REVIEW: Reacher – Season 2, Episode 1, “ATM”

Television Reviews

As Christmas approaches and 2023 winds down, Amazon gave us a stocking stuffer to end a mostly disappointing entertainment year on a high note: season 2 of Reacher, or at least the beginning of it. Based on Lee Child’s series of mystery novels, Reacher follows the exploits of Jack Reacher, a former military police officer who wanders the country and inevitably gets wrapped up in criminal conspiracies, helping people in need along the way. The first season was a fun and engrossing thriller with plenty of satisfying bad guy beatdowns dealt out by the hulking title character, played with charm, resolve, and a hint of fatalism at the inevitability of his return to action by Alan Ritchson. Season 2 kicks off with “ATM,” a well-constructed premiere that reacquaints you with Reacher and his world while setting up the season’s plot.

When a dead body found in the Catskills is identified as Calvin Franz, a member of his old Special Investigators squad, Jack Reacher heads to New York and links up with another old teammate to find the killer. As he investigates the murder, Reacher realizes that more of his old friends may be in danger. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger with a series of aliases enters the United States.

“ATM” begins with the scene from the trailers, where Reacher, after attempting to buy new clothes in a thrift shop while preparing to leave town, encounters a woman at a cash machine who’s being extorted by a gunman holding her son hostage. He handles the situation in typical Jack Reacher fashion: quickly, violently, and satisfyingly, before leaving the scene, content that the innocent will be okay. It’s the perfect way to reintroduce him to the audience, sort of like the pre-title sequence of a James Bond movie; it reminds you that Reacher is a wanderer, that he has a knack for stumbling upon people in trouble, that he helps them without hesitation, that he’d rather not deal with the police, and that he’s a physical force of nature, demolishing a criminal who must have seemed nearly godlike to that poor woman and her child. It’s an effective setup that grabs your attention for the rest of the episode, and the season.

*SPOILERS*

Setup is the thrust of “ATM,” with the story and main characters introduced throughout the episode. After Franz’s body falls from the helicopter and Reacher reminds us of who he is and what he’s about, we meet Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), another member of Reacher’s old squad and who I assume is his main sidekick this year. Neagley is great, and she has an instant camaraderie with Reacher that the actors communicate with things like well-timed smiles and familiar tones when discussing each other’s proclivities. When they team up in the field, they operate like a machine, each knowing their role with little prompting from the other. When a third teammate, David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos), shows up, he fits right in, too, but in his own way, slightly more abrasive than Neagley, but in the way friends needle each other. It’s excellent, economical writing backed up by good actors.

The rest of the dynamic between old friends is established by flashbacks that show how Reacher formed his team. These not only demonstrate how the team became close-knit but also how Reacher brought them together. But the real point of the flashbacks is to show Reacher’s regret in the present. When he began his new phase as an itinerant drifter, he lost touch with the people closest to him. In the first season, he found his brother’s dead body, and now, he’s got a new reminder of those he once knew and left behind. He’s surprised to find out who’s married, who has children, who died, who has a lucrative career, and other natural life developments. The flashbacks give us a glimpse of everything Reacher gave up to be a loner, and it humanizes an almost superhuman figure in the best way: through character, as opposed to physicality. We don’t need to see Reacher suddenly become physically weak, but we do need to see him bleed from his soul, and this is how good writing accomplishes that.

Reacher’s detachment is demonstrated in the present as well. When he and Neagley visit Franz’s widow, Neagley sits beside Franz’s son and tells him a story about his father to comfort him. But Reacher hangs back, not talking to the boy or Franz’s wife in human terms, disconnected from them because he was disconnected from Franz and the rest of his team. As Neagley tells the boy about his father, Reacher is reminded of the man he abandoned, and he wants to leave. Similarly, in their first scene together, Neagley tells Reacher that another of their teammates died some time ago. When Reacher asks why she didn’t tell him, she asks if he would have come to the funeral, and he admits he probably wouldn’t have, preferring to bury his past. It took not just death but a murder – a death requiring justice – for Reacher to reconnect, and his realization that someone is targeting the whole team is what will keep him in their lives. Reacher is oblivious to the needs of those seeking a human connection, but he knows how to help those in physical danger.

But Reacher is still Reacher, and “ATM” has a lot of fun with him. How does he get himself a weapon and a vehicle while in New York City? He finds the most dangerous drug dealers around, beats them into pudding, takes their gun and car, and gives their drug money to the local church. It’s a cool and satisfying sequence that gives us a fight scene while providing Reacher with a nice character moment and a great line as he leaves the priest to pay the dealer a visit. The flashbacks reveal how Reacher brought his bickering team together: by maneuvering them into a bar fight with an Army unit. Again, it’s satisfying to watch them dish out some punishment to a group of priggish rule sticklers – especially when Reacher throws their loudmouth leader out the bar window – but it also demonstrates Reacher’s leadership skills and that he can understand people if he wants to, which makes his separation from his team even more tragic.

“ATM” sets up other aspects of the season’s story as well. Reacher and Neagley are being followed by someone who reports to Robert Patrick, and I love that – barring a big twist – they’re not bothering to hide that Patrick is the villain. (There’s also a great meta joke in Patrick’s sole scene that I won’t ruin here.) And a dangerous man flies into the US from England, adopting and dropping his British accent as needed; he also drops the guys from whom he buys a fake ID with a flick of his wrist and a blade in his hand. Who he is and how he figures into the plot are a mystery, but he’s clearly bad news, and Reacher’s going to have to settle his hash at some point. “ATM” is a great start to what will hopefully be a terrific season.