Our favorite nomadic good Samaritan is back as the third season of Amazon Prime’s hit thriller, Reacher, has released with a three-episode premiere—setting the titular hero on a new journey as he prepares to settle past scores. Much like the previous two seasons, Reacher’s latest misadventure is also personal in nature, as we find him in pursuit of an old enemy from his military police days when he gets himself entangled in an ongoing investigation. Season 3 is an adaptation of Lee Child’s “Persuader,” the seventh novel in the Reacher series—a brilliant admixture of suspense, drama, and action. Judging by the premiere, it seems Reacher has returned to familiar lone wolf territory, but at the same time, given the nature of his current mission, it is hinted that the big guy will find himself out of element as well. Overall, the early signs are promising, and Reacher fans can expect the woes of last season will be addressed this time around.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Reacher Join Hands With Agent Susan Duffy?
Chronologically speaking, the events of the third season open with Reacher in Boston, spotting Lieutenant General Xavier Quinn—a crooked vet/fixer who sold military intelligence to hostile foreign powers. Reacher held a grudge against this particular guy as in the past, Quinn had hurt his Military Police colleagues who got in his way, and someone close to Reacher named Dominique Kohl received the worst treatment of them all, severe enough to even make Reacher, out of all people, nervous while remembering the details. Seeing Quinn after all these years, Reacher feels like he’s seeing a ghost—but before he can react, Quinn enters a car and zooms out of sight.
Spotting Quinn’s car, Reacher calls his 110th Military Police unit and asks investigative officer Powell to run the number plates through the system. Finding a dead end, Powell promises to get back to him—and soon enough, Reacher is approached by three DEA agents, Susan Duffy, with Guillermo Villanueva and Steven Elliot accompanying her. As it turns out, the federal agents were already tracking the same number plate, which belongs to a Maine-based wealthy rug exporter named Zachary Beck, whom they suspect to be secretly in cahoots with drug dealers and using his business as a front to bring in contraband into the country. Now, due to a loophole in the law, the first attempt made by the DEA agents to bring evidence against Beck ended in failure, resulting in them getting pulled off the case. However, Duffy had sent an undercover informant named Teresa Williams to infiltrate Beck’s mansion, and she has been missing ever since, which is why she is still willing to proceed with the case, even if it is off the record. She asks Reacher about whom he saw in the car, and in exchange for the intel, Reacher asks for a decade-old hospital record of a very specific individual. As Duffy and co. return with the intel, Reacher is able to confirm that Quinn, who was supposedly killed after a violent encounter with him, had completely recovered—although he probably suffers from bouts of amnesia. Duffy offers to help Reacher to get to Quinn if he manages to get into Beck’s circle of trust and get details/rescue the missing informant. Reacher sympathizes with Duffy’s concern for Teresa, and knowing that he can benefit from this partnership, he agrees to join hands.
How Did Reacher Become a Part of Beck’s Security Detail?
Apparently, five years ago, Beck’s son, Richard, was kidnapped, and being involved with the wrong crowd, Beck didn’t go to the authorities, even after his son was brutally tortured by his abductors. This provides Duffy and Reacher the opportunity to hatch a plan to stage a fake kidnapping in Abbotsville, Maine, where Richard goes to college. Elliot and Villanueva take part as abductor and tailing cop, both of whom are ‘shot dead’ by Reacher as he rescues Richard. Unable to go to the authorities as Reacher has accidentally ‘killed’ a cop, Richard implores him to accompany him to his father’s stately coastal mansion to ensure his own safety—and in exchange, promises to provide him with what he needs to get a clean slate.
Before meeting Beck, Reacher is greeted by his hulking bodyguard, Paulie, and head of security, Chapman Duke – both of whom appear hostile towards him. Beck meets Reacher and runs a background check on him, and in exchange for getting him a clean slate, coerces him to work for him. This was part of the plan as well, as DEA agents had abducted Richard’s driver/bodyguard and faked his death to force Beck into a situation where he had to recruit Reacher. Also, having Reacher present in his residence, Beck was not going to let him go anyway. Reacher proves his mettle through a game of Russian roulette, and just like that, he has infiltrated Beck’s circle of trust.
Did Reacher Find Out Anything About Drug Shipments or Teresa?
