REVIEW: Reacher – Season 3, Episode 4, “Dominique”

Television Reviews

“Dominique” is one of those episodes that doesn’t do much to push the plot forward but fills in some essential background so the rest of the season can play out. In this case, we learn about Reacher’s nemesis, Quinn, specifically what he did to warrant an MP investigation and why Reacher hates him so much. While it does an admirable job of making the backstory fast and interesting (with some great lines from Reacher), “Dominique” has some of this season’s lesser attributes on display, and at this point, it doesn’t look like they’re going away.

While Beck thinks he’s on a dinner run, Reacher meets with Duffy and her team to compare notes. When she shows him a picture of Quinn, whom she believes is Julius McCabe, the shadowy mastermind behind Beck’s criminal enterprise, Reacher fills them in on his history with Quinn and why he’s so dangerous – particularly to Teresa Daniels, Duffy’s missing informant.

“Dominique” begins with what is effectively a recap of the ending of “Number 2 with a Bullet” as Reacher drives Beck away from the site of his staged destruction – and from Duke’s dead body, or whatever is left of it after the explosion. Beck immediately calls Julius McCabe to catch him up, and this is where the dopey stuff comes in again. As soon as he hangs up, Reacher asks Beck who he was talking to, once again being too obvious and asking too many questions. And, once again, Beck thinks nothing of it and gives Reacher an answer. This is becoming really annoying because it makes Reacher and Beck look stupid, Reacher for being the worst undercover agent in the history of infiltration and Beck for not noticing the obvious clues that he’s being played and giving Reacher the benefit of… I can’t even call it “doubt” at this point. Reacher has just made a huge gain in his investigation, and it never occurs to him to hang back a little and let him continue to gain Beck’s trust. Meanwhile, Beck gives the impression that he’d fall for one of those Nigerian prince email scams. It amazes me that the writers can do some things so well and this so poorly; it makes me wonder if it’s any better in Persuader, the book on which this season is based.

***SPOILERS***

The meat of “Dominique” is an extended flashback to Reacher’s MP days as he tells Duffy about Quinn. (This comes at the end of another of Dufffy’s grating “look how tough I am” moments where she shows zero appreciation for what Reacher – or anyone else – is doing for her.) Back in the day, Reacher was assigned a new assistant named Dominique Kohl (like the store), and her first case under Reacher was tailing a soldier suspected of treason. This eventually got them to Francis Xavier Quinn, a military intelligence officer using the soldier – whose daughter Quinn kidnapped just to show the poor guy what he was capable of – to sell military secrets to Syria. Throughout the investigation, Reacher took a liking to Quinn and, once they made an airtight case against Quinn, rewarded her by allowing her to take the bust for herself. The result was her torture and murder at Quinn’s hands, and Reacher’s execution of Quinn in revenge, or so he thought. Now, Quinn is alive and quite possibly the true identity of Julius McCabe, and Reacher still wants his pound of flesh for Dominique Kohl’s fate.

The lynchpin of “Dominique” is that we have to believe Reacher cares about Kohl, and their interactions in the flashback sell it. In Kohl, Reacher sees a recruit cut from the same cloth as him; Kohl is eager and dedicated, with a sharp mind built for their line of work, and she quickly makes an impression on him. I also appreciate that it never becomes romantic, with Reacher seeing Kohl as a protégé, someone he feels responsible for, almost like a little sister. This is important because Reacher later gives another MP advice on getting her to date him. (Line of the week: “But not roses. Every asshole brings roses.”) He’s looking out for her on all fronts because he cares about her, and he wants her to excel at work and be happy in her personal life. Their talk in the car while on a stakeout is revealing as well; she got into the service because of her father, and while Reacher “never thought about it,” he clearly did the same, whether he realized it or not. He’s so impressed with Kohl that he lets her and her would-be suitor take down Quinn, a mistake he’ll never forgive himself for making.

We learn a lot about Reacher in “Dominique.” He’s not exactly a team player these days, often keeping his partners in the dark as he charges head-first into whatever investigation he’s conducting, and that’s because when he handed the reins over to Kohl, he got her killed. He’d rather do things himself and accept the risk than allow someone else to die in his place. And while his conversation with his superior suggests he’s dealt out his own brand of justice before, Reacher seems particularly determined to kill Quinn when he realizes how much trouble Kohl is in. That’s how he views justice now: repaying evil people who prey on the innocent with death. He’s also presented with the possibility that Kohl was in on Quinn’s racket, which he proves to be a lie when he asks Quinn what her first name is. This puts his attitude in season 2 in perspective, when he refused to believe that an old team member of his was a traitor despite the evidence pointing towards it. Someone tried to convince him to doubt one of his people before, and he’s not having any part of it now.

“Dominique” also frames the Teresa Daniels subplot as being important to Reacher. After he tells Duffy his story, she tells him that she’s so determined to get Teresa back because she lied to her to get her to cooperate. Duffy fabricated legal trouble to extort Teresa into going undercover in Beck’s outfit, and now, the girl is missing and may be dead. Reacher’s background information on Quinn tells her exactly what she got Teresa into, and now, an innocent girl that she all but forced into helping her may be in for a torturous death. But aside from Duffy, Teresa is now Reacher’s second chance to save a girl from Quinn, a girl who was in over her head when someone who should’ve known better sent her after a monster. Saving Teresa is Reacher’s shot at redemption for getting Kohl killed and Duffy’s last chance to live without the guilt of having a death on her conscience. What was once just another wrinkle in the plot is now the driving force for Reacher as much as revenge is.

Another parallel to Reacher’s past with Quinn can be found in Beck. His counterpart is the soldier Quinn forced into helping him by kidnapping the man’s daughter. Beck is in the same situation, and he’s being forced to do some horrible things to keep Richard safe, something Reacher tries to make Richard understand without giving away the farm. To Richard, Beck looks like an absentee father, too involved with his crooked business to protect his son, just as Quinn’s agent seemed like a cold-blooded traitor to Reacher and Kohl. But the truth is much more complicated on both fronts: these are otherwise decent men forced into evil by Quinn, having to choose between becoming criminals or losing their children. “Dominique” goes a long way towards getting us to hate Quinn and rooting even harder for Reacher to make him pay for what he’s done to these people.

Once again, we’ve got a better picture of the season’s storyline, but we’re left with some questions. My big one is still whether or not Quinn is Julius McCabe. He’s certainly the most likely suspect right now, and it would make sense that he’d use a different name since everyone knows he’s a traitor and thinks he’s dead. And he’s still using the same tactics he used when Reacher first encountered him. But it seems a bit too neat, like Quinn is a red herring before the reveal of the ultimate mastermind. When Reacher found him after he killed Kohl, Quinn said there were other military bigwigs involved in his operation; he could have been trying to save himself, but what if he really did have co-conspirators? Maybe one of them is pulling the strings now, supplying Quinn with men and funding. To go along with that, what is Quinn moving through Beck’s infrastructure? Drugs or guns were the safe assumptions, but Quinn has a history of selling secrets; maybe it’s something else entirely, like military technology. And why is Quinn – or whoever has her – keeping Teresa alive? Surely, she can’t be withstanding torture better than Kohl did, so there must be something else. I’m looking forward to finding out as season 3 continues.

Let us know what you thought of “Dominique” in the comments!

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