Reacher Season-Premiere Recap: No Small Ask

by

As a film enthusiast, I must admit that the extended opening scene of “Persuader,” the premier of Reacher‘s third season, seems somewhat out of tune. The picturesque setting is Abbottsville, Minnesota, a town with an air of charm that feels almost too good to be real. Even Havenhurst University, the supposed liberal-arts heart of the town, appears to exist only in our collective imagination.

Interestingly, a genuine band, the Smithereens, did release “Blood and Roses” in 1986. However, its playing inside an establishment called the Vinyl Vault, where Jack Reacher has just walked in with a stack of LPs, seems rather unusual, as if this town’s music tastes lean towards the nostalgic.

Isn’t it surprising to find Reacher, known for his minimalist lifestyle with only a passport, toothbrush, and the essentials he carries on his Mt. Rushmore-like frame, selling vinyl records? It seems incongruous that a man who cherishes mobility and self-reliance above all else in his wandering existence would opt for the bulkiest, priciest, most fragile, least portable format of music storage.

There’s a story reason for this, and then there’s the real reason: Reacher is a show for dads.

In an unexpected twist reminiscent of “High Fidelity,” a man, decked out in an MC5 shirt and known for his visits to the Vinyl Vault, queries Reacher about whether “Surfin’ Safari” can truly be considered the greatest song penned on the topic of water.

As a film enthusiast, I find myself drawn to the finer details, and there’s no better place for an old-school discussion than in a quaint college town record store. “Surfin’ Safari,” they say, is just a rehashing of Chuck Berry’s ‘Sweet Little Sixteen.’ That fact alone, for me, invalidates it on principle. It’s intriguing how much I admire Berry, a lone wolf who preferred to assemble local bands in each town rather than traveling with his own group, and who always demanded cash payment.

The owner of Vinyl Vault quickly retrieves “The Ethel Merman Disco Album” from Reacher’s box, as chaos is about to erupt.

Outside, a child slips into the rear compartment of an extravagant sedan as it’s deliberately rammed by a pickup truck. The young driver of the pickup swiftly removes the kid from the sedan, tossing a flash grenade inside and then forcibly placing the child in his truck’s cab. Reacher, who wielded a revolver that would seem comically oversized to most people but not him, shoots the potential kidnapper behind the wheel of the pickup. He rescues the kid, reassuring him, “I won’t hurt you!” Then, he turns and fires instinctively, striking a rotund man directly in the chest. The man, either dead or about to expire, opens his hand to reveal… a police badge.

Killing cops sits uneasily on Reacher, just as much as a vinyl suit doesn’t fit him well. “I didn’t realize!” he claims. Yet, his sense of alarm seems insincere.

To us onlookers, but not to the child, who Reacher swiftly places in his vehicle and speeds away. Upon observing a disfiguring scar in the location of the child’s left ear, Reacher inquires, “Why is it that someone is attempting to abduct you?

Reacher parks in a parking lot, leaving behind the damaged van, possibly linked to the murder of a police officer. As he prepares to steal another vehicle, a boy, named Richard Beck (portrayed by Johnny Berchtold), pleads with him not to abandon him. Since Reacher has become a cop-killer, he refuses to involve the authorities. Instead, Richard asks the towering man for a ride home, assuring him that his father has resources to help Reacher escape this predicament. “He’ll appreciate that you saved me from being kidnapped again,” the boy clarifies. Previously, five years ago, his captors had sent his father one of his ears before receiving payment.

Reacher finds it hard to believe that Richard has been the target of two separate incidents. He’s skeptical about Richard’s story that his father is a “long-time rug dealer” who boasts “ancestral riches,” yet he finds himself at an impasse. He concurs with this notion.

Richard’s home is a grand brick mansion by the sea, enclosed by a fence with a guardhouse. A towering guard, who dwarfs Reacher due to his six-foot-five stature, orders him out of his stolen vehicle. This introduction presents Paulie, portrayed by the tall Dutchman Olivier Richters, who at an impressive 7 feet 2 inches and weighing 330 pounds, holds the record in the Guinness World Records book as the world’s tallest professional bodybuilder. Soon enough, we’ll witness a confrontation between Alan Ritchson and Oliver Richters, if I’m not mistaken, that would translate to “Alan Ritchson” in Flemish.

