Reacher Season 2 has finally and sadly come to an end. But before talking about its explosive finale, let’s do a run-through of some of the major things that transpired over the course of eight episodes.
New Age Technologies head Shane Langston started killing off members of the 110th, a group of elite detectives who used to work for the army but were disbanded after arresting a high-ranking officer who was peddling drugs.
When Reacher learned about it, he rounded up the surviving members of his team (Neagley, Dixon, and O’Donnell) and went after NAT and Shane. They were aided by an NYPD cop, Guy Russo, who ended up sacrificing himself to save the lives of an employee of Langston who was willing to cooperate with the 110th.
Credits: Prime Video
During the penultimate episode of the show, Dixon and O’Donnell were captured by Shane Langston so that Reacher and Neagley would focus on rescuing their mates instead of A.M., who was looking over the proceedings of Project Little Wing.
After lying about Neagley’s death and calling Senator Savoy for backup, Reacher surrendered himself to Langston in the hopes of rescuing Dixon and O’Donnell and then killing Langston and A.M.
Spoiler Alert
Did Senator Lavoy Send The Backup He Had Promised?
Episode 8 of Reacher Season 2 begins with Shane Langston appreciating Reacher’s physique. While he takes a call, he tells one of his henchmen to put Reacher into those stretchers, just like they have done with Dixon and O’Donnell.
Obviously, Reacher refuses the proposal and beats up a bunch of the goons while having his hands cuffed behind his back. Langston learns that Neagley is still alive and gets furious. When Langston points his gun at Reacher, he reminds Langston that he can’t hurt Reacher until he helps Langston tie all the loose ends, i.e., Neagley, Marlo Burns, and Jane Burns.
Langston agrees and shoots at O’Donnell, thereby forcing Reacher to go on the backfoot. In the meantime, Neagley pulls out her sniper rifle and starts securing the perimeter by killing Langston’s goons from the outside.
Once that is done, she calls Lavoy’s associates since they are the backup that was promised by the senator. Langston, while endlessly punching Reacher, explains that Project Little Wing was supposed to be his retirement plan.
Things went sideways when Swan, Franz, Orozco, and Sanchez started to look into it. That’s why he killed all four of them while preserving Swan’s eyeball and thumb for all the necessary paperwork.
Then, Swan would posthumously take the fall for NAT’s illegal activities, and Langston would enjoy his lifelong vacation. However, even that is looking impossible due to the interference of the 110th. So, Langston has to settle for the deaths of Reacher, O’Donnell, and Dixon, and then go for his meeting with A.M. and get the 65 million dollars he is owed.
And Robert Patrick played the T-1000 in Terminator 2. So, it would’ve been a little saddening if his career suffered a similar fate. Thankfully, he has consistently done great work over the past few decades and is sending shivers down the spine of a whole new generation with Peacemaker and Reacher Season 2.
Okay, coming back to the plot, Shane tells his men to purge all the drives in the facility and load Reacher, O’Donnell, and Dixon into the helicopters. While they do manage to get O’Donnell and Dixon into the choppers, before they can get to Reacher, Lavoy’s squad and Neagley attack from two sides of the facility. Reacher uses this moment of chaos and mayhem to use the pin hidden in his shoe to open the cuffs and escape.
Did Reacher, Neagley, Dixon, And O’Donnell Stop Project Little Wing?
When Shane Langston tries to escape with Dixon and O’Donnell in the helicopter, Reacher dangerously and hilariously latches onto one of the wheels of the chopper. That’s how determined he is to put an end to Langston.
And just when Langston is about to drop Dixon from the sky, Reacher gets in through the back doors and starts raining hell on Langston’s henchman. For a moment, it does seem like Reacher won’t be able to tackle both Langston and his henchman, especially when he has to save a stretcher-bound Dixon from dropping to her death while having a knife sticking out of his forearm.