Reacher begins his search for Teresa and suspects her to be held captive in a cellar room in the garage area of Beck’s mansion. Even though he finds evidence that suggests Teresa was held captive at the place, there is no sign of her at present—which implies she has been transferred somewhere else. Reacher remains in touch with Duffy by using a satellite phone he had snuck in in his boot.
Duke summons Reacher and sends him with Angel, another of Beck’s lackeys, to identify the vehicle of the abductor from the local police station impound. Fearing Angel might catch the ruse of the fake abduction after spotting the state of Richard’s car, Reacher calls Duffy and warns her beforehand, although she fails to arrange the means to salvage the situation. Angel is somewhat convinced after Reacher manages to reason with him. While having a conversation with Angel, Reacher learns that Beck is merely a pawn in the entire ‘rug business’ operation, and there is someone else who calls the shots.
The next day, Reacher is sent to Connecticut to deliver Beck’s shipment, and he decides to run a background check on Beck’s guys by calling Neagley. While delivering the shipment, Reacher informs Duffy about it, who brings his cop friend Rich and his sniffer dog to thoroughly examine the contents of the shipment but finds no trace of Teresa or drugs. As Reacher returns to Beck’s warehouse in Maine, Angel appears extremely suspicious of him after going through his navigation route and finding other discrepancies. Angel deduces Reacher to be working for the cops and threatens to expose him, and having no other option to maintain his cover, Reacher kills him. Later on, Reacher asks Duffy to arrange the means for him to take care of the situation in the warehouse and, once again, to search for Teresa. Duffy decides to accompany Reacher as he sneaks out of the mansion at night.
Once again, Reacher and Duffy are unable to find a trace of any drugs or Teresa even at the warehouse; instead, they end up facing off against a couple of Beck’s shipment crew, and Reacher has to kill them as well to maintain his cover. Sneaking and infiltration was never this guy’s strongest suit, and this shows. Anyway, hiding the corpses of Angel and the shipment crew inside freight containers, Reacher and Daffy leave, and the DEA agent takes Angel’s laptop along with her to pry out intel from it.
Who Is Julius McCabe?
Neagley informs Reacher about the shady past of the members of Beck’s crew, all of whom were former members of the armed forces. She wants Reacher to join the investigation, but Reacher straight-up rejects the idea. It seems the connection with Quinn entangles some pretty troubling revelations, which has made Reacher act extra cautiously and left him unwilling to let people close to him, like Neagley, get involved. Also, Reacher befriends a French maid in Beck’s mansion—who might or might not be who she is pretending to be.
Beck starts finding discrepancies with Reacher’s statements about the abduction incident, but for the time being he ignores it as more shipments are coming through the docks, and Beck appears more anxious and panicked than ever to ensure things go smoothly. Reacher realizes that in order to have Beck fully trust him, he needs to replace Duke and hatches a plan with Duffy by asking her to use Angel’s laptop to misdirect Beck and Duke. In the meantime, Reacher is assigned by Beck to take Richard to town. After saving Richard from his high school bullies and having a heart-to-heart with the kid, Reacher learns the identity of the mastermind behind the whole ‘rug business’ operation. A sadistic, vicious individual named Julius McCabe is running the entire show, who practically blackmailed Beck into letting him use his rug shipment connection as a front for whatever he is trying to export and circulate. In fact, McCabe had Richard kidnapped and tortured in the first place to force Beck into an inescapable situation, and since then, Richard and Beck have been living as prisoners in their own house.
Sending on false information about Richard’s abductors, Reacher takes Beck and Duke near a DEA safehouse and orchestrates a fake shootout. Before eliminating Duke, Reacher questions him about Teresa, but Duke appears way too afraid of McCabe to give away any intel. Destroying the safehouse by setting off an explosion, Reacher flees with Beck and convinces him that the attack was set up by Angel and the missing shipment crew, thereby completely covering his tracks and winning Beck’s trust at the same time.
Meanwhile, as Duffy and Villanueva watch over Beck’s shipments, they finally manage to get a look at this McCabe guy, who, unbeknownst to them, is none other than Xavier Quinn himself. Either after losing his memories or through a conscious decision, Quinn is living as the drug kingpin Julius McCabe and hasn’t given up his dastardly ways still as he has complete control over Beck’s family. It will be an interesting interaction between him and Reacher in the upcoming episodes, and I am interested in learning exactly what he did in the past to make even Reacher watch his steps while dealing with him.
