Reacher Season 2 pummels you with a good time

The Spool / Reviews

The Prime series remains its big, fun, very violent self.

GenreAction Action & Adventure Crime Drama

Similar'Cause You're My Boy, 2Moons: The Series, 3 Body Problem A Dance to the Music of Time, A Discovery of Witches, A Gentleman in Moscow, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, A League of Nobleman, A Menina Sem Qualidades, A Native of Beijing in New York, A Respectable Trade, A River Runs Through It, A Shop for Killers, A Spy Among Friends, A Suitable Boy, A Touch of Frost, A Very English Scandal, A2Z, About a Boy, Addicted Heroin, Advokát ex offo, Aftershock: Earthquake in New York, Agatha Christie's Poirot Alexandr Dumas starší, Alias Grace, Alif Allah Aur Insaan, All Creatures Great & Small, Americká tragédia, Anatomy of a Scandal, And Then There was One Yuriko, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Anna Karenina, Annika, Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia's Case Files, Archangel, Arn: The Knight Templar, Arthur Hailey's The Moneychangers, As Beautiful As You, Ashes to Ashes, Återkomsten, B: The Beginning, Babel, Backstrom, Band of Brothers, Barbora Rösselová, Battle for Happiness, Be with You, Beacon 23, Bed Friend, Behind the Revenge, Best Choice Ever, Between Us, Bitter Blood, Black Narcissus, Black Out, Black Raven, Blackeyes, Blackwater, Blitz!! Strada 5, Blood Ties, Blossoms Shanghai, Bodies Brand New Cherry Flavor, Brass Dreams, Business Proposal, Café Minamdang, Carp Reborn, Catch-22, Chains of Heart, Choice Husband, Clayhanger, Cliffs of Each, Cold Case, Cold Courage, Coming Home, Cooking Crush, CrimeTube SouthTyrol, Cross, Crusade CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, Cupid's Command, Cutie Pie, D.N.Angel, Dangerous Liaisons, Dark Winds, Dash & Lily, Dating in the Kitchen, Dead by Sunset, Dead Ringers, Deadly Class, Dear Edward, Deep Night, Deliver Me, Des, Devil in Ohio, Dexter Dime Quién Soy: Mistress of War, Disclaimer, Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves, Dopesick, Double Decker! Doug & Kirill, Driven, Eagles and Youngster, East of Eden, Emily of New Moon, Epitaphs, Eternal Faith, Evergreen, Evlerden Biri, Exclusive Fairytale, Fallen Fatal Vision, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless Finland Papa, First Kill, Five Days at Memorial, Fool Me Once From Scratch, Further Tales of the City, Game of Thrones Genesis, George & Tammy, Golden Years Goodbye Earth, Gossip Girl Guardian, Halo: The Fall of Reach, HAPPY!, Harlan Coben's Shelter, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe He's Into Her, Hello Anne: Before Green Gables, Hero Return, Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway, Homeland, Hot Skull, Hotel, How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, I Am the Night, I Feel You Linger in the Air, I Know What You Did Last Summer, If Tomorrow Comes, In Cold Blood, Interior Chinatown, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jane Eyre, Jesus, Jewels, JFK: Reckless Youth, Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-, Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Black Sun, Kamenskaya, Kamenskaya - 5, Kamenskaya - 6, Kindred, Kiss Me First, Kiss Sixth Sense, Kita Yoshio's Tomorrow, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Korea-Khitan War, Kronika, L.A. Heat, La Chambre des dames, La Mante, Lady Chatterley, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Les Misérables, Life on Mars, Likit Kammathep, Little Birds, Little Women Lives of the Saints, Love Between Fairy and Devil, Love By Chance, Love in the Big City, Love Is Sweet, Love Like the Galaxy, Love Sea, Love Syndrome III, Lovecraft Country, Lucky Hank, Lupin, Luther, M*A*S*H Magpie Murders, Maid, Manhunt, Martín Rivas, Medical Examiner Dr. Qin: The Survivor, Meeting You Loving You, Memorial de Maria Moura, Midnight Ferris Wheel, Millennium, Million Dollar Babies, Miracle Workers, Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced, Miss Marple: A Pocketful of Rye, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Miss Marple: The Moving Finger, Mobile Cop Jiban, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen Monsieur Spade, Mother Is Wrong, Mr. Grim Reaper, My Beautiful Man, My Fantastic Mrs Right, My Gear and Your Gown, My Hero Series, My Lovely Boxer, My Name, My Only 12%, My Ride, My Stand-In, Nero Wolfe, New Amsterdam, Nice Work, Nicholas Nickleby, Nothing Uncovered, Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder, Oh! My Sweet Liar!, Open Your Eyes, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Ordeal by Innocence, Os Maias, Ostriv