too predictable. Some of that has to do with sticking to its tried-and-true formula; as before, Reacher has new assistants, enemies, and people to save, as well as a female cohort who’s destined to be his fleeting love interest. It also, however, is due to Reacher’s invincibility, which is now so firmly established that the only question is precisely how he’s going to slaughter his foes.

Knowing that Reacher is going to triumph isn’t a death knell for Reacher, but the show’s refusal to drastically mix things up leads to sporadic stagnation this season. Fortunately, Ritchson’s droll hulk is charismatic enough to offset the material’s paint-by-numbers plotting.

Upon first meeting Paulie, he jokes that the titan is looking for “more HGH and a hypodermic needle,” and when Paulie subsequently asks him why his gun is empty, Reacher dryly retorts, “Because I shot all the bullets.” He additionally makes repeated, casual references to his familiarity with murder and its attendant clean up, as when he remarks to Duffy that getting rid of blood is a real pain and she responds, “How often do you do this?”

Per tradition, Reacher shoots and stabs people he doesn’t like and/or get in his way, and in one instance, he violently breaks bones to hide a victim’s body. While this is all totally illegal (he’s not a cop and definitely doesn’t have a license to kill) and over the line, he never comes across as anything other than a good guy. Reacher habitually makes clear that—like Dirty Harry and Batman before him—he’s simply taking the necessary steps to bring the worst of the worst to justice.

This would be more dubious if Santora’s story wasn’t rigged to vindicate its protagonist at every turn, and there’s something undeniably cathartic about watching Reacher rampage through his own tale, solving dilemmas with blunt-force brutality.

In light of the specific circumstances, Reacher’s thirst for vengeance is completely understandable, and his homicidal conduct is additionally offset by the compassion he lavishes on those who deserve it, be it wimpy Richard, guilt-stricken Duffy, or one of the maids at Beck’s compound.

His heart is always in the right place and his moral compass is consistently accurate, and he never causes undeserved harm. That, plus his habit of stripping down to his underwear—causing multiple women to gasp and smile at his physique—marks him as a desirable modern-day cowboy. If he intermittently flirts with cartoonishness, that’s part and parcel of a series that feels like a one-man 21st-century riff on The A-Team.

Reacher is ideal dadcore television, although Santora and company fail to devise a signature ass-kicking sight to match last season’s bit in which Reacher kicks a car’s front bumper so hard that it triggers the vehicle’s air bag, thus knocking out the driver. Embracing its reliable template means that the show doesn’t lose its footing. It does, however, result in fewer thrills, suggesting that the next time around, Reacher would benefit from a mission that takes him further out of his comfort zone.