A solitary man walks beside a quiet road in Margrave, GA. He is, apparently, a drifter. But this is no ordinary “drifter,” this is Jack Reacher (“it’s just ‘Reacher’,” he constantly reminds people). He stands 6’3” and is cut like a professional bodybuilder. He’s also unusually quiet, even as he kicks the ever-loving shit out of many, many people who cross him. The bodies pile up.
Welcome to the long-awaited series ‘Reacher.’ It’s 8 episodes of crime thriller/murder mystery/action flick – all mixed together to make for a fun, binge-worthy show.
If the name sounds familiar, yes, this is the same character at the center of some 26 novels by Lee Child and 2 feature films that starred Tom Cruise (Skydance-the media company behind so many of Cruise’s films is behind this series, too).
This first season (I hope others will follow) is based on Child’s first Reacher novel, Killing Floor. Reacher’s arrival to this small town in rural Georgia isn’t by chance. He’s ostensibly come here because his brother told him that he could find good stuff about Blues legend Blind Blake, who was from there.
A lot of this season is devoted to peeling away the character backstory. We learn that he was an Army officer who worked in investigations and that he is very good at solving crimes. Very much like Benedict Cumberbatch in the Sherlock series, Reacher can glance at a scene or a person or, hell, just about anything, and instantly deduce what’s going on. It’s uncanny (and sometimes just over-the-top enough to lose a pinch of credibility, but who cares?).
We also get intermittent flashbacks to Reacher’s childhood where we see that he always hated bullies and stood up to them for himself and others, with his big brother beside him.
Reacher, as a character, is somewhat inscrutable – unemotional, quiet, even tempered. And yet, we really like him. He’s a good dude with a sturdy moral character and he loves dogs. I mean, what else could you want?
The least interesting part of the series to me is the actual crime story at the heart of it. IN short, it involves a counterfeiting operation, a corrupt police department and a nasty, villainous Mayor (veteran character actor Bruce McGill has fun with the part), and a slew of gruesome murders.
But there are two cops who are good and become allies for Reacher who (as it turns out) has had someone he cares about murdered in this little town and he vows to find the perp and kill him.
Those characters are Chief Detective Oscar Finley (Malcolm Goodwin) and Roscoe Conklin (guy name, but this is a lady, played by Willa Fitzgerald), they’re both perfectly cast and interesting to watch.
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