‘Reacher’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: “A Picture Says A Thousand Words”

Everybody knows Reacher can stomp, and we always love to see it. But what’s going on inside the big lug’s head? In Lee Child’s books — which we won’t dwell on because our concern is television and not stoking comment field arguments on Goodreads — Reacher is not only a one man army but also his own narrator. Some of them are even written in the first person. He establishes the code by which he lives, it informs his actions, and his emotions, such as they are, exist in the margins between his latest scrape and the call of a train whistle on the horizon. That internal dynamic is difficult to realize on the small screen without including a Reacher voiceover or stopping the action every five minutes to spout a bunch of expository boilerplate. Which is exactly why Bad Luck and Trouble was the right book to adapt for Reacher Season 2. Suddenly, our gigantic loner hero is surrounded by people he trusts. People he’s comfortable sharing his inner life with, while we listen in. People who are neither targets nor sure to be left behind once the job is through and it’s time to wander. People like Neagley, Dixon, and even O’Donnell.

“He keeps everyone at a distance except for you,” Dixon tells Neagley in Episode of Reacher Season 2. Back then, though everybody in the 110th could see them vibing, Dixon says she wrote off anything ever occurring because of Reacher’s built-in reticence. Until now, and their overnight together in Atlantic City. But Neagley says that distance is part of the trust she shares with her friend and former CO. “I know days, months, even years can go by, and Reacher will be there when I need him. No questions asked.” 

Someone who is asking questions is Robert Patrick’s Shane Langston. It turns out he’s an executive at New Age Technlogies, and in a flashback we learn how he led the torture and eventual midair murder of Calvin Franz, who wouldn’t give up what he’d discovered about Langston’s nefarious activities. Franz, beat up and strapped to a gurney at 3,000 feet, knows his time is up. But he just laughs ruefully as Langston and his flunkies prepare to toss him from the chopper. “I was just thinking about what the big guy’s gonna do to you.” If you fuck with Reacher’s friends, he’s gonna fuck with you. No questions asked.

The group’s return from Atlantic City did not go unnoticed by Guy Russo, the NYPD detective Reacher put the hurt on, and he soon has them pulled over. “Hands on the roof, Paul Bunyan” – Domenick Lombardozzi is always great in salty East Coaster roles – but while a few more barbs are exchanged, it soon becomes clear that Reacher’s quiet observation of Russo’s words and actions has proven the detective worthy of his cooperation. The NYPD has a suspect in Franz’s death, “Azhari Mahmoud,” which Reacher and O’Donnell recognize as one of the many “A.M.” aliases they’ve uncovered. And Mahmoud, who’s on a Homeland Security watchlist for charges of terrorism and weapons trafficking, is also seen in a testy phone conversation with Langston. Whatever evil deal these two are cooking up – 650 of something, probably weapons – is directly connected to the murders of ex-110’ers Franz, Sanchez and Orozco, Swan’s MIA status, and the attempts on Dixon and Reacher’s lives in Atlantic City. 

Now it’s time for cowboy shit. Though Neagley and Dixon got the heave-ho from a PR flack at New Age, they were given an address connected to that recovered parking pass. This means trap, and the group rolls up to the house in Queens with a pipe bomb and the Glocks and Berettas Reacher secured from a pawn broker willing to have his palm greased. Kaboom!

Within seconds, Reacher, Dixon, Neagley, and O’Donnell take out all of the hired muscle waiting inside to jack them. Reacher even hurls a gas barbecue at one guy trying to flee the scene. And while Russo’s not happy about their unsanctioned vigilante shit, he does cover it up. He also pledges to get a search warrant for New Age, since one of the deceased hitters can again be connected to Langston’s company.     

But when has Reacher ever waited for official authorization? Russo seems like an ally, but the justice sought by Reacher and his group exists completely outside the law. And that’s why they don balaclavas and breach New Age the hard way by transforming an SUV into a battering ram.

With the building alarm blaring and two minutes before police respond, the team quickly scours the offices for hard drives, human resources info, notes on New Age’s operations – anything that might reveal why they’re being hunted, what secret stuff the company might be working on, or any connection to their murdered friends. But Reacher has to turn back before he runs to join the rest in their getaway vehicle. On a wall in the executive suite is your typical corporate photo. There is the woman that gave Neagley and Dixon the runaround; there is Shane Langston himself. But Reacher doesn’t know what those people look like. It’s someone else who caught his eye. 

“No fucking way,” Dixon says once they stop to assess their take. “Holy shit,” O’Donnell adds. “It’s Swan.” Front and center in the New Age photo is their friend and former colleague in the 110th, the guy whose dog died waiting for him to return home. “He was working at New Age,” Reacher tells his team. “With the people who are trying to kill us.”    

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.