Reacher Season 3 Book Revealed! Here’s Everything Else We Know About Casting, Release Date and More
The proverbial body is still warm on Reacher Season 2, and already we have fresh intel on what the Prime Video hit’s third season will bring us.
Courtesy of Prime Video
Season 2, which was based on Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th book in Lee Child’s series of Jack Reacher novels, followed the titular veteran military police investigator (played by Titans‘ Alan Ritchson) as he reunited with members of his old U.S. Army unit in the wake of the brutal murder of one of their own.
Hitting pause on his drifter lifestyle, Reacher investigated the killing with three of his former teammates: Frances Neagley (played by Season 1 returnee Maria Sten); Karla Dixon (Coroner‘s Serinda Swan), a forensic accountant for whom Reacher has long had a soft spot; and switchblade-wielding family man David O’Donnell (Outer Range‘s Shaun Sipos).
Now, series lead Alan Ritchson has revealed via Instagram which Lee Child novel the TV series’ third season is based on, which in turns hints at the roles that must have been quietly cast.
Here is everything we now know about Reacher Season 3…..
Which Book Is Season 3 Based On?
Reacher Season 1 was based on Killing Floor, Lee Child’s 1997 debut novel/first Jack Reacher tale, and had a Feb. 4, 2022 binge release. The second season, based on Bad Luck and Trouble — the 11th book in the Jack Reacher series — streamed Dec. 15, 2023 through Jan. 19, 2024.
Season 3, series star Alan Ritchson announced Jan. 24 on Instagram, will adapt Persuader, the seventh of Lee Child’s Reacher novels, set in Maine.
“Ten years ago, a key investigation went sour and someone got away with murder. Now a chance encounter brings it all back,” an Amazon synopsis for the book tells us. “Now Reacher sees his one last shot. Some would call it vengeance. Some would call it redemption. Reacher would call it… justice.”
Officially, though, Prime Video sums up Season 3 thusly: “Reacher must go undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past.”
“It’s going to be awesome,” showrunner Nick Santora told TVLine ahead of the source material’s reveal. “I think it might be my favorite story all three seasons.”
Said story will return the series to its “solo” Reacher format, whereas Season 2 reunited the hulking nomad with his team. As Santora told The Messenger, “We felt we needed a book that was more Reacher alone for the third season.”
What’s more, “We get to enjoy Reacher in a new world,” series lead Alan Ritchson told ComicBook.com. “It may not have anything to do with family, with his past, he’s just living that adventure out.”
Season 3 is also “crustier than ever,” Ritchson teased with the Instagram photo above.
Who Is Returning for Season 3?
Seeing as he appears in the video above, announcing the Season 3 renewal while on set in Toronto in December, we are going to safely “assume” that Alan Ritchson is back in the title role. (That was a joke, son.)
Prime Video has also confirmed that Maria Sten will again reprise her role as Frances Neagley.
But as with Season 2 — and in keeping with the lone wolf that author Lee Child created — there are likely to be few in any other returning characters from past seasons. (There’s always the chance for a singular cameo a la Season 2, Episode 4, of course.)
“The rules are that Reacher doesn’t run with a crew,” showrunner Nick Santora reminds. The other members of the 110th Special Investigators unit, featured heavily in Season 2, “are his family, his colleagues from the military, but he wanders the world alone. So, we know we can’t have Reacher with a rag tag team of people that go with him from city to city. That’s not the book.”
What Other Actors Have Been Cast in Season 3?
Season 3 has been filming since at least early December 2023, so someone is standing in front of the cameras alongside Alan Ritchson. Showrunner Nick Santora, though, isn’t revealing who just yet.
“I can’t give too much away,” he told TVLine, but akin to those he brought on board for Seasons 1 (Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Maria Sten) and 2 (Serinda Swan, Shaun Sipos, Domenick Lombardozzi), “there are actors I’ve worked with before that are so talented in this [third] season as well. I like to go back to the same well because if you know someone’s going to hit a home run, give them the bat.”
Characters from Lee Child’s Persuader novel that likely will be featured in Season 3 include Susan Duffy, a DEA agent with whom Reacher (of course) has a dalliance; suspected drug smuggler Zachary Beck; and Frances Xavier Quinn, a former Military Intelligence agent who years prior brutally offed a colleague of Reacher’s.
How Many Episodes Is Season 3?
Season 1 of the Prime Video hit spanned eight episodes, all of which dropped on Feb. 4, 2022.
The second season, which streamed Dec. 15, 2023 through Jan. 19, 2024, also spanned eight episodes.
Neither Prime Video nor showrunner Nick Santora have specified an episode count for Season 3, but we are going to go out on a limb and excluuuuuuusively predict “eight.”
When Is Season 3’s Release Date?
Hmm. Math. Where’s Dixon when you need her…?
Reacher Season 1 filmed for three months, then was released seven months later.
Reacher Season 2 filmed for about five months, then was released 10 months later.
We’re going to split the difference and pencil in a four-month shoot, and predict another December premiere date à la Season 2. But that is 100% unabashed spitballing, folks. Thus far, Prime Video (like Reacher often in the novels) says nothing.
