Reacher: What do we expect from season 3? Book and theories
Now that the second season of Reacher has concluded on Prime Video, the first information and speculations about the new episodes are already arriving. Let’s take stock.
Once a Reacher dies, another one happens. Don’t be scared, Jack Reacher, especially in his latest and most successful television incarnation in Alan Ritchson’s body on Prime Video, is alive and well.
But each season is as if it were reborn given the basic narrative trick that comes from Lee Child’s novels from which the franchise was born. That is, Jack Reacher is the nomadic (anti)hero par excellence, who only has a toothbrush with him and otherwise travels alone, each time encountering a different case, a conspiracy and a group of people.
The second season proved to be more choral (and successful) than the first (as said in our review) but in the third season – already ordered – it seems we will go in another direction. This is because Lee Child, executive producer of the series, revealed that they chose The Intended Victim (originally Persuader) as the book from which to draw the third season.
Published in 2004, it is the seventh thriller novel in the saga dedicated to Jack Reacher, the former US military police officer. After the first book Zona Pericolosa (Killing Floor) and the eleventh Cold Vengeance (Bad Luck and Trouble), which inspired the first and second seasons respectively, here comes the one that will inspire the third cycle of episodes.
The plot of the novel
But what is the book chosen for the third season of Reacher about? The latter is hired by a group of DEA agents (the US anti-drug agency) without authorization to try to frame Zachary Beck, a rich man and suspected trafficker.
Not the only suspect, together with him also Quinn, a ruthless man and an old acquaintance of the protagonist, who lost two colleagues because of him.
Reacher is then forced to participate in the raid and go undercover. This time he will therefore also have to act (we mean the character) because they will have to simulate the kidnapping of his son Richard in order to get to his father without arousing suspicion.
At that point – spoiler – he will discover that it is not drug trafficking but weapons trafficking, with Quinn leading the coordination of the operation, under the guise of an exotic carpet company.
The objectives of the new episodes
Apparently, as stated by Lee Child to The Messenger, in the new episodes the authors’ goal is to have Reacher travel alone again, as in the character’s original character, without the team spirit that characterized the second cycle and without having need for collaborators as in the inaugural one.
The novel was also chosen with a view to starting the season with a breathtaking opening sequence, and the story lent itself well to it.As well as focusing the attention of the narrative again on Child’s literary hero and not following the chronological order of the original novels but mixing the cards on the table – “We were very creative about it” declared the writer, referring to the creator Nick Santora and the team of screenwriters in the project’s writers room.
The next novel in the saga, to be released in 2024, will be the 29th, to make clear the considerable source material available from which to select the paper counterparts.
When will we see the third season and who will be in the cast?
Production of the new episodes has already begun thanks to the renewal that anticipated the arrival of the second season. So it is reasonable to expect a release on Prime Video between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 but it will probably be easier to see them in the first half of 2025.
We will also discover another piece of the protagonist’s past: after the mystery about the death of his brother revealed in the inaugural cycle (together to the local conspiracy that tried to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit) and his military life together with the Special Investigation Unit of the 110th MP in the second season (along with the conspiracy at the highest levels of the US government), it will fall to the mysterious Quinn, another person who inevitably marked Jack’s existence and who once again has consequences on the present.
At the end of this second chapter the characters’ paths have separated again, as we saw in the season finale, and this will allow Mr. Reacher – oops, we just wanted to say Reacher – to return to focus on himself with an independent story.
And he should continue a tradition started in the TV series, namely that of treating victims of abuse and domestic violence in every year, obviously defended by Jack himself, who must always seem invincible.
Since Reacher will go undercover, we will certainly see Francis Neagley (Maria Sten) once again acting as the glue between the seasons together with the titular character. For now there is press silence on the other names of the cast and characters, but it will be highly unlikely to see Dixon and O’Donnell again.
Who knows, however, they might not be nominated, as already happened with Roscoe and Finlay, who also appeared in a cameo in season 2. Meanwhile, Alan Ritchson is on set having a lot of fun in the body of the character who now dresses perfectly.
