The 5 Biggest Problems With Prime Video’s Hit

1. The Side Characters In Reacher Season 4 Are Pretty Bad

Comparison is perhaps the greatest challenge each season of Reacher has faced after the first because each season we compare the new cast to the old one, and each time we’re reminded how much more we liked Season 1’s supporting characters.

I really loved Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald) and Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) and they felt like the right kind of side-kicks for our hulking protagonist. Not fighters, but still brave and clever enough. Fitzgerald and Ritchson had great chemistry, which didn’t hurt, and Finlay had a lot of personality and his buttoned-down, uptight nature was a nice contrast with Reacher’s casual demeanour. It was fun to watch as Reacher correctly assessed Finlay’s entire life from basic deductions: That he was recently divorced, was a smoker, not from around here, Ivy League and so forth. The hulking brute is also Sherlock Holmes.

Then Season 2 gave us a bunch of Reacher’s old teammates and they were all badass fighters, too, and what began as a “one man army” style show turned into an ensemble where the fights were a lot less interesting and the dialogue collapsed. “Details matter in an investigation,” Reacher tells Finlay in Season 1, which gives Finlay an opportunity to throw the line back at Reacher later. They must have enjoyed that exchange a lot in the Reacher writer’s room, because “details matter” was repeated throughout Season 2 countless times. There was no chemistry at all between Reacher and Dixon in Season 2, and the entire cast felt overstuffed.

Season 3 wasn’t much better. Susan Duffy’s accent was grating. Neagley (Maria Sten) popped up in all three seasons I guess to provide us with some continuity, but she was my least favorite of Season 1’s side characters (and wasn’t in that book!) and now she has her own show coming out soon.

Which brings us to Season 4 and the largely very obnoxious cast. So much time is spent with detective Tamara Green (Sydelle Noel) trying to comfort small-town cop, Jake Merrick (Christopher Marquette). Jake makes “sad eyes” faces constantly and Tamara tells him that he’s going to be okay. Jake is sad. Jake wants revenge on the people who killed his sister and nephew. Tamara tells him that’s not who he is. So much of this treacly nonsense. At least the blogger, Russell Plum (Kevin Weisman), is kind of funny. But overall, I just don’t like these characters very much or care about them or want to spend this much time with their stories.

2. Reacher Season 4’s Villains Are Lame . . . Again

In this week’s episode (Season 4, Episode 5 “Bridge”) there’s a scene where our lame side characters are chased by the newly revealed villains, Lila (Agnez Mo) and Amisha Hoth (Anggun), murderous psychopaths who apparently want to recover this USB drive because they’re trying to sell what’s on it (just a single picture apparently – something that could have easily been uploaded rather than put on a thumb drive?)

In any case, they show up at Jake’s house right when Jake, Tamara and Plum are there standing by the mailbox in no apparent hurry despite knowing that all sorts of bad guys and government agencies are after them. They hightail it and zip away as the Hoths give chase, firing automatic rifles at them, clip after clip.

These women, who have killed countless people in cold blood at this point, who are clearly highly-skilled killers, would make Stormtroopers proud (they are named Hoth, so it should come as no surprise).

Not a single shot hits. The ones that hit the car miss the tires and never come close to the occupants. The shootout ends on the bridge (ergo the episode’s title) and there’s an entire segment where Jake is driving the car in reverse toward the Hoths while Tamara – after just revealing she only has seven rounds left – fires wildly. Everyone misses. It’s an absurd scene and these villains, and the CIA stooges that keep trying and failing to capture and kill Reacher (for some bizarre reason) are even more absurd and laughable.

But don’t worry, the Hoth ladies are evil. They steal a car and slash a man’s throat in the process, just totally out of the blue. Too bad they didn’t have guns. He would have survived.

Lee Child’s books have some cartoonishly evil villains, but they’re usually menacing enough to take seriously. Season 1 captured that perfectly and Season 3 did a pretty good job, too, but Season 2’s villains were ludicrous and Season 4’s are just as bad.

