“Reacher” is back, and season 3 is the best the show has ever been. The story of the walking, talking tank with hands as big as dinner plates and who solves crimes is one of the most purely fun shows of the past couple of years, one that is quite simple in its power fantasy while maintaining an exquisite execution. “Reacher” is as thrilling as it is funny, and as ridiculous as it is fun. After a big stumble in season 2, “Reacher” finally gets its mojo back in season 3. As /Film’s Jacob Hall wrote in his review, “When it comes to television that exists to activate the pleasure sensors of the brain, you simply cannot find a better option than ‘Reacher.’ Sure, it stumbled last time around, but oh, man. If only all comebacks were this sweet.”
The new season is based on “Persuader,” the best of Lee Child’s “Reacher” books. We find Reacher trapped in a big old manor owned by a dangerous rich guy with his own small army of guards — including a hulking henchman named Paulie who is improbably even bigger than Reacher.
This is the most tense season of the show so far, with the small scale and use of mostly a single location giving the story high stakes and a bigger sense of danger — not just for Reacher the character, but for the man who plays him, Alan Ritchson.
During an interview with /Film’s Jacob Hall, Ritchson talked about a scene in the first episode of season 3 in which Reacher climbs down the house in a long crane shot, a stunt that caused him to bleed “all over the place”:
“I hit a rusty nail or something and I left blood marks all over that dude’s house and I had to do it eight more times. And they’re like, ‘Can you stop getting blood on everything because it’s showing … you can see blood hand prints and we’re going to have to wipe it off,’ and I was like, ‘Guys, I don’t know, and this is your fault because there’s a razor-sharp awning or something.'”
Reacher is not just big, he’s funny
It is a true delight seeing “Reacher” out of his element this season. Here’s a big shark of a man trapped in a small pond, theoretically unable to make a move, but incapable of not killing every baddie he comes across in practice. The first three episodes of the season work splendidly together as an opening act and should be viewed together for maximum impact.
The aforementioned scene is great for two reasons. First of all, it’s an impressive stunt, showcasing Ritchson’s hulking physique climbing down the manor like he’s King Kong on the Empire State Building. Most importantly, however, the scene is absolutely hilarious. “Reacher” is not a comedy, nor is it exactly tongue-in-cheek, but it is sardonic in its humor, and Alan Ritchson is great at walking a specific line wherein Reacher is funny without entirely being in on the joke. And, of course, the sight of a mountain of a man trying to be stealthy in scaling the side of a mansion only for his weight and muscle mass to immediately make a mess of things is just an inherently funny sight. Reacher may be an American Hercules, but he is also a large fun lad.
You can listen to Jacob’s full interview with Child, Ritchson, and several more cast members on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast:
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