This article contains mild spoilers for “Reacher” Season 3.
The “Reacher” TV show is more than just great Dad Television, it’s also a perfect series for people who love big, loud, absurd fun. A huge, hunky part of the appeal is just watching the titular former Special Investigator Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) be a very large lad — with hands the size of dinner plates — who beats up all the bad people around him while solving crimes. It has the same entertainment value as the anime “One Punch Man.” These aren’t just shows about overpowered individuals being so strong no one can stand up to them, they’re also about the joy of watching said overpowered individuals find themselves in funny and outlandish situations.
Case in point, Season 3 finds Reacher venturing deep into the heart of a criminal enterprise to rescue an undercover informant, only to miserably and hilariously fail not to leave dozens of dead bodies in his wake. Our own Jacob Hall described the Jack Reacher book Season 3 is based on as being a story that answer the question: “What happens when you let the shark from ‘Jaws’ loose in a manor house mystery full of people who really deserve to get their necks snapped?” Indeed, much of Season 3 deals with Reacher trying his best to be stealthy and move around a manor at night undetected — all while still being a loud, giant man with hands the size of supermarket roasted chickens.
In addition to the secluded and isolated location, there’s something else that’s great about “Reacher” Season 3: its physically intimidating villain, who towers over Reacher. That’s right, the impossible has finally happened, with Reacher having now come face to face with … an even bigger Reacher. His name is Paul “Paulie” Masserella, and as played by Olivier Richters, he is the single greatest antagonist “Reacher” has ever had.
Reacher Season 3’s Paulie looks like ‘a cartoon’
Paulie is the hulking henchman that works as the gate guard at the estate of one Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall), the man whose operation Reacher infiltrates in Season 3. Paulie sits around in a little booth that feels more like a cage proportions-wise, his hand hovering around a big machine gun pointed right at every car approaching the gate. From the moment Reacher first sees him, he immediately dislikes the guy, and not without reason.
Olivier Richters somehow makes even Alan Ritchson look small — and Season 3 Alan Ritchson is the biggest the actor has ever been, which is already saying a lot. Indeed, just like Ritchson, Richters is perfectly cast, and he looks like he leaped right off the pages of Lee Child’s “Persuader,” which /Film has dubbed the best of the Jack Reacher books. “His arms were bigger than my legs,” as Child put it in his novel (from the perspective of Reacher). “He looked like a cartoon.”
That description is entirely accurate. The audience has spent two whole seasons believing that Reacher is the biggest guy in every room and, thus, the biggest physical threat. Yet, as soon as Paulie enters the stage, he steals the spotlight — literally, because he’s so big he covers the entire thing. Paulie is just so huge it’s absurd. He makes The Mountain on “Game of Thrones” (every version) look like a mound. It’s like seeing those behind-the-scenes photos of Arnold Schwarzenegger with Wilt Chamberlain and André the Giant on the set of 1984’s “Conan the Destroyer” (which make Schwarzenegger look like a tiny kid who’s being carried along on “Bring a Kid to Work Day”).
Paulie doesn’t have to do anything evil or violent, he just has to exist and you immediately want to see him get his ass kicked by Reacher. Of course, Paulie also does horrible things on the show, even if most of them take place off-screen. He’s not just a bodyguard and a gatekeeper, but he’s also the one who does the dirty work for Season 3’s bad guys.
We’ve seen plenty of despicable villains on “Reacher” before, but so far they’ve mostly been people who take their illegal businesses too far (either that or pompous jerks with something to prove). This season, however, ups the ante. Paulie’s not just big, he is a true monster, and the man he works for might just be even worse.
New episodes of “Reacher” drop Thursdays on Prime Video.
Leave a Reply