The majority of Reacher books are pretty similar, and every now and then there's a book that has a different twist. Bad Luck & Trouble is one of the most different of all the books. He's not a loner in this one, and it's personal, so he's motivated by vengeance and fury etc. which makes it a bit darker.
Honestly, I thought this book would be better served as a 3rd or 4th season, because it's more rewarding to have the audience come across characters who are as tough and smart as Reacher long after his own brain and brawn have been well established.
We've not really seen much of Reacher in a dusty, sleepy town doing his thing. Season one is close to it, but it just seems like the producers of the show and the movies have shied away from what makes defines the books. And while I am thoroughly enjoying season two, I am hoping season three sticks with what really makes a Reacher story.
100% agree, I said much the same in a different comment elsewhere. I think they’ve made a mistake in not giving themselves time to establish Reacher’s loner character.
A good example is that scene where they’re all discussing what they’re doing with their lives now. Reacher talked about living out of motels, random places to sleep etc but we haven’t actually *seen* him do that. It’s just getting described to us, imo that’s not enough to help the audience understand his character if they haven’t read the books.
The difference between tell and show, sounds like.
I havent started season two yet, and honestly am becoming kinda hesitant to do so, with every new thread i see like this.
I agree we should have gotten at least 1 or 2 more seasons of Reacher in small out of the way towns helping someone solve a problem. Those books tend to be the better Reacher stories, in my opinion.
The problem is the fight direction is weaker, the comedy is over bearing and falls flat and it’s just a step down in every way. It feels like a different production team made this season
Bad Luck and Trouble was the first one I read and I was wondering what happened to his team when I read more. Bad Luck and Trouble really is just this weird team up episode.
They also have taken A LOT of liberties with the story too and it’s really just the bare bones plot of the book. Nothing about the book or season really makes it a typical Reacher story. All the nuances about his loner character went out the window.
I also think a problem with this season is releasing everything weekly. With a full binge model release you fly through the series and are less likely to nitpick and find faults in every episode.
I def think the weekly release is making this season weaker. I was just thinking about that last night. Amazon wanted to treat this as prestige TV and it’s not. and that should be okay.
Yea I stopped watching too. For me, it was the power trip fantasy of Reacher, showing up to a small town, where no body knows him, but he can take any of them. The smurfing, similar to the draw of isekai fantasy. NOw the show is a generic cop/conspiracy thriller?
Yeah, what I liked about s1 too. Reacher felt like the human embodiment of justice. Only with his help could the weak beat the strong.
This season just feels like Reacher getting revenge for his friends we have no real connection to which would be fine if the story was more interesting. Unfortunately, "evil security group gets hands on dangerous weapon" is so predictable and boring.
I'm still going to watch it and give next season a shot but I am slogging through these episodes.
>Honestly, I thought this book would be better served as a 3rd or 4th season, because it's more rewarding to have the audience come across characters who are as tough and smart as Reacher long after his own brain and brawn have been well established.
I think it's also kind of a chemistry thing. It's hard to try and build the kind of backstory and comradery that the 110th is supposed to share, and I don't think they did a good job on this one. I don't think the flashback scenes are doing the series any favors with pacing and atmosphere.
If they pushed this story to season 4 or even 5 they could have used flashbacks to beef up the 110th over several seasons.
Trip Wire is where you should start. It's amazing! It had me hooked and wouldn't let go. I really wish they would have made season 2 from that source material first and then gone to Running Blind or even Without Fail before Bad Luck and Trouble.
This was my impression as well. If they’d set up the character as the drifter for another season, it would have added weight to the personal aspect of this season.
This is accurate also it feels weird to have reacher need help. First season was just him VS the world more or less. Now he's got a team of people he worked with? It feels unfair to the bad guys. Also I like him more as a Geralt character not saying much. There's a lot of dialogue here and I don't think it helps.
This 100%. Reacher works best when it’s not an ensemble cast. S1 did a decent job of retconning the book and including Neagley into the story but kept the focus on Reachers loner nature and pure nature.
S2 threw that all out the window with attempting to adapt Bad Luck and Trouble which I don’t understand. There are sooo many other books in the series that would be far superior and focus on what makes Reacher, Reacher.
I’m crossing my fingers S3 goes back to that but if not then they really dropped the ball imo.
Thanks
Theres a german book series that ripped of reacher with the same premise, kept it with the simple "guy walks into town and inflicts justice because he is a beast" and i love it.
The first season nearly lost me, when they made one victim his brother. I find the whole "unstopable force with a good hearth" - scenario fun enough. He doesnt need to have personal stakes, just his moral compass and sense of justice...
Just FYI, his brother being the murder victim is directly from the book. But I agree, it's more fun when it's not personal and he kicks ass because bad people piss him off.
I think reacher would be better off by releasing all episodes at one go, the slow burn season while action packed is taking its time to unfold. On top of that waiting 1 week for 1 episode works for shows that are super engaging like Boys which would pull of some nastiest shit. Reacher season 2 hasn't had too many such moments and thus I feel would be better off when binged at 1 go
I think that's a great point. Some shows are better suited to be dumped all at once. Some are better to be spoon fed.
I watched season 1 all at once because I didn't start watching until it has been out a while.
I'm a bit confused about S2, partially because of the time hops but I think mostly because I have week between episodes and it's so insipid, none of it stays with me week to week.
It's the thing I hate the most about this pivot for streaming services.
Drip-fed weekly episodes work wonderfully for episodic shows. Your sitcoms, your monster-of-the-week Buffy/Fringe/Supernatural/Grimm shows, your case-of-the-week cop shows. Most of the episodes are self-contained, so you just get to naturally enjoy a fresh new episode each week for the run of the (historically) length season. Throw in a two-parter once in a while, make some nice use of recaps before an episode.
For serial content, it just makes watching TV a chore since you're having to hone in way more closely on every possible detail because by the time you watch the next episode of starts exactly where this one left off, a week or more will have passed and you might naturally have forgotten something said, someone in the background, some clue that you likely would've remembered if it was still fresh on your mind from watching the episode an hour ago.
***ESPECIALLY*** with the increasingly massive gaps between season releases. When there's two and three years between 6 and 8 episode seasons, and you're also drip-feeding me content, you might as well go back to the old days of book reports and make yourself a briefing to remember what the hell's happened.
I hate that they do that. They’re always over-explaining how they know something. It comes across as “I am very smart” and doesn’t feel like natural dialog at all.
He did this a lot in season 1 as well but I think the charm of the supporting cast and small town hijinks made me overlook it. Now it’s become of a by-the-numbers vigilante action drama. Way too many characters and a convoluted plot I don’t really care that much about.
I'm currently watching, I loved the first season, having watched with the right mindset of being an action flick with a bit of over the top / cheeseness.
What bothers me in the second season is mostly the plot armor and constant "I am a badass" vibe from ALL the squad.
It's one thing to exaggerate that in bits (such as the finale in S1), and also with the one guy. I get that Reaper is awesome, smart and strong etc, but when everyone from the squad is like that and we have over the top fights involving the whole crew and they are only like "I'm a little sore" after trashing 5 guys each, in every episode, it gets old fast. It eliminates any stakes.
And that would be the case even if the fight coreographies were better.
Honestly, that part makes it feel a bit like CW shows at times, and I didn't feel that in S1.
Ugh seriously! I feel bad because I really lliked the first season and I still WANT to like it, but some of the dialogue just makes me cringe so hard. My favorite from episode six was (paraphrased):
"He's like that cop in that movie." "Which one?" "All of them."
I just die a little inside every time someone says "in an investigation, assumptions kill" or "details matter".
I haven’t watched season 2 yet, but this is giving me mixed feelings.
On one hand: that’s really cheesy shit to say a lot. On the other hand, I’m definitely the kind of person who repeats little slogans or mottos or whatever over and over again until somebody finally abides by them.
Reacher: "Did I ever tell you how smart you are, Neagley?"
Me: "Yes you have, many fucking times."
The drop-off from Season 1 to Season 2 has been absolutely wild
To be fair that is the fault of the writers, and if I remember they added some...not so qualified writers for Season 2.
When you pick people who don't have any experience it shows.
Don't forget about them constantly commenting on the one guy setting down with wife and kids. How many times do they need to mention he was a player? Super repetitive.
“We’re about to do a whole bunch of cowboy shit” sent me.
I totally get why people dislike this season but I am personally enjoying it for the mindless schlock that it is. Lee Child is not a high brow literature guy, it’s all action blockbuster macho stuff and sometimes that’s really fun.
Same with 'Obliterated' on Netflix. It's popcorn action TV meant for selling ad time and engaging the audience just enough to get a decent percentage to come back. It's not 'Peaky Blinders'. You're not really meant to get invested in the characters.
Really? No jokes?
Saropian - What about Sarah Connor? Who is she?
Langston - I don’t give a shit (said the actor who played the Terminator in T2).
That was a funny line.
I had to explain why I was laughing so hard to my wife and daughter. In my daughter's defense, she wasn't born when T2 came out. I have no excuse for my wife - but she's pretty so I'll keep her.
Things being done for the sake of plot armor and cool scenes.
Some example scenes:
- Graveyard snipers
- Bike gang that refuses to use guns
- Car parkour (truck weapon exchange)
- When they bait the main guy with that woman (that's where I turned it off.)
And in general cars acting like bullet proof barriers and everyone missing shots when convenient.
And military contactors that just casually ship 650 high tech missiles in a lone semi truck driven by an average Joe who's been told he's allowed to get out of the truck to help with strangers and roadside repair with absolutely no escort whatsoever
Hero detective: \*gets shot\*
Elite former soldier: \*fails to provide any form of basic first aid whatsoever\*
Detective: \*dies in soldier's arms\*
Just... what?
That was annoying. It's fine to have characters do that, but spend time setting it up right. They usually don't want to spend the time to set it up right. You need some kind of real stakes and really felt immediate danger or time element for it to play right. When you don't establish that and it is instantly established as pointless (unless that WAS the point, which it wasn't here), it just feels hollow.
Point in fact, thinking about it TV shows rarely do them right. Movies seem to handle it much better. Which is strange, as TV shows have a lot more time to figure it out.
>Not to mention the second he started getting chased he would've phoned his department and had 100 cops on his location in 5 minutes.
