As with previous seasons, Reacher Season 3 has the vibes of a morality play buried in its DNA. While tragedy befalls the innocent with some frequency in Jack Reacher’s (Alan Ritchson) world, ultimately, the guilty meet their just desserts. Those who dwell in the gray zone, the bad guys who learn the error of their ways, or the corrupted who somehow rediscover their purity? They can’t survive for their sins but find a version of redemption in heroic sacrifices. Season 2 muddled this calculus with a strangely sadistic streak, but Season 3 returns to factory settings. This installment merges a clear-eyed sense of right and wrong with frequent bursts of violence, buckets of blood, and a dark, sly sense of humor.

It’s good that Reacher (the man and the series) has a relatively straight-ahead version of morality because the Reacher Season 3’s story—adapted from the Lee Child’s novel Persuader—is fastidiously overcomplicated. Our hero foils the kidnapping of Richard Beck (Johnny Berchtold) within moments of the first episode’s start. Unfortunately, Reacher accidentally shoots a cop in the process, leaving him anxious to ditch the intended victim and disappear.

Richard has a better idea, arguing that his father, Zachary (Anthony Michael Hall), is wealthy and well-connected enough to save Reacher from his fate. The idea that an apparent rug dealer who owns a place as cheesily named as Bizarre Bazaar suggests Zachary is involved in some considerably dirtier dealings. Without any other options, though, Reacher accepts Richard’s offer. Once history’s biggest former MP arrives at the compound, he is almost immediately welcomed/dragooned into the Berchtold’s security team.

Being there also puts him on the radar of a team of DEA agents—Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy), Guillermo Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos), and Steven Eliot (Daniel David Stewart)—desperate to make a case against Zachary after a failure to use a surveillance warrant properly cost them months of work. Somehow connected to all of this is Quinn (Brian Tee), a traitor to the US who tortured and murdered Reacher’s first protégé. Of course, Reacher thought he killed Quinn with a bullet to the brain a decade ago, so how is this bad guy walking around again?

The complications continue, but it’s impossible to give more details without tripping over spoilers. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of incidents, twists, and a couple of surprise reveals. Fans of the novel Reacher Season 3 adapts will know the structure, but the show takes plenty of liberty with the details. Thus, there will still be surprises along the way, even for the real Reacher-heads out there.

This time out, the show tweaks some central elements, with mixed results. Giving Reacher a stronger, larger, and faster antagonist in Paulie (Olivier Richters) is a good choice. The protagonist is such a paragon that seeing him vulnerable nicely ups the stakes and gives Ritchson a few more notes to play. That said, this writer wishes the season did more with showing how Reacher solves the problem of Paulie. It’s great to watch a vulnerable Reacher, but seeing how he adapts is even more fun. Sadly, Reacher Season 3 short shrifts that.

Cassidy is good as Reacher’s woman partner this season and has a welcomingly distinct vibe from Willa Fitzgerald in Season 1 and Serinda Swan in Season 2. Making her a love interest that’s more based on physical attraction and respect than emotional connection is another clever alteration in the show’s formula. In practice, though, it makes their love scenes feel perfunctory. They’re less motivated than added as if to check off a box. It would’ve been preferable if the show either committed harder to the lust aspect or just jettisoned it entirely. That said, the scenes of Cassidy ogling Ritchson early on are great bits of face and physical acting on her part.

The one outright disappointing choice is reducing Sten’s screentime after making her basically THE co-star in Season 2. She’s great and has tremendous comrade chemistry with Ritchson. To keep that proverbial bullet in the chamber for most of the season might’ve been necessary to tell this story. Regardless, it feels like a mistake. Sten just makes the recipe that is Reacher far better.

Tee isn’t a break from formula, per se, but he still deserves specific mention. Quinn is the series’ grossest villain to date. While ostensibly motivated by greed, he has a clear love of sadism. That delight in cruelty separates him from the likes of Robert Patrick’s Season 2 mercenary or any member of Season 1’s Kliner crime family. He feels almost Bondian with a larger-than-life swagger. On the other hand, any feelings of camp are negated by some real darkness. Check out a scene where he uses the Becks to torture each other for evidence of that.

Regarding imagery, Reacher Season 3 offers more of the same as previous installments. The action is well-shot, the violence just this side of gratuitous. Setting-wise, there’s nothing as interesting as last season’s vaguely sci-fi office building or endless warehouse. However, the cinematography corps uses the endless claustrophobic spaces of motel rooms, cabins, and the maze-like Beck estate to good effect. It gives everything a real sense of bottle-necked chaos, the kind that threatens to break containment at any moment.

To borrow an expression, Reacher Season 3 ain’t Shakespeare. Still, without overly editorializing, there’s a certain comfort to this well-done action show with a clear moral vision. While chaos and cruelty are celebrated by far too many people, here’s a show that rejects those as American values. Granted, it does via the judicious use of fists and bullets. Nonetheless. There is right, there is wrong. Jack Reacher has no interest in those who would attempt to sell the latter as the former.

(For an interesting counter/deep dive into the power fantasy that is Reacher, check out Angelica Jade Bastién’s recent essay.)

Reacher Season 3 rolls into Prime Video to bust bad people in the jaw beginning February 20.

Reacher Season 3 Trailer: