Well that was bad. After an increasingly terrible second season, Reacher devolved into a trope-filled, cliched version of every bad action film you’ve ever seen. I mean, it had it all! The villains not only underestimated Reacher, they did so in the most obvious and preposterous way possible. Langston had every opportunity to put a bullet in Reacher’s head but chose instead to stand around monologuing.
You’d think that Reacher being outnumbered, outgunned, restrained and unable to save his two totally disposable friends would be a pretty huge obstacle for him to overcome right?
Actually it’s super easy. Barely an inconvenience!
Reacher shows off his fighting skills with a series of slick kicks and headbutts, but whatever cool factor this might have had in a better show is ruined by the fact that all the bad guys take him on one at a time—with fists instead of weapons. Sure, I guess you want him alive so that you can find Neagley (why exactly?) but have you never heard of tranquilizer darts? Syringes filled with powerful drugs? Tasers? Baseball bats? Very small rocks?
I hate it when shows make bad guys stupid and weak so that the heroes can seem smart and strong. That’s Reacher Season 2 in a nutshell. Add a bunch of plot armor and you’re off to the races. The New Age pow-wow is broken up by the arrival of Senator Lavoy’s spec ops team, and the fight takes to the skies in one of the worst helicopter action sequences ever filmed.
At one point, Reacher is hanging on to the gurney that Dixon is tied to as she dangles in the air. With one hand, he’s holding on to several hundred pounds of equipment and human being in a moving chopper, while Langston kicks him. Then Langston gives up and hands the kicking duties over to a goon. The goon takes a set of brass knuckles and instead of just pummeling Reacher to death, he monologues at him. Dixon manages to free herself somehow, climb up and stab the chatty idiot.
When they land at the engineer’s house—after Langston is thrown unceremoniously overboard—the mysterious arms dealer “A.M” shows up and is immediately captured. He tries to monologue his way out of the situation and they all draw their guns at once and shoot him dozens of time. I guess that’s supposed to be “cool” or something. It feels cartoony and dumb.
They let the pilot and the engineer go, but then Neagley uses one of the missile launchers to shoot the helicopter down because, uh, I guess that’s cool or something also? It’s super dangerous and illegal and unnecessary, and these two bit players probably would have been incredibly useful as witnesses for the investigators who will eventually have to figure out what exactly happened, but the second season of Reacher was apparently written by edgy fourth graders who are more interested in blowing stuff up and goofy revenge moments than anything resembling Lee Child’s books.
I’m flabbergasted and frankly well beyond disappointed at this point. This season is the most spectacular fall from grace of any show since Yellowjackets Season 2. It’s up there with Fear The Walking Dead’s collapse after Season 3.
Of course, there’s a ton of falling action after the bad guys are beat. Senator Lavoy’s spec ops team double-crosses Reacher but he’s prepared. He called Homeland Security so there! Why he didn’t have Homeland Security show up at the New Age building to stop the bad guys sooner and potentially help stop them from killing Dixon and O’Donnell is a mystery. Hard to understand why fourth graders write scripts the way they do, I suppose.
When Reacher and co. leave the Homeland Security guy asks them “Where’s the money?”
“What money?” Reacher replies, and they just waltz out of there with $65 million and the feds are like “yeah cool nothing to see here, folks!”
Reacher then divides it up, giving it away to his buddies and the families of the victims. Naturally, the IRS will never think to audit millions of dollars just randomly appearing in peoples’ bank accounts and Homeland Security and the FBI and everyone else involved in cleaning up the mess that both Langston and Reacher left behind will ever ask about it. This show makes so much sense! It is so logical!
After hooking up with Dixon one last time—no chemistry there, but they’re both hot so…—Neagley takes him to the bus and heavily implies that they’re more than just friends. They’re actually . . . family. An old guy gets Reacher to say the family line since it would be too cheesy even for this show to have him reply to Neagley with it. Then off he goes. Into the sunset. Blah blah blah.
At the end of Season 1 I was ready for more, excited to join Reacher on his next adventure. At the end of Season 2 I’m just angry that they’d take such a promising series and star—Alan Ritchson is great in the role regardless of the show’s other shortcomings—and ruin it so entirely. I hope the people in charge take this criticism to heart and do better in Season 3, because this was not it.
Details matter, people. And when it comes to writing good TV, assumptions kill. Or, well, assuming your audience will stick around could kill the show, that is. They don’t actually kill!
Here’s my video rant/ramble/review of the Season 2 finale:
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