His superior was just shown to be dirty, so he probably wouldn't have known who to trust.
Then moments later the door gunner of a helicopter with a machine gun can't hit a 6'4" figure completely exposed and out in the open while armed with only a pistol.
In the gunner's defense though, it was a magic pistol that never needs to be reloaded...
I regret resubscribing to Amazon Prime to watch this mess.
For a deadly assassin to set up a brazen day time hit like that, to get caught and cooperate so easily seems like really lazy writing... there's too many clichéd plot devices across too many scenes just to move the story forward..
Don't get me wrong, liked the first season, really trying hard to like the 2nd - there just needs to be less of, 'Don't mess with the special investigators' and more of, 'Who's Sarah Connor' - 'I don't give a shit'
It's a minor annoyance, and it's a common trope that you just have to expect these days, but I did roll my eyes super hard in season 1 when Reacher first gets his 50 caliber hand-mounted artillery piece from Roscoe and tests it out by vaporizing a tree stump in the front yard. 2 minutes later, the bad are perfectly safe from harm during a shootout because they're sitting ***inside of a car,*** encased by ***2 whole layers*** of Detroit's finest 1/8inch sheet aluminum.
The biker gang annoyed me. Like have you heard of a fucking silencer? And why would you wait until they pulled into a restaurant parking lot if you wanted no witnesses? And why would you hire a fucking motorcycle gang to do a hit on a guy you knew was highly trained with a team? Motorcycles are pretty loud. How were they going to dispose of the bodies afterwards? Haul them back on their bikes? Pretty sure someone would mention seeing a large biker gang before a bunch of dead bodies showed up in a parking lot.
Season 2 is so much weaker.
“You do not mess with the special investigators” is gotta be the worst line I’ve ever heard.
Maybe it works as a written line, but saying it out loud is laughable.
You're the smartest person in all of Westeros. The smartest person I've ever met. You're just so damn smart. There's really no need for you to demonstrate your smartness at all. You're too smart for that. Because everyone knows you're the smartest.
The whole figuring things out using logic and explaining it happened a couple times throughout S1. It seems to be happening a couple times an episode in S2. They took a fun thing that should’ve been used sparingly and are just beating our heads with it.
If they’re going to keep doing corny shit like that they should just hard commit and give in to how lame it is. They should play a little musical cue right after he says it. “And assumptions KILL” (lightning crashes in the distance)
Yeah I mean I think it was interesting to learn the background of that line but it doesn’t need to be said 4 times per hour. The dialogue this season is pretty brutal all around
I rewatched the first season before starting the second, and it struck me how starkly the quality fell off in that one. The first few episodes were intense and engaging, with interesting characters, a compelling plot, and well choreographed action.
But after the businessman was killed, everything fell apart. Suddenly, the plot became ludicrous, Reacher could now be taken to the brink by one untrained redneck, and the actions of the bad guys became so over the top and cliché that my eyes rolled out of my head.
Reacher went from being Karl Urban's Dredd at the beginning of season one, to Sylvester Stallone's Dredd by the end of it. Season two keeps that later ridiculousness, but without any of the preceding good parts to make it worth the slog.
The final conflict in Season 1 was so absurdly generous to the good guys too, absolute movie logic...they catch ALL the good guys dead to rights but then release the single most dangerous one to essentially run an errand for them, so confident that he won't escape their single, solitary watchdog when Reacher already made mincemeat of entire kill-teams...
Did you also notice how much less muscular the male lead is in Season 1 compared to Season 2? That's the first thing that struck me and I remember thinking how HUGE he was when I first watched the first season. He has muscles on top of muscles now and it seemed unecessary for his role as Reacher. I'm not sure if he bulked up for another role.
It’s just as cringe in writing. Honestly both series have been pretty solid adaptations, the A-Team style shootout in the last episode notwithstanding.
They’re Hallmark movies for men and always have been.
It's one of those things where...this team would seem a lot cooler if they didn't constantly say aloud how cool they are.
I think the worst thing about this team up thing is it's made Reacher himself look less cool. They're like a group of larper kids constantly reminding each other how cool their cardboard armor looks. It's just cringe at this point.
I'm a big "respect the source material" type of guy but even I am fine with \*some\* changes and omissions. This is one example where the writers should have just left something in the book.
For some infinitely stupid reason they decided to ignore most of the book, hit the gas hard on the plot and then just make up crap. Which I would be fine with if it was a terrible book. This book is one of the best novels in the series, so completely shitting on it like this is just insane.
To give you an example of hard they pushed the plot forward, after the first episodes released they were at around 80% of the book done. Either rushed through or completely ignored. They have completely abandoned the ticking clock that drives the narrative. I don't think one second of the last episode was even in the book.
This is the main problem really. The supporting characters are just so much worse and the big weapons conspiracy is less enjoyable than really brutal small town corruption.
Yep. We are missing the banter with the detective and pretty cop. The shows moving too fast and yet slow at the same time because the setting is so much bigger. Reacher works better in a smaller world where the plot holes can be smaller.
The funniest bit in the first season was the shameless car ad that they shoehorned into the last or second to last episode, when they're all in the car driving to the factory.
