Reacher Season 3 | TV Series Review

Jack Reacher is a beloved character in literature, film, and now television. As one of Prime Video’s largest fanbases, each season appears to amplify the potential to disappoint. I mean, how many times can this lumbering hobo brutalize henchmen big and small while still entertaining the masses? As a reader of those same books and now a fan of Reacher Season 1 and Season 2, I can attest that the stakes continue to rise. Yet, somehow, Alan Ritchson and the team behind this series have managed to once again deliver an entire season of laughs, surprises, and thrills.

Based on Lee Child’s Persuader, this season finds Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) immersed in an undercover operation of sorts to both rescue an informant for the DEA and hand a slice of payback pie to a figure from his past. The season even hits the ground running with your typical Reacher scenario – big guy taking matters into his own hands – with unexpected results propelling him forward into another case of beatdowns, sarcasm, intelligence on display, and dismantling criminals from the top down.

Any doubters of Alan Ritchson playing Jack Reacher have finally realized the errors in their ways, as he has become the perfect embodiment of the stoic Army Major. Sure, he might still be almost too handsome for the role, but you would be hard pressed to justify that complaint. After a more team-centric tour last time we saw him, Season 3 puts the series back under Reacher’s sizeable thumbs as the solo driver of this adventure. While there are still the occasionally necessary – and always welcome – appearances of his favorite co-conspirator, Frances Neagley (Maria Sten, who is currently filming her own spin-off), Jack Reacher is the dominant force for all eight episodes. A fact that Alan Ritchson has no issue with, as he never dulls the audience.

One of the best aspects of Lee Child’s books is having Reacher continuously encounter new characters as he surfs the country righting the injustices in the world. This season is no different as we are introduced to no-bullshit DEA agent Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy) and her cohorts, a struggling teenager needing a bit of mentoring in Richard Beck (Johnny Berchtold), and his mysterious father, Zachary Beck (an on-point, multifaceted Anthony Michael Hall). All quickly find their footing in this new tale, and one thing this show does extremely well is giving us characters to root for or against with immediacy.

Lastly, there is Paulie (Olivier Richters). If you are a fan of the books – which I am – you already have an expectation of the journey between these two, and it’s high. Paulie is bigger, badder, and more unpredictable than Reacher. He also is one foe that Reacher has no idea how to take down, a mystery struggling to be solved. The relationship between these two is a highpoint for this season, and Richters is a dominant menace to Ritchson’s Jack Reacher. This matchup was absolutely worth the wait.

If you are a fan of Reacher, settle in, because this round is even more brutal and fist-pumping than either of the two before it. In fact, Season 3 is the best season of Reacher yet!

Listen to our full podcast review of Reacher Season 3 on this episode of The Hollywood Outsider podcast: