The best television action program recovers its mojo

Jack Reacher’s appeal lies in his simplicity. Here is a man who is stronger than you, smarter than you, better than you. Here is a man without any of the anxieties that hinder his life, a man literally tied to nothing, a man carved in pure American mythology who has been claimed by every corner of the political spectrum. And most importantly, here is a man who uses his apparently superhuman skills to correct strangers’ mistakes while traveling to the country in the dark, stumbling with a situation after a situation in which a little fair justice can protect a sick community . Jack Reacher is not just a fantasy of power: it is he Power Fantasy, an American riff on the unstoppable heroes of the old myth, a figure whose only concern is to do the right thing, even when doing the right thing implies a dozen broken arms and broke the neck or two.

The author Lee Child understood Jack Reacher’s powerful base appeal when he created it almost 30 years ago. And when the “scope” of Prime Video debuted, it was clear that the character was in the hands of a team of writers and filmmakers who understood that attraction. However, the second season of the program was a regression, a surprising step back in quality that was as disconcerting as disappointing.

Then, the third season of “Reacher” comes with something to demonstrate. You need to be as good as the first season. You need to ignore the sins of the second season. You must demonstrate that, like your main character, this series can absorb punishment and rise again. Fortunately, the new season is not just a recovery: it is a high water brand for the series so far: a violent, hilarious and strangely charming show of muscle and sand and sardonic comedy. It is also sexy. “Reacher” not only returns, he’s back with revenge.

Based on “persuader”, the seventh (and best) novel of the series, season 3 finds Reacher (Alan Ritchson) caught in an elegant Maine mansion owned by a dangerous businessman (Anthony Michael Hall) with murky motivations and motivations A small army of armed guard. But everything that does not seem (of course), and it is quickly clear that Reacher is not caught in the mansion as much as those poor silly with arms and necks that can break with him. The way Reacher gets into this situation and how the navigate is the material of the spoilers (the first episode maintains the star initial turn of the book), but it is like seeing the “jaws” shark release in a pool full of bad Types that have it to come. Let’s say that someone in the past harmed Reacher, now is close, and the people who are wrong cannot live much.

“Reacher” has known of Frame One that Star Ritchson is the type of presence on the screen that builds a complete show, and season 3 doubles. Bulled with impossible muscles and constantly showing an equally impossible intelligence, the scope is arrogant and slightly unpleasant and inexpressive, an immovable object in human form that does not see the need to change because no one has been more correct about anything than at a given time. Reacher is a titanic character, and one who requires a titanic actor to give him its due. And if he is erasing the unpleasant peoples with their naked hands, facing a villain who somehow makes him look small (Olivier Richters, understanding the task) or offering a hard love to a child aimless desperately for love, to the same Time that belittles the flavors of ice cream hipster, Ritchson fills the screen as a kind of modern American Hercules. It is sure to say that it is impossible to imagine someone else on paper.

If part of Jack Reacher’s appeal is that he cannot and will never change, it depends on the cast of support to transform around him, since he fundamentally changes the shape of his world simply existing. While there are many villains without remeorses waiting for her skulls for Reacher throughout the season, Anthony Michael Hall offers surprising patetism as the least bad of the group, a doofus who is in her head and does not know how to love her son. It is the type of paper that could have been called, but Hall brings true tones of humanity to Reacher’s opposition, giving our protagonist a real reason to move a little more cautiously in his search to break each neck that is in its form . Johnny Berchtold, as a son mentioned above, provides a wonderful reacher sheet, especially when Reacher himself begins to be interested in this idiot without a spine.

However, the true secret weapon of the season is Sonya Cassidy as Duffy, an agent of the DEA whose own personal revenge is intertwined with Reacher’s. Completely little impressed by the muscular vagabond that is forced to bring to his mission, his meaningless attitude and his Boston accent that fills the room provide the perfect counterweight for the laconic energy of Ritchson. He is the time pump, but she is a machine gun. She doesn’t like it until she does not, and is the type of fiber dynamics that keeps a character as stoic as fresh reach. Future allies in future seasons can and should use Cassidy’s performance as a guide light.

As an action show, “Reacher” returns to the most contained and visceral personal violence that made season 1 feel so brutally alive. The unworthy 2 season 2 storage of season 2 have gone largely, and the program wisely builds its action around the simple pleasure of seeing someone as strong as Alan Ritchson has a crash and made its way through an entire cast of bad. Like the original novels, the attractiveness of basic action of the program is reduced to “What happens if we organize the most ridiculous violence but we treat it as if we were shooting something realistic and tactical?” The result is like seeing Michael Mann try to film the “Command” of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I seriously say it as a compliment.

There is a vertigo in the new season of “Reacher” that is addictive. Because this is a hero that exists so powerfully outside the rule of law, and whose motivations are so simple and whose mission is one of that pure justice, allow us, even encouraged, to shout and shout during each ridiculous crescendo of action. And even when he is not in a spree of killing, the range of Ritchson is still a remarkable visual effect: see begin. This is a show that made its protagonist in the form of a brick wall climb a house for our pleasure.

I heard “Reacher” described as a “dad show”, very similar to how I have heard Lee Child’s novels farewells as “airport readings.” But that ignores the amount of crafts and skills necessary to create pure entertainment, and how much talent is required to allow us to lose totally and completely in something built to offer a good pure moment. When it comes to television that exists to activate the pleasure sensors of the brain, you simply cannot find a better option than “reacher”. Of course, he tripped the last time, but Oh man. If only all the returns were so sweet.

/Film rating: 8.5 of 10

Season 3 of “Reacher” begins to be transmitted in a privileged video on February 20, 2025.