3. Reacher Works Best When The Story Is Smaller Than He Is

This entry I’m going to direct at both the show and the books. Reacher works best when he’s the One Man Army. He works best when he’s the lone gunslinger (who doesn’t need guns because his arms are guns). When Reacher shows up he has a force like gravity. All the bad guys want him dead. He pulls trouble toward him like a flame draws moths. He stands out because everybody in this little Georgia town (or Texas ranch, or Montana or Maine compound) knows everybody, and he’s The Stranger.

Once you start adding in the army and the CIA and big government conspiracies and big cities and flashbacks and old flings, you lose what makes the Reacher formula work (just like giving him a girlfriend in the books didn’t work). Both Killing Floor and Season 1 work so well because while there is a conspiracy and a mystery to solve, it’s all very local. It’s small town corruption. And Reacher is a very big fish in a very small bowl. Season 2 was a disaster of a storyline, filled with flashbacks and too many characters in too complex of a plot. Season 4 is shaping up to be much the same thing.

But there’s one thing that’s been bothering more than anything else . . .

4. Reacher Has Become His Own Worst Enemy

Do you see that expression on Reacher’s face in the above image from Season 1? It’s a smile. Reacher used to do that a lot. He’d grin and smirk. He’d make expressions as he teased people, or teased out details from them with his razor wit. Reacher had a personality back in Season 1.

He replaced it with extra muscle starting in Season 2. For about every pound of muscle Ritchson put on, it seems Reacher lost an equal amount of personality and charm. And maybe Ritchson’s Season 1 portrayal was too charming for our hero, too affable, too funny, but I’d take him any day of the week over the dour, expressionless, wooden, freakishly muscular Reacher of Seasons 2 – 4.

I went back and watched some of Season 1 and the difference is striking. There are many things about Season 1 that I prefer. It was shot better. The writing feels tighter. The characters are more likable. But more than any of these, the hero is just . . . more fun to spend time with. He has presence. He can move from friendly to menacing, thoughtful to violent, but he’s always interesting and entertaining. The deadpan Reacher that this character has become is dull and tiresome.

But at least they don’t have him saying “details matter” every five lines like they did in Season 2, and at least Neagley hasn’t become a major player this season . . . yet. Of course, she has her own show coming in the very near future, so if you’re a Neagley fan don’t worry. Personally, she was fine as a one-and-done for Season 1, but I can’t imagine building an entire show around her. We shall see.

5. Reacher Season 4 Isn’t All Bad, But It Should Be Way More Fun

I have a lot of bones to pick with this show, clearly, and I suppose I could say much the same for the books, which are pretty uneven at times. But Lee Child is making this stuff up as he goes along (or he was, back when he was still writing these novels) whereas the show’s creators have the template and the stories right there for them to use. The best seasons (1 and 3) stick very close to the books. But it’s more than that. Season 1 felt like a labor of love. The rest feel like tacked on, rush jobs.

Why do I keep watching, then? This is the question I’m always asked by angry fans who don’t like what I have to say in my reviews. Beyond the obvious – I’m a TV critic! – I still like Jack Reacher and I still like Alan Ritchson’s portrayal of him even if I think he was better when he was a little looser and more fun. I like the preposterousness of the character. The brilliant giant with a heart of gold, going from town to town, sleeping with beautiful women and making bad guys wish they’d never been born.

There’s nothing revolutionary about any of this, but it’s fun and I wish the show would remember that. This is supposed to be fun. Every time it gets sappy or overly serious or focuses too much on side characters we don’t care about, it gets less fun. Listening to Jack and Tamara have yet another conversation where he’s sad and she comforts him is not fun. Or necessary. None of these characters will be around next season. Get us invested in them by making them likable and making us worry for their survival, but don’t spend copious amounts of limited screen-time on their interactions.

Meanwhile, somber, stone-faced Reacher should come out from time to time, absolutely, especially when there’s a floor of bad guys that need killing, but that other puckish, grinning Reacher needs to come back, too. He was more fun, and the contrast between that guy and the scary killer he could become, when pressed, really made the whole thing click.

I haven’t given up hope on Reacher just yet. It’s better than Season 2, no doubt. But I’m not going to mince words, either. This should be a much better season of television. There’s no excuse for this level of mediocrity.

You can watch my video review below:

What do you think of Season 4 so far? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.