Amazon Prime’s lauded adaptation of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series continues with Season Two, which ended earlier this month. Turning to the 11th novel in the series, Bad Luck and Trouble, the season finds Alan Ritchson reprising his role as the Sasquatch superhero Jack Reacher.
The titular hero, who frequently reminds us that he’s “someone who prefers not getting involved,” is thrust back into action upon discovering that members of his former troupe, the 110th Special Investigations Unit, are being targeted, tortured, and killed by a mysterious organization. Reacher regroups with what former comrades he can muster and sets out to unfurl the murder-mystery plot and avenge his teammates.
Despite the source novel’s setting on the West Coast, largely around Los Angeles and the surrounding rural California desert, producer Nick Santora opted to reimagine the adaptation, setting the story in the bustling and busy streets of New York City. A glaring departure from Season One’s Margrave, Georgia.
British television is replete with examples of murder-mystery detective shows based on a big city hotshot being reassigned to some town on the outskirts of the English countryside wherein methods and perceptions clash, creating comedy and drama. It’s a trope perfectly suited to Reacher and one that future seasons would benefit from revisiting.
Much of the first season’s strength was derived from the comedic contrast of its military-grade Paul Bunyan sauntering into a quiet, quaint country town, ushering in a frenzy of violence and mass murder. But in the urban jungle that is Manhattan, such macabre scenes are better known as slow Mondays; this is exemplified in a scene midway through episode six wherein a high-speed car chase with automatic machine gun fire through city streets draws virtually no attention from bystanders or police.
But aside from its setting, many of the ingredients that made the show a hit for Amazon remain peppered throughout the new season. In an earlier scene, a hired gang of bikers (who had evidently never seen the first season of Reacher) surround the chiseled real-life action figure, who proceeds to inflict increasingly debilitating injuries upon them in creative fashion.
Moreover, staying true to the spirit of the franchise, Season Two refrains from weighing itself down with an overcomplicated storyline; there is a distinct charm to its minimalism and simplicity. Reacher & co’s investigation eventually leads them to Shane Langston, the head of security at a private defense firm. Langston’s plan to profit covertly from selling missiles to shady arms dealers is initially thwarted by one of Reacher’s former teammates, whom he thus had tossed out of a helicopter, setting off the events of the season.
Along with the second season’s newly introduced cadre of ex-military mercenaries is New York City Police Department officer Guy Russo (Domenick Lombardozzi). Wielding a caricature of a New York accent, Russo represents the honest cop amid a department brimming with corruption, bought and bribed by the same shady network targeting Reacher and his team. Russo and Reacher share an amicable chemistry, trading banter between them; the officer, predictably, disapproves of Reacher’s vigilante methods and resulting trail of dismembered bodies.
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Although members of his team are fair game, the closest Jack Reacher ever gets to a brush with danger comes at the end of the season. A fleeting romance flourishes with Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), one of his 110th Division alumni. With an unwavering countenance, she playfully suggests, “You should come home with me and meet my parents.” This unexpected proposition elicits a look of sheer horror in Reacher’s eyes, a reaction previously thought impossible — only to be swiftly assuaged by her knowing chuckle.
Reacher’s lone-wolf minimalism puts even the most ardent packing cube and carry-on acolytes to shame as he travels with nothing more than a toothbrush and his daunting 300-pound frame. He lives by a stoic code, drifting from town to town, not knowing where he’ll end up next. With any hope, next time, it’s someplace more intriguing and befitting of his unique talents than New York. If for nothing else than to witness Jack Reacher picking apart his adversaries, we will be eagerly tuning in.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto pursuing his MBA.