‘Reacher’ Season 4 review: Thrilling action, muddled storytelling

“Reacher” Season 4 once again delivered on what the show is known for, engaging intrigue and fast paced car chases, and thrilling action. It is just unfortunate that the show does so in a convoluted manner. 

While “Reacher” has always been an exaggerated action series, Season 4 starts strong but by the last two episodes, it pushes the limit of coherent story development.

Based on the 13th book in Lee Child’s global best-selling series, “Gone Tomorrow”, the fourth season of the action-packed series, follows how a chance encounter with a distraught stranger on a subway goes horribly wrong. Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is subsequently drawn into a complex and deadly game that pits him against ruthless foes from the highest echelons of power. 

New to the cast this season are Chris Marquette, Sydelle Noel, Agnez Mo, Anggun, Kevin Weisman, Marc Blucas, Kevin Corrigan, and Kathleen Robertson.

One of the fun things about Reacher is how it mirrors the books in being able to start each new season like you are starting a new book within Lee Child's series. Season 4 starts with the inciting incident and in which the rest of the season’s mystery will unravel from.

In the first episode, a chance encounter with a distraught stranger on a Philadelphia subway car draws him into a deadly mystery involving a missing flash drive that contains secrets worth killing for.

The flash drive becomes the central MacGuffin (an object, device, or event that drives the plot and motivates the characters) which leads Jack Reacher into various dangerous positions and risking his life to uncover the truth.

Anyone who is four seasons deep within the show, knows that it is best enjoyed with a little suspension of disbelief. However, within the fourth season, the show asks more than what a regular viewer is accustomed to, as it seeks to resolve the tangled fourth season mystery.

By episode 6, the show resolves why Anna Merrick (Kwong-Chip) kills herself in the subway car, and why the flash drive she had is so important, however the reason is over the top.

The flash drive contained one blurry image, and the show spent too much time trying to figure out why the blurry image is important. Eventually through some supposedly high-level Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, the muddy image taken in the late 1980s, is perfectly reconstructed to reveal a white board which contains a formula for a new chemical weapon.

Criminal conspirators Lila (Agnez Mo) and Amisha (Anggun) are revealed to be expertly trained karambit wielders; a karambit is a distinctively curved, tiger-claw-inspired blade originating from Southeast Asian martial arts. 

Congressman John Sampson (Marc Blucas), who is targeted by the faction run by Lila and Amisha, ends up sacrificing himself by tackling a suicide bomber into the water. Jack Reacher and the team track the faction to an abandoned restaurant, where Reacher defeats Amisha and stops the weapon from being released.

If that sounds confusing to understand, it was as confusing to watch as a viewer.

The action sequences of the show have definitely been its biggest selling point. Following the improvement on the action in Season 2, it still remains a treat within Season 4.

However, the action of the show has always been the most enjoyable when it matched the story elements. In the last two episodes, the show was just relying on the former to compensate for the latter. 

Characters, who would otherwise die falling out of windows, miraculously stand up to come back and try and kill the heroes. Reacher himself is slashed by to pieces by the karambit that he should for all intents and purposes die or be incapacitated from excessive blood loss, but the show just uses some excuse about thick scar tissue to magically resolve that issue.

One thing the show is smart enough to do is at least know that the viewers are aware of the trite ways they conspire to place Reacher and the season’s love interest in a hotel room together. The show is usually more subtle with it, but in Season 4 they cleverly looped the audience in on the fact that they are aware of it. 

Sometimes when starting a new season of “Reacher” it can be difficult to let go of fun characters that the show has introduced in prior seasons, but in Season 4 the team he works with was a solid enough unit.

They could have been used more effectively, but overall it was not egregious.

While the show will be returning for a fifth season, Reacher will not be off the screen for too long as he appears in the new spinoff “Neagley” which just dropped its full season on Prime Video. 

Overall, Season 4 was watchable, but hopefully, going forward, the show will at least take more care to methodically and coherently lay out the central mystery within the show from beginning to the end.

Rating: ★★★(3/5). Solid but could have made more sense.

theolin.tembo@nationalmg.co.za

THE NATIONAL