With four seasons behind it and two more on the way, Reacher has become one of Prime Video’s biggest hits.
On paper, it’s a show for action fans: a towering ex-military cop drifting from town to town, breaking bones and solving crimes, but its appeal reaches well beyond that crowd.
A slow conversion
Playing in the background, Reacher is easy to dismiss, even to hate. Watched properly, season 1 doesn’t inspire much hate or love. Season 2 is easier to warm to, and by season 3, the show’s rhythm becomes so comfortable that watching it is reassuring. That’s as close to liking it as some viewers will get. And although it would be hard to legitimately call it great, sticking with it pays off.
It can take a whole season and a half to really get Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) as a character. Despite the hero framing, he kind of only really surpasses his bafflingly homicidal status once he clicks as an ex-veteran struggling to reintegrate after the Army. At least, for those not coming from the Lee Child books.
Until then, he can come across as a Gary Stu, the male version of a Mary Sue. That’s the term for a character who is improbably skilled at everything, rarely wrong, and almost never challenged in any real way, so the story bends around them instead of testing them. That’s a fault in the show’s writing. Reacher doesn’t make its hero vulnerable enough or draw out this undeniable facet of his existence enough.
The Supernatural of action
However, once that clicks, and even a little before, the show becomes quite comforting. Reacher is like the Supernatural of action: it’s totally predictable, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. Just as Supernatural’s Winchester brothers hit the road every week to fight another monster, Reacher rolls into a new town, uncovers a conspiracy, and dismantles it, usually with his fists.
You know you’re not in for an emotional sucker punch, and that’s for the best. It makes it a show you can put on at any time. Quite a lot of the time, people don’t sit down in front of the TV to be sucker-punched emotionally.
Reacher has enough humor, enough plot, and enough of Ritchson’s bodybuilding talents to pacify even a TV snob quite well. And, to be fair to him, those talents are extraordinary. His deadpan delivery and sheer physical presence do a lot of the heavy lifting, literally and figuratively.
Escapism without the homework
The action and the plot lack all credibility, and that helps make it more of an escapist fantasy. No one watching needs to feel stupid about their lack of knowledge of military or police strategy. Where some thrillers demand close attention to tactics, procedure and jargon, Reacher asks only that you enjoy watching a very large man outthink and outfight people who underestimate him.
That’s what makes it such a good fit for viewers who don’t usually watch action shows. There’s no need to follow complicated mission plans or care about weaponry. The violence is so heightened it plays almost like slapstick, and the mysteries are simple enough to follow while folding laundry.
Reacher won’t change anyone’s life, and it isn’t trying to. Its hero could stand to be more vulnerable, and its plots will never surprise seasoned viewers. But in a TV landscape full of shows determined to devastate their audiences, there’s something to be said for a series that just wants you to have a good time. Like Supernatural before it, Reacher has found its formula and sticks to it, and for a growing number of unlikely fans, that’s exactly the point.
All four seasons of Reacher are streaming now on Prime Video. Find more TV reviews and recaps on Show Snob.
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