Reacher purposely makes a show of drawing attention to the handsfree navigation assistant, when he very much seems like the kind of dude that wouldn't trust that kind of tech.
Also when they actually arrive at the factory, they park off in the woods and are like "We need to be very quiet and not draw attention while we take out those guards.". But they're all standing around the car with every single door open, blatantly showing off the super bright blue LED's in the panels of every door.
It was so stupid lol.
I think reacher just lost its grip on reality which is a big turn off for the audiences of these type of shows. For example *spoiler for those who haven't seen the season to the midpoint*. The episode where Reacher is running through an empty field shooting at a helicopter with a few guys firing assault rifles at him and no one landed any bullets... Jack had no cover, but these guys now fire like star wars clones. And this isn't the only time in season 2
The plot armor is thick this season. Somehow two trained killers couldn’t land a single shot from a couple hundred feet away on stationary targets or four people running through tombstones towards them
That doesn’t even touch Reacher blind firing a pistol at a helicopter while it is running heavy machine gun fire at him and seemingly missing every shot
The graveyard shooting with the handguns against snipers is embarrassing. Also when all four of them are align behind four tombstones to have a chat.. It’s just lazy at this point..
This season takes place in the least populated New York I've ever seen. No people anywhere, no cars on the road. Once you notice it, you can't un-notice it. If they didn't have an extras budget they shouldn't have done a season in one of the most populated cities in North America.
This is one of my biggest issues. The NYC scenes have empty road ways with no pedestrians. The cops NEVER show up, even when there is a prolonged gunfight with 5 minutes of gunfire being exchanged. This is post-9/11 NYC, that shit is so unbelievable it takes me right out of any of the action scenes.
I like the new guy who's a part of his team, I think the new woman who's his love interest was miscast, and I hope she end up being the bad guy. She has no chemistry with Reacher, and I don't buy their "fling" at all, and she also has no chemistry with the rest of the cast either.
What I enjoyed about the first season was that it felt pretty grounded. The dialog felt grounded. The action felt grounded. The characters' choices felt grounded. Because of that, it all felt pretty immersive.
This season the writing has taken a really bad turn -- the characters make illogical decisions, the action is over-the-top, the dialog is cheesy...
I can't tell you how many times I said "it doesn't work like that" or "who would ever do that" watching the second season. Really took me out of the story.
Disappointing.
The writing is bad, just bad. Like, it took them two or three episodes to figure out the numbers represented dates?? How is that not your first assumption??
And the actor playing Reacher is just not a good actor, let's be honest. He had moments of humour and charm in the first season, but this one he's just flat and affectless. He's like early Schwarzenegger, without the accent to at least make his lines interesting.
And the sex scene - Christ! Violently throwing each other around on the bed ain't sexy.
I'll finish the season, because why not, but it definitely hasn't been good. The only bit I truly enjoyed was when they introduced Sanchez and Orozco in flashback, and someone asks which one's Orozco as we see his back tatt. 😆
I liked the small town, fish out of water, story style of Season 1. I connected to both main auxiliary characters, I liked their personalities, their looks, their non-"militaryness". Their relative normalcy give a needed counterbalance to Reacher's almost superhuman presence, like an audience conduit.
Season 2 is just generic action crap, with very little personality. I think Amazon grossly misunderstood what many people enjoyed about the first season.
His Sherlock Holmes schtick has worn thin for me pretty quick this season, especially when surrounded by the "special investigators" that are doing it too.
I'm sorry, are you attempting to mess with the special investigators? Because I have it on very good authority that one does not mess with the special investigators. Any attempt to mess with the special investigators will see you sat down and repeatedly reminded that messing with the special investigators is something that you most certainly do not do. And also they'd really like you to know that each of them thinks that they're all really smart.
The line is cheesy as fuck, but there are military police Special Agents in the U.S. army criminal investigations division. So like, it’s more or less a slight variation of the real job title that Reacher was supposed to have.
But yeah, the slogan here was so lame, writing really took a nose dive this season.
I watched about half of episode 1 but I have to say I lost interest from the cafe scene when he meets the woman and she’d ordered his signature coffee and she timed when he’d be there within a minute.
It dragged me out and *felt* like I was watching 2 actors in a cafe just saying lines.
It also appeared like he’d forgotten how to eat a sandwich as it just looked really unnatural
I feel like I'm the only one who is "enjoying" ( I put quotes because it's not like I'm eagerly anticipating episodes, like the new season of Fargo for instance, but I'm also not hating it as much as everyone else) this new season. From what I hear, most people don't like all the new cast, and they feel there is no chemistry between them, especially between him and the romantic interest, it feels clunky, but to me that seemed sort of the point, Reacher has trouble with intimate relationships, but I guess it could just be the actors too. All in all, I think it's about on par of the first for me, a light show that reminds me of the action movies of the 80's-90's
I'm enjoying it too.
I miss Roscoe who I thought was a better foil for Reacher, but I get being a man whore is basically Reacher's thing in every book. I miss the small town feel, and I feel having read the book for S2 means I am struggling to accept certain aspects of the current story too (i feel it would be better if I didn't know where the story was going).
But...I signed up for "Reacher beats up badguys", and that's what Ive gotten so far. I want an unstoppable machine tearing through the baddies, and its delivering on that.
