“Reacher” Season 3 is the best one yet. After a disappointing sophomore effort, the Prime Video series gets its groove back thanks to a thrilling, compelling third installment that changes gears and plays out like watching a slasher movie villain trapped in a mystery novel-style old manor, killing everyone they come across. Thanks to an interesting location, menacing new villains, a big sense of humor and a renewed focus on Jack Reacher himself, this is the show at its very best.
The biggest problem with Season 2 was that it felt like a story more fitting for a sixth season. It was too focused on the past, on relationships with a long history the audience had barely ever heard of, packed with predictable villains and forgettable action and allies (outside of Maria Sten’s Neagley). This season, however, is all about placing Alan Ritchson’s crime fighting hobo, Reacher, in the absolute worst situations possible: As he ventures deep into the heart of a criminal organization to rescue an undercover informant while trying to get revenge on a target that escaped him long ago.
From the get-go, the premise makes for a very different dynamic, as this is not just a big mystery Reacher needs to solve, or about a villain he needs to shoot in the head. It is a tense, high-stakes thriller wherein Reacher is trapped in a big old manor out of an Agatha Christie novel surrounded by enemies. Rather than spend most of the season clashing with local authorities because he gets things done on his own, or surrounded by old friends, Reacher is alone for most of the season, unable to call for backup or help.
Isolating the main character, even one as physically capable as Reacher, gives the season high stakes and tension. For once, it does feel as if Reacher may not actually get out of this situation, at least not cleanly, for there’s a mountain of a man just frothing at the mouth with the mere thought of bashing his skull in. Season 3 introduces the best villain of the show to date, the Bane to Reacher’s Batman, Paulie Masserella (Olivier Richters, The Dutch Giant). This guy is not just a bigger Reacher, he towers over him and makes him look feeble by comparison, while also being a big old sadist who relishes in cruelty and violence. Paulie is not just a physical threat you want to see Reacher fight, but a despicable monster that is easy to hate, and even easier to want to see torn to shreds by Reacher.
Surrounded by enemies, a lot of the season involves Reacher sneaking around the manor, which leads to moments as tense as they are funny given Reacher is still very much a walking, talking tank — not exactly built for stealth. Indeed, the humor is on point this season, mining from the more obvious and physique-based — like a funny visual of Reacher’s supermarket chicken-sized hands holding teeny tiny phones — to character-based, like Reacher’s inability to keep his mouth shut and not insult or kill everyone around him at the first chance.
Even with its secluded setting, this might be the bloodiest season of “Reacher,” starting out small and quiet before going out in a blaze of glory. The location and environment are well used here to create tense and effective action set pieces — especially the cliffside surrounding the manor, which is the site of what feels like Alan Ritchson’s most compelling case for being the next Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Though Paulie brings a big physical threat this season, he is not the only villain. There’s also Anthony Michael Hall’s Zachary Beck, whose organization Reacher infiltrates. Beck is a different kind of antagonist than we’ve seen in “Reacher,” one with complexity, who you may not entirely sympathize with but can at least feel sorry for, at least when it concerns his relationship with his son Richard (Johnny Berchtold). Reacher becomes a bit of a father figure to Richard throughout the season, even if the stoic, deadpanned hero is hilariously bad at hiding how much he doesn’t like this spoiled one-eared billionaire’s son. Still, his noble, gentle-giant manners force him to help the kid, in the latest entry in the “Lone Wolf and Cup” TV narrative we’ve seen over the last few years (“The Witcher,” “The Last of Us”).
Like past “Reacher” installments, Season 3 is all about a revenge plot, with the titular former Special Investigator hellbent on getting payback on a target he thought he had taken care of years prior. What makes this effective is how the focus is not so much on the revenge itself, but on how clearly it is affecting Reacher, how much his thirst for revenge blinds him to the needs of others and even his own, to the point of almost messing up his entire assignment.
“Reacher” managed to come back from a disappointing season to delivering its best adventure yet. The biggest flaw is that it is hard to imagine a more tightly constructed, tense, exhilarating or funny mission for the titular character to take on in the already commissioned Season 4.
“Reacher” Season 3 premieres Thursday, Feb. 20, on Prime Video.