Inside, Reacher encounters Duke (Donald Sales), the chief security for the Beck family, who directs him upstairs to meet Zachary Beck, Richard’s father. Zachary Beck, a rug merchant, boasts an office adorned with numerous gun displays showcasing several generations of weaponry. Anthony Michael Hall portrays Zachary Beck, a stark contrast from his youthful days when he asked Molly Ringwald for her underwear in “Sixteen Candles”. The years have left their mark on his face. Reacher declines the glass of 50-year-old Macallan whisky offered by Beck but honestly responds to Beck’s questions: He is a former Army soldier, has no permanent residence, and trouble seems to tag along wherever he goes.

As a die-hard film fan, I find myself in a pinch – I urgently require a covert hideout for a few days, followed by some dough to craft a new identity, fresh as a daisy.

Beck responds, “That’s quite a demand.” Later, Reacher conspicuously leaves his large size XXXL fingerprints on the whiskey glass he had earlier declined. Beck clarifies, “All we want is for you to reveal your identity to us.

“I’m the guy who saved your son’s other ear,” Reacher tells him.

In the 2003 novel “Persuader,” as adapted for the TV series “Reacher,” Reacher visits Richard, who shares that in the original story, his mother had passed away when he was four. However, in this version, she’s alive but not a significant character, having suffered from Paulie’s sexual assault. This omission is appreciated. Richard is creating a picture of the view outside his window, excluding the guardhouse. The boy then asks Reacher what he would paint if he ever attempted it. Surprisingly, this is something Reacher has never pondered before. His response? “Perhaps I’d paint dogs.

After the fingerprint verification was done, Beck proceeded to read out loud the notable points from Reacher’s impressive military background. This caused a bit of irritation in Paulie. Given that Reacher’s bodyguard seemed deceased, Beck intended to enlist this capable individual onto his security detail. However, he first wanted to assess Reacher’s mettle by challenging him to a test. He placed Reacher’s revolver and a single bullet on the table, implying that Reacher should demonstrate his courage and skill.

In the novel “Persuader”, narrated in the first person, Reacher elucidates why playing Russian roulette has a significantly lower chance of one in six – this is due to the fact that when only one chamber of a revolver is loaded, the weight of the round pulls the loaded cylinder down and away from the hammer. However, in this scenario, despite being threatened with handover to the police if he doesn’t participate, Reacher spins the cylinder, places the barrel against his temple, and pulls the trigger not once but three times before Beck takes the revolver back and passes it to Duke.

Reacher mentions that the bullet was devoid of powder,” he states. However, Duke needs to cock the gun thrice before it fires the live round, which is an uncommon occurrence for Reacher to be mistaken about such a thing.

Duke instructs Reacher to stay in his room until morning. After ensuring there are no listening devices, Reacher retrieves a small phone from the sole of his boot and agrees, “I’m in.” In this episode, which is 21 minutes old out of a total 50 minutes, the title appears with an unusual capitalized attribution: “BASED ON ‘PERSUADER’ BY LEE CHILD AND HIS CHARACTER, JACK REACHER,” hinting that the fictional Army supercop-turned-vigilante tramp is a joint author of his own story.

Reflecting on events that transpired a few days prior, I find myself recalling an unusual incident. As a bus stop served as the stage, I, being no ordinary spectator, sensed an impending robbery involving a woman and her child, even by the unconventional standards of Jack Reacher. With a quick mental analysis reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, I alerted the potential thief, giving him a hundred dollars instead of the anticipated loot, and advising him to seek employment. My expression, upon witnessing an individual entering a car across the street, was far more startled than when I supposedly took that cop’s life. I then requested the would-be pickpocket to return his phone, which he obliged, surprisingly. The warrant officer from my old Army unit, the 110th Special Investigators, was taken aback when I, none other than Jack Reacher, presented myself. He promised to get back to me with the results of his inquiry.