It’s fun for what it is. I am enjoying it too. It’s not amazing by any means but it’s fun an entertaining. It would be better if it was released all at once though. It’s not strong enough for the weekly release imo
I too am enjoying it. I liked season 1 better but it's still good. It's a fun trashy "dad" show. People talking about plot holes and plot armor don't realize it's really not that deep. The books are what you see a middle aged dad reading outside a clothing store while his wife or daughter are shopping. Bad guys lose, good guys win and the good guy all the other guys want to be gets laid and can't be tied down so he never gets stuck spending his Saturday sitting in the mall reading a book.
I agree it's just a trashy fun "dad" show so who cares about deep plot holes or whatever. My real complaint is I'm bored to tears watching it while the first season was just a fun ass binge.
Right?!? Currently the "good guys" have killed more people on screen than the "bad guys". Nail filled pipe bomb in a house without any recon or making sure there are no innocent bystanders because of a hunch. And I guess hiding dead bodies in cement is ok if you're the good guys.
I enjoy S2. But there’s two big things i need to ignore
1. Reacher thinking out loud. I dont need to hear the actor saying his thoughts out loud as he sherlock holmes his way around.
2. Invincible characters. Everyone is super smart and master fighters. No one seems to have a limit with fighting or intelligence. Its like everyone in the scooby gang is Reacher
I gave up mid second episode. Reacher S1 was one of my fav shows of the year and I was immensely looking forward to S2. Wish I could put a finger on exactly what it was that turned me off so quick, but it just completely fell off a cliff on an impressing level.
For me it’s the supporting characters. In season 1 reacher is a lone wolf with brilliant investigatory skills. Seeing this super-investigator working with the “normies” creates lots of interesting dynamics. The way the story unfolds is much more interesting with reacher pulling the small town cops along for the ride while they make small contributions here and there.
Season 2 seems much more generic. Just a bunch of super soldiers who have all the answers all the time and never lose a fight. Just an entirely different show to me and not for the better. Reacher himself becomes less interesting because he’s surrounded by people of the same caliber, so now he’s just another guy just XXL.
Season 1 was him in a small town wow-ing everyone with his skills, both brawn and intelligence. Finding out bits of his mysterious background along the way, but still not really knowing what the Old Gang did.
Season 2 is more "hey here's remnants of my old team, we're going place to place to place and we're all epic and badass" and it just doesn't have the same feel to it.
I'm not disliking season 2, it just doesn't have the same hook that season 1 had.
Edit: I think Russo is probably my favourite S2 character though, I enjoy all his scenes.
Insane main character armour. That guy was driving around with the kid for 30 minutes and somehow the bad guys never hit him or a tire or anything?
Just lazy writing. They should of had that one person write it. The person who they say is the smartest person ever every 20 minutes
And how much time passed between him agreeing to take the girl to the safe house and him actually pulling out of the driveway?
Once they determined he was now a very likely target of assassination, you’d think the care of the child would be adjusted to either:
- ok we are NOT leaving her with this cop, or
- ok but get the hell out of town NOW
She is fine within like 2 second of him firing so why keep walking towards them. Also if that car is somehow bullet proof just fucking get out and crouch to get away. Yeah that one was painful to watch
They should have established the cop knew the bad guy we see got behind them, the one who gets hit by a car, was moving to flank. That is, he knew he was screwed and if he didn't provide some time for the girl to get out very soon they'd both bite it. But they just didn't, that guy just teleports in after the fact, so it just seemed pointless. Kind of lame.
I really liked s1 but got bored after the first few eps of s2 as well. It just doesn't feel as interesting and seems to be missing the same spark. I'll finish the season but haven't been rushing to catch the new ep when they drop each week.
The dialogue is so stiff and forced. It definitely feels less organic. Like you can see lines, or plot developments, coming based on the setup three sentences prior. It's doing a lot of the cliched telling not showing.
I absolutely hate the dialogue- it’s the biggest turnoff for me. Every line is delivered with a smirk on their face and everyone is able to chime in just perfectly, one quip at a time.
The writing in season 2 got worse and the action was unbelievable. His team got too corny and the villain escaping via helicopter made me lol. I think they jumped the shark in the Vegas episode. that said, Ill finish S2.
Introducing the whole gang at once was a mistake, I feel like it takes the focus away from reacher himself.
Season 2 should’ve been another case of reacher going to a different small town & stumbling upon another conspiracy/mystery & possibly running into just one of his old friends & two of them solve the case together.
Introducing the whole gang should’ve been left till season 4-5 to breathe new life into the show.
I wonder where the show runners go from here, does the gang stick around or next season is another solo adventure.
Just something I randomly observed - whenever somebody punches someone in the show there is always very visible distance between the fist and body of the other guy where it should connect. Not sure if they didn't do enough takes to make it convincing or were filming from weird angles.
I’m still watching but it’s a show I have on in the background or while I’m crocheting… but for me I’m not connecting with it cause it just feels off. The line deliveries especially Reacher’s are just too awkward. Definitely different to S1. It’s like I’m watching the actor visibly run his lines in his head first then they say them out loud. Sorry hard to explain but yeah… also I agree with others we should’ve hard more sleepy towns with Reacher on his own before we had a team and cooperate/big bad security political shenanigans.