lyubovi, Our Secret, Pachinko, Paint with Love, Pandora's Clock, Parizaad, Partner Track, Patria, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Perfect Love, Perry Mason, Person of Interest, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Piece of Cake, Place of Execution, Planet of the Apes Platform 7, PLUTO, Polisen i Strömstad, Portrét Doriana Graya, Power Rangers, Presumed Innocent, Pride and Prejudice Prima sezóna, Princess Principal, Prípad jasnovidca Hanussena, Prom Pissawat, Psych, Quicksand, Rage of Angels, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon, Rebus Rencana Besar, Resurrection, Reverse 4 You, Ridley, Rivals, RoboCop: The Series, Ronja the Robber's Daughter, Rosamunde Pilcher's Four Seasons, Roswell Roswell, New Mexico, Rouge Brésil, Rough Cut, Run with the Wind, Saint X, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, Scrublands, Scumbag System, Shadow and Bone, Shangri-La, Shangri-La Frontier, Sherlock Holmes Shining Girls, Shuriken Sentai Ninninger, Sinking Spring, Soul Land, Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan, Spies of Warsaw, Star Trek: Picard, Starožitníkův krám, Stavy rachotí, Stay With Me, Stranded, Strangers and Brothers, Studs Lonigan, Super Pumped, Svadba bez nevesty, Sweet Magnolias, Sweetbitter, Sweetpea, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, Tajný agent, Taken, Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, Tamas, Tauno Tukevan sota, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tell Me Lies, Tempted, Tender Is the Night, That Whistling Youth, The 100, The ABC Murders, The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, The Agatha Christie Hour The Alienist, The Baxters, The Beat, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, The Blood of Youth, The Bourne Identity The Boy Next World, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneers, The Cicada's Eighth Day, The Colour of Magic, The Congregation, The Consultant, The Count of Monte-Cristo: Great Revenge, The Crimson Rivers, The Dain Curse, The Defence, The Demon Hunter's Romance, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Emperor's Strategy, The End of Love, The Essex Serpent, The Flatshare, The Founder of Diabolism, The Fox's Summer, The Ginger Tree, The Girls on the Bus, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Ice House, The Ingenious One, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Interest of Love, The Invisible Man, The Irrational, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Journalist, The Journey of Chongzi, The Jungle, The Kidnapping Day, The Killer's Shopping List, The Killing Kind, The Last Convertible, The Leftovers, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Little Drummer Girl, The Long Firm, The Long Night, The Lost World The Loyal Pin, The Lying Life of Adults, The Magicians, The Many Faces of Ito, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Night Agent, The Night Sister, The Old Man, The Ordinary World, The Other Black Girl, The Passage, The Perfect Couple, The Pilot's Love Song, The Plot Against America, The Rainbow, The Rector's Wife, The Red Sleeve, The Responder, The Rhinemann Exchange, The Rotters' Club, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Shadow Line, The Shining The Sign, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The State Counsellor, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Sympathizer, The Tatami Time Machine Blues, The Thin Blue Line, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, The Undoing, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witcher: Blood Origin, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, The Word, There Will Be People, Those About to Die, Through the Darkness Tientsin Mystic, Till The End of The Moon, Time and Him are Just Right, Tiny Pretty Things, Tira, Tracker, Transformation, Trickster, Troubles, Tsurune, Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Twin Peaks, Ubohý pan Kufalt, Under the Bridge, Unknown, Unorthodox, Unsolved Mysteries, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Vanished, Vanished 46, Vanity Fair, Vida privada, Vyhnanství, War & Peace, War and Peace, Warera ga Paradise, Wayward Pines, We Are, Wedding Impossible, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, When Heroes Fly, When I See Your Face, White Teeth, Why Try to Change Me Now, Wimarn Din, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Wise Man's Grandchild, Witchcraft, Without Breast There Is No Paradise, Wolf Pack, World's End Harem, Wycliffe YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master, Yonder, You, Youth, Каменская - 3,

