Reacher Season 3 Episodes 1-3 review: Jack meets his match while working undercover

Jack Reacher is back in a brand-new series that kicks off by messing with the show’s formula in surprising fashion, before sending the title character undercover.

Season 1 of Reacher was an adaptation of Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, while Season 2 was based on Bad Luck and Trouble.

Season 3 adapts the seventh book in the series, Persuader, with Alan Ritchson once again playing the big guy. He stars opposite an even bigger guy during this outing via Oliver Richters’ Paulie, while Anthony Michael Hall joins the Reacher Season 3 cast as the show’s villain, Zachary Beck.

Here’s our recap/review of the first three episodes, which drop on February 20, 2025, with the full Reacher release schedule here.

Reacher Season 3 Episode 1: ‘Persuader’

The first 20 minutes of Reacher Season 3 play out in a small town called Abbotsville in Maine, and arouse suspicion because there’s strange things going on with Jack, all of which seem out of character. But there’s more that meets the eye occurring – via a surprise we won’t spoil here – which makes these early scenes a novel way to kick off the series.

What we can say is that Season 3 sees Jack linking up with federal agents, collaborating with them over a common goal, and infiltrating the world of Zachary Beck, an importer and exporter of rugs, whose circumstances suggest he might be into something more criminal.

Episode 1 also sees Reacher come into contact with Beck’s bodyguard Paulie, a giant who stands a full foot taller than Jack, meaning the man mountain might finally have met his match. They take an immediate dislike to each other, paving the way for a fight that will doubtless be central to Jack surviving Season 3.

Episode 2: ‘Truckin”

By Episode 2, it’s clear that Season 3 is all about undercover Reacher, and its fun watching the character desperately try to stay one step ahead of Zachary Beck’s goons, while these scenes also give star Alan Ritchson an opportunity to stretch his acting muscles.

Part of Jack’s mission is to locate a woman who also infiltrated Beck’s operation, but quickly went missing, which adds jeopardy to proceedings, as Reacher realises he’s working with some pretty dangerous individuals.

But one name in particular strikes fear and triggers rage in Reacher, and that’s Lieutenant Colonel Francis Xavier Quinn, a dark figure from his past, who apparently sold military secrets to hostile nations, and in Jack’s words is “the single worst person I’ve ever known.” Meaning that as well as being on a collision course with Paulie, Season 3 will ultimately end in a face-off with this old foe.

Elsewhere in the episode, there’s some dull action involving Beck’s ‘Bizarre Bazaar’ rug business, and the return of Neagley, who remains the closest thing Reacher has to a friend. While it ends with a kill that’s as brutal as anything Jack has previously done.

Episode 3: ‘Number 2 With a Bullet’

Episode 3 features lots of Reacher – and therefore Ritchson – talking his way out of tight situations, which continues to inject fun into proceedings, in spite of bodies falling thick and fast.

Via Neagley, we learn more about Paulie, and he’s a particularly bad man, punching the eye out of a man’s head, and breaking off another’s finger. Details that only serve to build anticipation for the upcoming Reacher-Paulie fight.

For six-pack aficianados there’s extended scenes of Reacher with his shirt off when he goes for a treacherous swim. While for hardcore violence fans I’m pretty sure he puts a crowbar through someone’s stomach at one point.

Jack also bonds with Beck’s vulnerable son Richie, which suggests there’s a way out for the likeable kid. While an ingenious plan ends with Reacher one step closer to his real target, Quinn, and means proceedings are kicking up a gear exactly when they need to in these early episodes.

Reacher Season 3 Episode 1-3 score: 3/5

The first three instalments of Reacher Season 3 stream on Prime Video from February 20, 2025. For more on the big guy, here’s how to read the Reacher books in order, plus how many Reacher movies Tom Cruise made.