Amazon’s Reacher series has already been confirmed to have more longevity than the Tom Cruise movies of yesteryear. Shortly before the ridiculously (and understandably) successful show returned for Season 2, star Alan Ritchson confirmed that he was already filming the third season. He even announced this news from the set.
‘Tis the season of giving, so here’s a nice big REACHER surprise. pic.twitter.com/C1IhF0dsML
— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) December 2, 2023
Currently, the show’s still parceling out the second season on a weekly release schedule, but that early renewal is a source of TV viewer optimism. While Reacher and his old Army unit work to take down whomever has targeted the Special Investigators, we can at least rest assured that there shall be more on the way. Let’s discuss what has been revealed about the third round so far:
Plot
The Amazon series wisely departed from the second Tom Cruise Reacher film by hopping ahead (from the mutual first-book, Killing Floor, adaptations) all the way to Lee Child’s eleventh Jack Reacher novel, Bad Luck and Trouble. The show had preemptively ensured that this leap would flow smoothly by inserting Army Master Sergeant Francis Neagley (Maria Sten) into the first season for a hot minute or few (in the source material, she didn’t actually surface until the sixth book). That way, the audience wouldn’t find it too far fetched for her to put out a flare for her old Army boss when members of their unit began to mysteriously be tossed out of helicopters by Robert Patrick.
Where will the third season go? There’s been no definitive clues yet, other than knowing that there are 27 other Jack Reacher books to choose from, and the show will probably continue to ignore Never Go Back, since that was the subject of the second, not-too-successful Cruise movie. Ritchson recently confirmed only that he couldn’t say much yet, but that there will be “a new world” for the brick sh*thouse to confront in Season 3. We have already seen him focus on family and his past, but we will see Reacher get “sucked into” something more random. Here’s what Ritchson told Comic Book:
“I will say there’s a lot of classic Reacher stories which are just adventures that he gets sucked into in a big way,” Ritchson told us. “And we get to enjoy Reacher in a new world. It may not have anything to do with family, with his past, he’s just living that adventure out and that’s kind of the direction that we’ve gone and it seems to really be working.”
Hmmm. As long as the man is still smashing bad-guy faces and eating the junkiest food imaginable while (amusingly) staying ripped, viewers will surely be up for the leading man’s new location and challenges.
Cast
Alan Ritchson will obviously be back as The Big Guy. This next season will presumably feature a whole new cast of supporting players, but of course, no one would be upset if the show somehow worked Willa Fitzgerald’s Roscoe back into the show. There’s no telling whether that’s possible, especially considering that we don’t know which book the season will cover and whether she could feasibly be written into that particular story. It’d also be swell if we could see Neagly (Maria Sten) make at least a one-off appearance in each season, but that’s (at this point) wishful thinking as well.
Release Date
We can expect things to happen relatively quickly, given that Season 1 debuted in February 2022, and Season 2 followed in December 2023, even with massive Hollywood strikes swallowing up several months in the interim. Since Season 3 is already filming, one can bet that Amazon wants to hit this show hard and fast, and probably for as many seasons as possible.
Trailer
Naturally, no trailer exists for a third season yet. However, there’s never a bad time to rewatch the recent clip of Reacher (and friends) beating the hell out of a biker gang that asked for it.