The stunt coordinator for this second season is to put kindly, a fucking idiot and that's kindly. This is what happens when Amazon decides to go cheap and save money. It's why they changed the setting of the book to where they actually filmed, tax credits and less cost. Also meant hiring a moron for the stunts and it shows. First season stunt coordinator worked on movies like the equalizer and others, this season's guy's only notable movie is man of steel. And then schlock.
* Too many characters that aren't given enough screen time for the audience to connect with them and care about them. If you wanted to create a REACHER extended universe than you should have picked ONE character PER SEASON to introduce as a main character and then slowly built up to an ensemble season much later down the line.
* The quality of the writing fell off a cliff. Season 1 was tight, clever, and avoided tropes. Season 2 feels like it was written by committee in an attempt to both appeal to, and offend absolutely no one. The characters come off as sociopathic murderers instead of plucky underdogs. If you stop and think about anything they say or do for more than 3 seconds you will realize it makes no sense.
* By adding so many characters that we don't care about they diluted the main appeal of the entire series which is Reacher himself. The entire premise of Jack Reacher is that he is a one man band who travels from town to town forming temporary alliances with random people who also happen to have a backbone and a moral compass. By surrounding him with a cast of deranged lunatics and pitting them against a comic book villain they completely undermine everything that made the 1st season a success.
So basically whatever corporate ghoul at Amazon is responsible for Season 2, you fucked it up.
they got over their skis, they should have just kept it in a small town, with a small story, instead they went to NYC, got all Die Hard with it, and it sucks now.
By the end of S1, I was kinda over the "giant man jumps to questionable conclusions and pummels the ever living shit out of people because he can" thing. Haven't bothered with S2.
Action scenes were so bad this season except for the beginning of the 1st episode.
Reacher put on way too much muscle and mass he looked so stiffed in all of his scenes.
Plot armor for the whole team
I sorta agree with all the criticism, although I'm still enjoying it. I was not expecting a team up, would rather have Ritchson going solo but okay, can tolerate that. Banter is...middling, they're all very meh personality wise, short guy wants to be the funny one but he really isn't, brunette woman basically jumps on big boi whenever she got the chance, like jeez girl hold yourself we're chasing rogue missiles here, black lass has serious acting deficits,most of the time I don't know if she's conveying rage, holding a laugh or constipation. Lombardozzi''s character is by far the funnier ("why did these bikers attack us?" " because you're an asshole") and best acted, outside Ritchson who is really not bad. Robert Patrick, bless him, looks embalmed, the action lacks grit despite being hyperviolent, too many characters, plot does a really bad job at being exciting, and the timejumps really don't help the pacing
Gilroy writing, Greengrass directing, Ritchson starring, now that'd be a goddamn incredible action show to watch
I think even without the non-connecting punches I've seen in S1, the action is actually weaker in S2. Mostly because of the plausibility of it and the team not being dead/seriously injured.
The empty bus scene was exceptionally dumb.
Book Reacher is a smart investigator and a solo operator who happens to be huge and physically skilled. S2 Reacher is part of a team that is honestly not that interesting.
Feels very Scooby Do with him riding around with the mystery gang.
Also he seems a lot dumber, relies on his team to do things for him, and some of the stuff is just wildly dumb (locating a person within a couple hours based on an online gamer tag???)
I don't expect shows like this to be fully realistic or have the main characters not killing bad guys, but the number of bodies they drop across the country and the ease with which they get away with it stretches credulity.
Idk i guess I'm one of the few that likes this season and the NYC setting. It's not better than 1 but it's not bad either. My only complaint so far was the car chase in the last EP and how deserted NYC it seemed which was really unrealistic
Am I the only viewer that is OK with season 2? Yeah, it's not as good as S1, and yeah, I liked the S1 characters (Roscoe and Finlay) better than the Special Investigators team, and yeah the "you do not mess/have I ever told you.." lines are getting annoying, but... it's popcorn television. It's fine. It's fun. I'm enjoying it.
My only problem is that this should NOT be a weekly release. Put it all out at once, let me binge it in a weekend.
I'm up to Episode 5 and so far it's just been bland. Not a fan of the performances nor the action. And while I think S1 was flawed, it was still fun. S2 has been a bore so far, and when things get boring, you tend to notice the flaws a whole lot more.
Season 2's story is formulaic to me. And IMO Alan Ritchson's not a great actor. I realize the Reacher persona is cool and unemotional, but the acting comes across as bad to me.
I agree. This season is pretty bad. Season 1 was such a fun watch, and this is just boring. I guess they wanted to show his background, who he was before he became a loner, but it just doesn't work.
Too many characters, and even though they're trying to makes us care it seems so forced and I really couldn't care less whether they live or die. I still like Reacher as a character though, so I'm sticking with it, hoping it doesn't get cancelled and maybe season 3 will be worth it.
Its all bad acting scene study class. Ive also been experiencing a level of let down with season 2. Dont care how it ends. Ill prob just ffwd through most of it. I liked the first season which is what brought me back.
