Reacher author Lee Child explained the important role that Maria Sten’s Frances Neagley plays and addresses adapting novels out of order.

Article Summary

Lee Child discusses Frances Neagley’s expanded role in Reacher S03.
Adapting Lee Child’s novels out of order fits the series narrative.
New characters join Alan Ritchson for the upcoming season of Reacher.

For a season still in the midst of production, we’ve learned quite a bit about the third season of Prime Video and writer & showrunner Nick Santora‘s Alan Ritchson-starring Reacher – including the news that Maria Sten‘s Frances Neagley would be joining Jack for his third go-around.

While the character has much more of a supporting role in Lee Child‘s literary universe, the bestselling author explains why Neagley has a much more substantial role in the live-action series universe.

“Neagley was a strategic decision. The one thing you cannot do on screen that you can in a book is have the inside of somebody’s head. Reacher thinks a lot, and there are pages and pages of Reacher puzzling things out.

You can’t write an eight-minute scene with Alan Ritchson sitting there, thinking. So we needed a secondary character to bolster the exposition,” Child explained during an interview with Empire Magazine.

As for the series jumping around when it comes to the novels that it’s choosing for its season’s inspiration, Child explains that it makes perfect sense – and fits with the story they’re trying to tell on the small screen.

“There was no reason to do them in order. We had massive discussions about it. The thinking went like this: ‘Killing Floor’ introduces Reacher as a person. So, which book shows his professional life and what he did while he was in the Army? The result was ‘Bad Luck And Trouble,'” the author added.
Image: Prime Video
Reacher Season 3: A Look Ahead…

Back in January 2024, we learned that the third season would be tackling Lee Child‘s seventh novel, 2003’s Persuader, with Reacher going undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past.

In February, we learned that Anthony Michael Hall (Bosch: Legacy) & Sonya Cassidy (The Man Who Fell to Earth) are joining Ritchson and the returning Maria Sten (Frances Neagley) during the currently-in-production season. Hall’s Zachary Beck is a formidable & successful businessman  – and a widow and single father of a 20-year-old son, Richard – who owns a rug import company that Reacher believes is a cover for some shady dealings.

Cassidy’s Susan Duffy is an extremely intelligent and tough DEA agent from Boston with a sharp and sarcastic sense of humor. Though not looking to make any spoiler headlines, Santora did have a few things to share about the series that he would like to see run for “at least four years” with The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview:

Image: Instagram Screencaps
Santora on the Decision-Making Process in Selecting a Season’s Book: “It’s always a group decision. The studio has a lot of thoughts and ideas on it, as does Amazon, as they should because they know what they are doing. Alan will always have thoughts as well, because Alan is a really smart guy, and he has certain stories that are his favorites.

And I also discussed it a lot with my writing team. They are great writers, and we all have instincts, for lack of a better word, as to which books might lend themselves to the screen a little bit better than others. And then we all collectively come to a decision, and then we all hope for the best!”

Santora on Maintaining Jack Reacher’s “Loner” Spirit in Season 3: “What I can say is the spirit of Reacher is that he is a loner and a drifting hobo, to use Reacher’s terminology. So, Reacher is never going to have a band of merry folks that travel along with him and help him solve crimes and have adventures.

The DNA of Reacher is that he moves about on his own and teams up with good people when there’s bad lurking about, and then he says goodbye to those people and goes on his way. And that’s what we’re always trying to stay true to.”