And then, Dixon manages to free herself and uses the knife to stab the henchman. Shane Langston, unable to believe what has transpired, begins to blubber. Reacher uses this opportunity to grab him and throw him out of the helicopter.
Unpopular and maybe a little sadistic opinion: Reacher should’ve made Shane suffer a little more. I mean, we do see the wretched man’s dead body, but he should’ve cried a little more before plummeting from the sky.
After dealing with Shane and his henchman, Reacher, Dixon, and O’Donnell force the helicopter pilot to take them to the location where Langston was going to meet A.M.
They successfully corner him and try to force him to reveal his intentions. A.M. says that he is just the middleman between the mysterious buyer and Shane Langston (the seller). When Reacher tries to force A.M. to reveal the name of this buyer, he begins blabbering about the rules of his business and how revealing the details of the transaction can hurt his reputation.
When he starts talking about idealism and how he prefers to not be the one to pull the trigger while firing the missiles, even though he has killed so many people, Reacher puts an end to A.M.’s nonsense.
The rest of them join in and ensure that A.M. never gets to be a middleman in another illegal arms business again. They proceed to free the pilot of the chopper and the engineer who was supposed to show how the “defective” chips could be fitted into the Little Wing missiles.
That turns out to be a ruse because Neagley shoots them down from the sky with a Little Wing missile. Quite poetic, if you ask me. Lavoy’s squad shows their hand by trying to kill the 110th because they are unaware of the fact that Reacher has already called Homeland Security to take care of Lavoy as well as his squad for partaking in the whole illegal Little Wing business and attempting to murder the 110th after using them to clean up their mess.
At the end of Reacher Season 2, one of the Homeland Security agents tries to strongarm Jack into giving up Langston’s money, but Reacher feigns ignorance and walks away.
The 110th assigns Reacher to take care of the money, and, during a sweet montage sequence, we see him donating it to the families of the deceased and the animal shelter from where Swan got his dog.
He ensures that Neagley’s father gets 24×7 healthcare, O’Donnell’s kids don’t have to worry about their future in academics, and Dixon has a company of her own because she doesn’t deserve to work for anyone else again. Reacher plans to buy a toothbrush for himself, but Dixon does that for him so that he can buy something else.
What does he get for himself finally? A singular bus ticket that will allow him to travel all over the country for a whole year. That’s it. Dixon and O’Donnell part ways with the 110th.
Neagley sees Reacher at the bus stop and tries to tell him that he doesn’t have to be this lonesome and only get in touch when violence is involved. She also says that the 110th is like family to him, and he should be aware of that.
Reacher gets too embarrassed to acknowledge it, but when he boards the bus and a stranger asks him where he is coming from and where he is going, he says that he was there for a family visit (indirectly referring to the 110th as his family) and that he is heading wherever life takes him. That is melancholic and sweet, and I do hope that Reacher and his team’s efforts don’t go in vain.
What To Expect From Season 3?
The first season of the Amazon series adapted Lee Child’s Killing Floor. The second season has adapted Bad Luck and Trouble. In doing so, the showrunners have skipped nine books. Did that impact the viewing experience?
No, not at all. And that’s because the Prime Video series has taken a somewhat anthological approach to unpacking the story of the Wanderer Titan. In a video released on December 2, 2023, Alan Ritchson revealed that shooting for Season 3 was underway.
He gave fans a sneak peek of the set that was being used, which looked very similar to the office from which the 110th was functioning. Based on my cursory research, in the books, Reacher revisited the 110th headquarters in Never Go Back, a story that took place after the events of Bad Luck and Trouble.
So, maybe that’s what Nick Santora and his team are taking on next. Don’t take my word for it, because I am just speculating here. I will say, though, that since Tom Cruise’s version of Jack Reacher did a horrendous job of adapting Never Go Back, Ritchson’s version doesn’t have an uphill task ahead of him.
All they need to do is have a good balance of action and drama while allowing Alan Ritchson to ragdoll a bunch of goons.