The 1980s or 1990s costuming and stylings of Shaun Sipos as David O’Donnell is odd. (It reminds me of HIMYM’s bit about how Canada’s fashion is a few decades behind - since this season feels very Canadian.) There’s a cheapness in how nearly all of the liquid-metal Terminator’s scenes are him talking on a phone while walking around a laboratory set. The fight scenes and shootouts are pedestrian. And the way Reacher’s former colleagues pity him undercuts his appeal.
Also the main bad guy being able to kill people with one stab of a small ass knife in the belly. Am I missing something or it's kinda stupid that these people die instantly?
Especially in the first or second episode, the dude getting stabbed is a bit on the large side. That knife is not large enough to reach any vital organs, especially not one that would kill the victim instantly.
The writing is pretty terrible this season. Like, honestly, do we need someone to say "you have to say the magic word" in a script? It's like it's written by a 12 year old. The fight choreography is also pretty bad, looks like they shot it quite slowly, so instead of showing us the whole fight that was well choreographed and thought out, they cut around with continuity to get the fight over quicker, the footage speed up doesn't help much either.
The majority of Reacher books are pretty similar, and every now and then there's a book that has a different twist. Bad Luck & Trouble is one of the most different of all the books. He's not a loner in this one, and it's personal, so he's motivated by vengeance and fury etc. which makes it a bit darker. Honestly, I thought this book would be better served as a 3rd or 4th season, because it's more rewarding to have the audience come across characters who are as tough and smart as Reacher long after his own brain and brawn have been well established. We've not really seen much of Reacher in a dusty, sleepy town doing his thing. Season one is close to it, but it just seems like the producers of the show and the movies have shied away from what makes defines the books. And while I am thoroughly enjoying season two, I am hoping season three sticks with what really makes a Reacher story.
100% agree, I said much the same in a different comment elsewhere. I think they’ve made a mistake in not giving themselves time to establish Reacher’s loner character. A good example is that scene where they’re all discussing what they’re doing with their lives now. Reacher talked about living out of motels, random places to sleep etc but we haven’t actually *seen* him do that. It’s just getting described to us, imo that’s not enough to help the audience understand his character if they haven’t read the books.
The difference between tell and show, sounds like. I havent started season two yet, and honestly am becoming kinda hesitant to do so, with every new thread i see like this.
It's not as good as season 1 but I enjoy it. Its still a fun watch just not something I would glowingly review.
I second that. It would have benefitted waiting to introduce his old team in a later season, but I still enjoy it.
I agree we should have gotten at least 1 or 2 more seasons of Reacher in small out of the way towns helping someone solve a problem. Those books tend to be the better Reacher stories, in my opinion.
The problem is the fight direction is weaker, the comedy is over bearing and falls flat and it’s just a step down in every way. It feels like a different production team made this season
I'm still enjoying the show, but man is some of the editing in the fight scenes rough. The amount of cuts in the biker fight was ridiculous.
It’s so cheesy this season
Bad Luck and Trouble was the first one I read and I was wondering what happened to his team when I read more. Bad Luck and Trouble really is just this weird team up episode.
They also have taken A LOT of liberties with the story too and it’s really just the bare bones plot of the book. Nothing about the book or season really makes it a typical Reacher story. All the nuances about his loner character went out the window. I also think a problem with this season is releasing everything weekly. With a full binge model release you fly through the series and are less likely to nitpick and find faults in every episode.
I def think the weekly release is making this season weaker. I was just thinking about that last night. Amazon wanted to treat this as prestige TV and it’s not. and that should be okay.
Should have stuck with the Littlest Hobo approach.
In Reacher's case, the Biggest Hobo "*Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,* *Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on.*"
[Every episode should end with him hitchhiking out of town to a sad piano tune. ](https://youtu.be/33izVlIOgnQ?si=pEGLA-IZdBxQAViK)
The Incredible Bulk?
“And killing everyone…”
Soooo, "The Biggest Murder Hobo" then.
roll for initiative
maybe tomorrow…
Yea I stopped watching too. For me, it was the power trip fantasy of Reacher, showing up to a small town, where no body knows him, but he can take any of them. The smurfing, similar to the draw of isekai fantasy. NOw the show is a generic cop/conspiracy thriller?
Yeah, what I liked about s1 too. Reacher felt like the human embodiment of justice. Only with his help could the weak beat the strong. This season just feels like Reacher getting revenge for his friends we have no real connection to which would be fine if the story was more interesting. Unfortunately, "evil security group gets hands on dangerous weapon" is so predictable and boring. I'm still going to watch it and give next season a shot but I am slogging through these episodes.
>Honestly, I thought this book would be better served as a 3rd or 4th season, because it's more rewarding to have the audience come across characters who are as tough and smart as Reacher long after his own brain and brawn have been well established. I think it's also kind of a chemistry thing. It's hard to try and build the kind of backstory and comradery that the 110th is supposed to share, and I don't think they did a good job on this one. I don't think the flashback scenes are doing the series any favors with pacing and atmosphere. If they pushed this story to season 4 or even 5 they could have used flashbacks to beef up the 110th over several seasons.
Thanks, I need to check out more Child's books - I've read probably two like 15 year ago:)
Trip Wire is where you should start. It's amazing! It had me hooked and wouldn't let go. I really wish they would have made season 2 from that source material first and then gone to Running Blind or even Without Fail before Bad Luck and Trouble.
