Something happened in this season of “Reacher” that never happened before in the previous ones. This is the first time that Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) looked the most vulnerable. His calculations seemed to go wrong in several places, starting with the first episode, when he approaches that woman on the metro.
Alan Ritchson is fortunately blessed with the kind of formidable action-hero aura I thought we would no longer get to see — the kind once characteristic of the titans that us 90s kids grew up with: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, among others. Among them, Stallone had the advantage of expanding his horizons with a level of emotional range that the others couldn’t, and didn’t.
Ritchson basically gets to be in Stallone mode in this Season 4.
Until Season 3, we had seen an air of light-heartedness pervading the atmosphere, no matter how much of a bind Reacher got himself in.
Season 4 had its fair share of lighthearted moments, too (the OnlyFans joke in Episode 2 is priceless), but also leaned into the darker, wilder side this time around, both in terms of action and emotional stakes.
For the first time, it felt like Reacher wouldn’t make it, even though we knew that another season was around the corner. Season 4 is basically a Jason Bourne film if it featured Schwarzenegger, given how many threats Reacher had to deal with, from forces both domestic and otherwise. This time, his kindness, among his major strengths, was also perceived as one of his weaknesses.
This time, we had far more memorable supporting characters, each dealing with their own personal and professional challenges: Jacob Merrick, the small-town cop trying to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding his adopted sister’s death; Tamara Green, played by Sydelle Noel, who is almost on the verge of giving up her police detective career.
One of the show’s strongest additions is Kevin Corrigan’s (best known for his appearances in Scorsese collaborations “Goodfellas” and “The Departed”) Shaun Docherty, Tamara’s detective partner, who goes through some conflicting choices in the course of the show. It wasn’t easy to tell whether he was dependable or whether he had an agenda of his own.
And, of course, who knew the most dangerous adversaries of Reacher so far would be two women, in the form of the mother-daughter duo of assassins, played by Agnez Mo and Anggun?
But then, Reacher is Reacher. At some point, either he himself or someone else would drop in at the last minute to salvage the situation. This happens a little more than I would care to see, and it’s the minor quibble I have with the show.
Even so, I cannot help but overstate how far Ritchson has come from the seemingly invincible, emotionally unaffected character we first met in Season 1. We had seen that softer side in the form of flashbacks in Season 2, but Season 4 puts him through the wringer more than his allies.
We have seen the joke about how Reacher gets to go to bed with a stunning woman, an ally, he encounters over the course of his missions. Season 4 flips that narrative in a way we didn’t see coming. The sexual metaphors reach their climax (pun intended) in the season’s explosive (pun intended) finale that involves a lethal injection and a sharp dagger. The verbal exchange that occurs in the middle of his gruesome sequence is dark humour at its finest. Because, by then, Reacher has taken so much damage to that imposing, mountain-like physique that we don’t know whether to laugh or feel pity for him, especially considering what happens when he comes out of that warehouse and realises that not all the threats were eliminated — that is, again, before they get eliminated in some way, that is.
Season 4, which is based on Lee Child’s 13th Reacher novel “Gone Tomorrow, also features the best ending of all. I did not expect this season to tie up everything on such a poignant note. It’s perfect, because it does complete justice to Reacher’s personality. After everything that has happened, Reacher hasn’t let go of who he really is. And the way that whole scene is constructed, I couldn’t help but shed a tear. Next season, please.
Series: Reacher Season 4
Creator: Nick Santora
Cast: Alan Ritchson, Sydelle Noel, Christopher Marquette, Agnez Mo, Anggun, Kevin Corrigan
Rating: 4.5/5
