Reacher Season 2 Review: Prime Video's Action Series Is Better, Bloodier, and Bolder Than Ever

As the second season of Amazon Prime Video's Reacher series kicks off, the titular, hulking hero is more than two years removed from the events of the first season, where Reacher (Alan Ritchson) helped rid the small town of Margrave of its corrupt influences, leaving more than a few bodies and broken bones in his wake. At the end of that season, Reacher stuck out his thumb to hitch a ride out of Margrave, cementing his legacy as a wanderer and setting up the show to follow a different storyline with each new season.

This season — which adapts Lee Child's book Bad Luck and Trouble — finds Reacher in New York after he gets an emergency coded message letting him know that one of the members of his former elite Army Special Investigators group has been murdered. The former friend has been tortured and tossed out of a helicopter in the middle of nowhere, and it's up to Reacher to get the old cohort back together to find out who's behind the murder. As more members of the crew wind up dead, the season builds an urgency that perfectly complements Ritchson's electric, fierce performance.

If the action of the first season is what drew you to the show in the first place, you won't be disappointed with what the second season has to offer. As Reacher starts to investigate every nook and cranny of the tri-state area, he spares no one who gets in his way. Showrunner Nick Santora has a very real understanding of what makes this show tick, which quite simply boils down to Alan Ritchson's physical presence. The man is a freight train that can't be stopped, a video game hero come to life, and Santora knows that giving Ritchson plenty of room to smash bad guys in a variety of bone-crushing ways is the easiest way to make this show compelling.

7.8

Reacher

at Prime Video

Like

• Ritchson's physicality is the main draw
• More compelling storyline than the first season
• Great action sequences

Dislike

• Eight episodes with Reacher aren't enough

Luckily, this second season boasts more than just beautifully over-the-top action sequences. The first season of Reacher had its moments of brilliance, especially in establishing the character of Reacher and how he operates as a superhuman force in this world, but the main story was so dull, so lacking in any intrigue or stakes, that any time Reacher wasn't knocking out a bad guy the episode's momentum would screech to a halt. Add in a lackluster romance and some seriously bland villains and you had a crime drama with no real drama.

This season feels different. The stakes are higher because of the personal nature of the crime, but also it seems that Santora and company have decided to up the ante on the show's genre attributes. Where the first season was more grounded in some sense of reality, this season feels like a genre playground, where Reacher operates like a flawless, unstoppable deity and the show is allowed to be as gratuitous, goofy, and bloody as it needs to be. At one point Reacher breaks a bad guy's arm simply by headbutting it; the sound design and the visual are so visceral, and that's exactly the tone of this second season. The second season of Reacher is confident and assured in a way that's rare for genre shows these days. Where many similar shows feel the need to tap into a more prestige TV-like seriousness, Reacher is a lot like its titular character in that it's happy to chug along with a smile on its face, stacking up bodies and refusing to apologize for its brutal, bruising nature.

Premieres: First three episodes premiere Friday, Dec. 15 on Amazon Prime Video, followed by new episodes weekly
Who's in it: Alan Ritchson, Maria Sten, Serinda Swan, Shaun Sipos
Who's behind it: Nick Santora (developed by)
For fans of: Banshee, Jack Ryan
How many episodes we watched: 6 of 8