Editor’s Note: The below contains spoilers for Reacher Season 2 and plot details from Lee Child’s Persuader.
The Big Picture
- Reacher Season 3 will adapt Lee Child’s book Persuader for the next installment of the series, featuring an undercover mission and a deadly conspiracy.
- Maria Sten will reprise her role as Frances Neagley in Season 3, adding weight to her role as Reacher’s best friend and confidante.
- The show is adapting the books out of order to keep the series fresh and avoid stagnation, with each book choice offering a unique hook and premise. Season 3 will take place in coastal Maine.
Reacher Season 2 is wrapped up, and now fans can already look forward to the upcoming third season which is currently in the works. Star Alan Ritchson recently revealed the book on which Season 3 will be based, and Prime Video has confirmed another one of the returning cast members! With the announcement that Season 3 of Reacher will adapt Book 7 of author Lee Child‘s Jack Reacher saga, Persuader, it’s time to break down what fans can expect for the next highly-anticipated installment of the series.
Reacher
When retired Military Police Officer Jack Reacher is arrested for a murder he did not commit, he finds himself in the middle of a deadly conspiracy full of dirty cops, shady businessmen and scheming politicians. With nothing but his wits, he must figure out what is happening in Margrave, Georgia. The first season of Reacher is based on the international bestseller The Killing Floor by Lee Child.
What Happens in ‘Persuader’?
Interestingly, although the Reacher television series started with the first book in Child’s Reacher saga, The Killing Floor, the show is no longer following a specific order in adapting the books for a live-action, episodic format, as Season 2 of Reacher was based on Bad Luck & Trouble, the eleventh book in the series. While Season 2 of Reacher jumped ahead by ten books, Season 3 is jumping back several. Fans will now get to see an adaptation of Persuader for Season 3, which finds Reacher in a new setting and a new mission that requires him to go undercover.
In Persuader, Reacher has to conduct a secret mission on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to help bring down a drug smuggler, Zachary Beck. In the book, Reacher agrees to go along with the mission due to his personal interest in one of the suspects, Francis Xavier Quinn, who is involved in Beck’s operation. We learn through Persuader that Quinn is a ghost from Reacher’s past who killed one of Reacher’s colleagues. Reacher believes he successfully killed Quinn years earlier, but then discovers that the man has resurfaced again as a part of Beck’s operation.
Considering each installment of Reacher has featured a flashback narrative device, the subplot with Quinn in Persuader allows for an easy presentation for another one in the third season. Season 1 showcased Reacher’s youth with his older brother Joe and their parents living on a military base. Season 2 featured Reacher’s career with his unit the 110th, aka the “Special Investigators,” from its beginning to the team’s last case. If the subplot and characters remain intact, it’s a pretty good bet that Season 3’s flashback narrative device will showcase Reacher’s past with Frances Quinn and Dominique Kohl, the latter of whom is a Sergeant First Class who was originally assigned to Reacher’s old unit before her death.
Frances Neagley Is Back for ‘Reacher’ Season 3
It’s also been confirmed that Maria Sten will once again reprise her role of former Master Sergeant in the 110th and longtime friend, Frances Neagley, in Reacher Season 3. In Season 2, Sten was promoted from recurring guest star to series regular, as she stuck with Reacher throughout the story to solve the murders of their dead teammates. Neagley essentially kicked off Reacher’s involvement in the case in Season 2 by sending him the distress signal to fly to New York, where she revealed the details of the murder of their late former teammate Calvin Franz (Luke Bilyk).
Along with their other former teammates, Frances Dixon (Serinda Swan) and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos), the two manage to uncover Shane Langston (Robert Patrick) as the mastermind behind the deaths of several former members of the 110th. Langston had them murdered for getting too close to an illegal weapons deal he was putting together using stolen tech from the company he worked for, New Age. Ultimately, Reacher, with help from Neagley, put a stop to Langston, killing him and his conspirators. While Reacher and his friends parted ways at the end of Season 2, Neagley mentioned that it was time for them to stay in touch more — and not only reach out when one or both of them is in danger.
Neagley’s return in Season 3 adds a lot more weight to her role as one of Reacher’s best friends and confidantes within the world of the show. While the Reacher books are all generally standalone adventures, a television show necessitates a recurring cast. This is why characters such as Neagley appeared in the first season of the show, despite the character not appearing in The Killing Floor book. Meanwhile, Season 2 had a special guest appearance by Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) from the first season, even though the character did not appear in Bad Luck & Trouble.
‘Reacher’ Is Avoiding This Problem by Adapting Books Out of Order
If fans find themselves asking why Reacher is taking steps not to adapt the series in the order the books were published, there’s one fairly obvious reason: to avoid becoming stagnant. Since the series has generally been more faithful to the books than the films, Child and showrunner Nick Santora have chosen books to adapt for each season that perform well in shifting Reacher’s locations and the general premise. Season 1 had Reacher in the blazing, hot town of Margrave in rural Atlanta, Georgia, while Season 2 saw Reacher and his 110th teammates flitting around from New York, to Atlantic City, to Boston, and back to New York during the cold winter season. Meanwhile, Season 3 will bring Reacher to coastal Maine, which is consistent with the setting in the Persuader novel. Normally, an ongoing television series, especially a procedural where characters are solving a murder mystery, is stuck in a particular location or place each season. Reacher’s format at least lends itself to these scenery changes, which serves well in freshening up the show’s overall look.
The other benefit is that each of the book choices for the series so far has offered a starkly unique hook and premise. In Season 1, Reacher unwittingly teams up with Finlay and Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald) to solve the murder of his brother and expose a counterfeiting ring, while Season 2 reunites Reacher with his old army teammates to solve the aforementioned murders of their friends. That season also shook up the show’s format with Reacher teaming up with other veterans familiar with his methods and investigative style. He had established relationships with the crew, unlike with Finlay and Roscoe. In Season 3, Reacher will have to go behind enemy lines, so to speak, to deliver his righteous justice to Beck and Quinn. It’s an angle the show has not yet explored, and has great potential.
When Can Fans Expect ‘Reacher’ Season 3?
Reacher Season 3 is currently in the works. Prime Video previously confirmed that Season 3 kicked off production about two weeks before the debut of Season 2, which premiered on December 15, 2023. If Season 3 has a comparable turnaround time to the season prior, the earliest fans can expect Season 3 is likely around mid-2025. With Season 3 already underway before the start of Season 2, hopefully, the wait won’t be quite as long.
Reacher Seasons 1 and 2 are both available to stream now in full on Prime Video.
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