At a place known as the Yorkie Motel, federal agents knock on Reacher’s door. He swiftly exits through an unusually big bathroom window, grabbing his toothbrush on the way out, reminiscent of Indiana Jones snatching his hat from a rapidly closing tomb. A lady with an identification badge blocks his path. This turns out to be Agent Susan Duffy of the Drug Enforcement Administration, portrayed by Sonya Cassidy. She delivers her lines in a manner that only an actor from England could, emphasizing: “I’m not just a pretty face,” she asserts. In fact, she’s an alumna of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Duffy presents her colleagues, Elliot (played by Daniel David Stewart) – who looks like the friendly driver of the pickup truck but is actually a kidnapper we’re familiar with – and Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos), known as the police officer Reacher supposedly killed. We figured out right away that it was a trick similar to Mission: Impossible. This initial misdirection in the story comes directly from the book and didn’t work well in writing, either.

Duffy mentions they’re considering an import business called “Bizarre Bazaar,” which would be amusing, even if she didn’t emphasize it as “Bizarre Bizaaaahhhh.” The license plate that Reacher noticed was attached to a vehicle that delivered Richard Beck to a rendezvous with a significant West Coast drug dealer.

Noticing they seem to be revealing information for a purpose, Reacher requests something in exchange for his assistance: He asks them to investigate a hospital in the vicinity of Linton, Virginia, approximately on March 13, 2012, for an Asian American man around 40 years old who had suffered from a small-caliber gunshot wound to the head and/or drowning. In the following scene, Duffy informs Reacher that they found this person floating on a beach near the fictional Virginia town Reacher had named. “The doctors believe the freezing water saved him,” Duffy says, also mentioning that the man claimed to have amnesia. The authorities were unable to identify him. However, based on how you stare at him, I think you know his name!

It’s clear that Reacher recognizes him: Lieutenant Colonel Francis Xavier Quinn, the military officer whom Reacher had been investigating on suspicion of leaking sensitive information. This is the man Reacher observed getting into a car just moments after he handed a hundred-dollar bill to a would-be pickpocket. Later, Reacher informs Duffy that he was unable to apprehend Quinn, but claims ignorance when inquired about how this same individual met his end in 2012 – drowning with a gunshot wound to the head.

In the end, Duffy reveals her strategy: Her team is covertly investigating Beck due to a botched search warrant that led to an order to halt the investigation. To spy on Beck, she arranged for a civilian informant named Teresa Daniel to work at Bizarre Bazaar. Unfortunately, Teresa has gone missing now. Duffy wants Reacher to see a photo of Teresa wearing large hoop earrings; this way, he can recognize her and infiltrate Beck’s organization to find and save the girl.

For a while, Reacher and the group of DEA agents work on devising a deceptive kidnap-rescue scheme to lure Richard into allowing Reacher entry into the Beck compound. There’s some amusing trickery involving Agent Eliot getting mistakenly armed with blank rounds, and a debate about inserting live bullets among the blanks in Reacher’s revolver since “staged fights seem staged.” Using Villenueva’s pocket knife, he scratches a mark on one of the chambers to identify where the real bullets end and the blanks begin. This method explains how Reacher managed to play Russian Roulette three times without getting hurt, although not entirely. Despite its risky nature and countless unpredictable factors, Villanueva supports this reckless plan confidently. Bravo!

The 23-minute sequence concludes, and we find ourselves once more in Reacher’s bedroom. Under the cloak of night, he makes a stealthy escape through the window for an under-the-radar exploration, the night sky appearing serene and still like a screensaver as he navigates the rooftop of the house and eventually reaches the shed where he demonstrated exceptional skill in his Russian Roulette job interview.

In the dirt, he finds one of Teresa’s earrings.

In an Investigation, Details Matter

In contrast to Abbottsville, which doesn’t exist, The Ethel Merman Disco Album is a tangible reality. However, the creators of Reacher overlooked an intriguing possibility – using her 1979 rendition of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” as the ending theme. This oversight is particularly noteworthy given that this entire episode revolves around orchestrating a sham kidnapping and rescue, aimed at boosting Reacher’s credibility with Richard and later Zachary Beck.

Read More

2025-02-20 16:55