Watch afterBreaking Bad Citadel, Game of Thrones Halo Loki Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Peacemaker, Silo Slow Horses, Stranger Things The Book of Boba Fett The Falcon and the Winter Soldier The Mandalorian The Witcher WandaVision

StudioAmazon MGM Studios, Amazon Studios Paramount Television Studios

7.3

The Prime series remains its big, fun, very violent self.

Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), the “has toothbrush, will travel” man, has returned to television and not a moment too soon. Reacher Season 2 is exactly the kind of low-commitment viewing one craves as the year ends and the holidays overtake everyone’s lives. While a large, jolly man busies himself filling many of our stockings, who better to enjoy than a large, angry man knocking bad guys out of their socks? Especially when, like this time, it’s personal!

Reacher and Neagly (Maria Sten, back from Season 1 and fully second on the callsheet this time, thankfully) first met when they were members of the 110, an investigative military police unit. As seen in flashback, the group is the last time Reacher had anything approaching a stable group of friends. In the present day, several team members have gone missing, suggesting that perhaps someone is targeting them. Reacher connects with Neagly and the two join up with the only other two 110 members they can find. O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) is the unit clown and womanizer turned family man and inside the beltway fixer. Dixon (Serinda Swan) is a forensic accountant/warrior who shares an obvious but unconsummated crush with Reacher.

Reacher Season 2 (Prime Video) — From the looks of it, the 110 sure knows how to have fun. (Brooke Palmer/Prime Video)

Together, they face off against wave after wave of largely faceless thugs, only differentiated by their castes. There are security guards, bikers, workaday thugs, and ex-military mercs by the truckload. Captaining this criminal enterprise is Langston (Robert Patrick), in total growling, overconfident master planner mode. Rounding things out is a mysterious assassin who uses only aliases that make the initials AM (Ferdinand Kingsley) and Guy Russo (Domenick Lombardozzi), a New York cop understandably less than thrilled about Reacher’s tactics. If all this makes the show sound a bit, shall we say, clichéd, well you aren’t wrong.

The antagonists are Reacher Season 2’s weakest part. Yes, Patrick does seem to be having a good time playing the kind of boss who will take credit for your successes and blame you, then shoot you, for your failures. But it is not an especially complex role, and nothing in the script pushes the character into wild or compelling. Kingsley’s assassin is plenty intriguing, but that ends up being all there is to him. He is, to likely misuse a euphemism, all hat and no cattle.

Thankfully, Ritchson seems to grasp that his character’s very existence is too unbelievable not to make him something of a figure of fun. Even beyond his scripted wisecracks, he seems to understand that letting Reacher get laughed at helps the series. He’s a surprisingly gracious screen partner, easily sharing space with his co-stars despite how his frame fills the screen. He’s good at giving face—a grimace, a smirk, a stare—that helps push the jibes at him across the finish line to funny. He also has good comedic chemistry with his 110ers in flashback and the present. There’s zero heat between him and Swan, which is disappointing in the wake of what I thought was a decent coupling between Ritchson and Willa Fitzgerald, but no one is coming to Reacher Season 2 for touching romance or hot sex, let’s be honest.

The real MVPs of the series, however, are Sten and Lombardozzi. Sten deepens Neagly from the interesting but dramatically thin badass we met in season 1, largely without an assist from the plot or scripts. She just has a great presence, and her connection with Ritchson feels earned and honest. Lombardozzi is better than anyone would have any right to expect. We’ve seen cops on TV like him a thousand times, at least, but he finds a little something more to give in each scene. The guy calls the NYPD the greatest police force in the world and sells it so damn hard it’ll take the viewer of 15 count before saying, “Would we say greatest?” And that’s not even the biggest of his accomplishments.

The only hesitation with Reacher Season 2 comes from the remarkably cavalier dispatching of that glorious violence. This reviewer has no desire to be a scold or prude, but much of it simply didn’t sit well. In Season 1, the deaths doled out by Reacher seemed necessary. There were tons of them, yes. Still, it didn’t generally feel like he was dispatching someone who was no longer a threat. In this season, he and his team kill people unlikely to be a threat to anyone for months to come. Yes, Reacher is a blood-soaked fantasy with as little to do with reality as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. And yet, the sight of the heroes going above and beyond with their murdering still churns the stomach a bit.

Ultimately, as you can see, it doesn’t push Reacher Season 2 into a not recommended. The morbid humor, a few surprisingly deeper-than-needed performances, and the action sequences that don’t make this reviewer feel somehow complicit make it a far more enjoyable than not viewing experience. It’s an irresistible strain of big, wonderfully dumb action Dad TV. I still wish it felt a little less gleeful about wracking up the bodies of already beaten tangential baddies.

Reacher Season 2 flexes its biceps, triceps, and all the other muscles on Prime Video starting December 15.