Amazon Prime's 'Reacher' didn't miss a beat in highly entertaining and better-paced second season
Alan Ritchson and a healthy bench brought the heat in round two.
You know a television show is great when you pause it to take a bathroom break, and suddenly become sad after realizing there are only 12 minutes left in the episode. If it’s not Netflix or other streaming services that drop the whole season on our laps at once, it’s a whole week of waiting. Season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Reacher gave me that feeling every single episode of its eight-episode run that it just finished last week.
Alan Ritchson’s throwback action hero upped the stakes in Season 2 by dead-flexing a hospital bed and cart, wheels and all. That was of course when he wasn’t setting off air bags with his foot or smashing his fist halfway through a human skull. For the people out there who complained that this season was too far-fetched and outlandish at times, what exactly did you come here for? A Sherlock Holmes like, short man kung fu contest?
The Lee Child novels didn’t cast the larger than life hero as a small time fighting soldier; he’s a fucking brick shithouse who can do things that aren’t exactly human or ordinary. If he’s hanging from a helicopter while forearm curling a hospital bed (which has his partner/sexy time lady friend strapped to it), just sit back and enjoy the escapism. That’s exactly how I envisioned this show when it started out: a man traveling one outfit for days at a time with a toothbrush to his name doesn’t become a man who outwits bad guys with his mind.
Granted, Ritchson’s tough guy has a good egg up top but he also prefers to squeeze the life out of someone who isn’t giving him answers. It’s the over-the-top action that made me compare it to Cinemax’s Banshee, another show that seemed like it was taking place in a reality when it’s really just a comic book tale unfolding in real time. That’s all part of knowing what your show is all about, and never feeling the need to veer too far from that model.
Season 2 took the upside of the first season, and added a deeper dive into the title character’s past. Most notably, his team of military police buddies: Maria Sten’s Neagley, Serinda Swan’s Dixon, and Shaun Sipos’s O’Donnell. While the services of the great Malcolm Goodwin and Willa Fitzgerald-Season 1’s main cohorts-the team here made a quick comfy next with Reacher and elevated the series.
Goodwin even showed up for a bit, but thankfully Fitzgerald’s Officer Conklin didn’t. If She saw what her squeeze from last year and Dixon were doing, there may be blood. Domenick Lombardozzi’s honorable cop Guy Russo never got to draw any blood with Reacher, but the actor offered the role a soulful aesthetic that made you want to see him show up in a hospital bed (not hanging from a chopper) bullshitting with the hero.
How Reacher's Gaitano Russo brings Domenick Lombardozzi's career full circle
An actor could pick up the script and read a better introductory scene than having the hero hit your car so hard that it sets off the air bags for a double whammy to the nose. That’s how Domenick Lombardozzi’s tough guy cop Gaitano “Guy” Russo is brought into the world of Amazon Prime’s
For a season that didn’t even have a chief antagonist for Ritchson to square off against-that will be Season 3’s challenge-the eight episodes still packed a potent punch. Robert Patrick got to chew more scenery in the best manner possible, adding an extra ounce of sleaze to the guy pulling all the dead cards from Reacher’s past. For the record, I never believed the suave-looking, knife-wielding criminal was a real threat--but I was ready for it to happen there in the end before the big guy and his team pumped him full of lead.
Speaking of Banshee, that scene reminded me of the ousting of Hondo at the onset of Season 3. Just saying.
Imagining what happened after the series finale of ‘Banshee’
I’m not a screenwriter but I like to think I can tell a good story and have written enough partial screenplays to compose the weirdest collection of stories ever. Back in May, Cinemax’s Banshee ended its four year run with a soulful send-off. Every story line was treated deliberately and carefully. There weren’t any real cliffhangers while a few plot thr…
Overall, I really enjoyed the second season. Was it better than the first? I don’t know. Another trip through both seasons should bring that answer to its conclusion, but it’s safe to say that Child should be sleeping a happy (and very rich) man these days. The Tom Cruise-led films were well-made and entertaining, but this is more of what the author had in mind. Someone who looked like The Rock with hair, punched like Tyson, and traveled like a vagabond.
That’s Ritchson, who I hope doesn’t accept EVERY offer he gets over the next 3-5 years to play different shades of Reacher. I was amused by him taking out 3/4 of the Fast and Furious team in last year’s tenth edition of that very tired franchise, even if his all-out tan was more intimidating than his biceps. But a mix of action heroes, possibly carrying a tweak here or there, isn’t the end of the world for the guy who played Aquaman before Jason Momoa and had a U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant for a father.
That last part may have aided his portrayal of Reacher. He and Nicky Santoro’s show have elevated television.