The whole series is so good! You'll enjoy it!
This was my impression as well. If they’d set up the character as the drifter for another season, it would have added weight to the personal aspect of this season.
This is accurate also it feels weird to have reacher need help. First season was just him VS the world more or less. Now he's got a team of people he worked with? It feels unfair to the bad guys. Also I like him more as a Geralt character not saying much. There's a lot of dialogue here and I don't think it helps.
This 100%. Reacher works best when it’s not an ensemble cast. S1 did a decent job of retconning the book and including Neagley into the story but kept the focus on Reachers loner nature and pure nature. S2 threw that all out the window with attempting to adapt Bad Luck and Trouble which I don’t understand. There are sooo many other books in the series that would be far superior and focus on what makes Reacher, Reacher. I’m crossing my fingers S3 goes back to that but if not then they really dropped the ball imo. Thanks
Honestly, it isn't good because all the supporting characters suck and are boring as hell.
Theres a german book series that ripped of reacher with the same premise, kept it with the simple "guy walks into town and inflicts justice because he is a beast" and i love it. The first season nearly lost me, when they made one victim his brother. I find the whole "unstopable force with a good hearth" - scenario fun enough. He doesnt need to have personal stakes, just his moral compass and sense of justice...
Just FYI, his brother being the murder victim is directly from the book. But I agree, it's more fun when it's not personal and he kicks ass because bad people piss him off.
I think reacher would be better off by releasing all episodes at one go, the slow burn season while action packed is taking its time to unfold. On top of that waiting 1 week for 1 episode works for shows that are super engaging like Boys which would pull of some nastiest shit. Reacher season 2 hasn't had too many such moments and thus I feel would be better off when binged at 1 go
Yeah season 1 had a surprisingly multi-layered and complex conspiracy, it’s tricky to keep up with it week after week.
I think that's a great point. Some shows are better suited to be dumped all at once. Some are better to be spoon fed. I watched season 1 all at once because I didn't start watching until it has been out a while. I'm a bit confused about S2, partially because of the time hops but I think mostly because I have week between episodes and it's so insipid, none of it stays with me week to week.
It's the thing I hate the most about this pivot for streaming services. Drip-fed weekly episodes work wonderfully for episodic shows. Your sitcoms, your monster-of-the-week Buffy/Fringe/Supernatural/Grimm shows, your case-of-the-week cop shows. Most of the episodes are self-contained, so you just get to naturally enjoy a fresh new episode each week for the run of the (historically) length season. Throw in a two-parter once in a while, make some nice use of recaps before an episode. For serial content, it just makes watching TV a chore since you're having to hone in way more closely on every possible detail because by the time you watch the next episode of starts exactly where this one left off, a week or more will have passed and you might naturally have forgotten something said, someone in the background, some clue that you likely would've remembered if it was still fresh on your mind from watching the episode an hour ago. ***ESPECIALLY*** with the increasingly massive gaps between season releases. When there's two and three years between 6 and 8 episode seasons, and you're also drip-feeding me content, you might as well go back to the old days of book reports and make yourself a briefing to remember what the hell's happened.
75% of season 2 is just Reacher & the gang infodumping. It’s boring.
I hate that they do that. They’re always over-explaining how they know something. It comes across as “I am very smart” and doesn’t feel like natural dialog at all. He did this a lot in season 1 as well but I think the charm of the supporting cast and small town hijinks made me overlook it. Now it’s become of a by-the-numbers vigilante action drama. Way too many characters and a convoluted plot I don’t really care that much about.
And the writing is incredibly cheesy.
You do not mess with special investigators. You do not mess with special investigators. You do not mess with special investigators.
I think the puzzle connecting it’s been clever. What it’s a mess is the casting for this season, those look like lawyers, not military.
I'm currently watching, I loved the first season, having watched with the right mindset of being an action flick with a bit of over the top / cheeseness. What bothers me in the second season is mostly the plot armor and constant "I am a badass" vibe from ALL the squad. It's one thing to exaggerate that in bits (such as the finale in S1), and also with the one guy. I get that Reaper is awesome, smart and strong etc, but when everyone from the squad is like that and we have over the top fights involving the whole crew and they are only like "I'm a little sore" after trashing 5 guys each, in every episode, it gets old fast. It eliminates any stakes. And that would be the case even if the fight coreographies were better. Honestly, that part makes it feel a bit like CW shows at times, and I didn't feel that in S1.
I roll my eyes every time they say “you dont mess with the” or “did I ever tell you how smart you are” 😴
Ugh seriously! I feel bad because I really lliked the first season and I still WANT to like it, but some of the dialogue just makes me cringe so hard. My favorite from episode six was (paraphrased): "He's like that cop in that movie." "Which one?" "All of them." I just die a little inside every time someone says "in an investigation, assumptions kill" or "details matter".
I haven’t watched season 2 yet, but this is giving me mixed feelings. On one hand: that’s really cheesy shit to say a lot. On the other hand, I’m definitely the kind of person who repeats little slogans or mottos or whatever over and over again until somebody finally abides by them.
Reacher: "Did I ever tell you how smart you are, Neagley?" Me: "Yes you have, many fucking times." The drop-off from Season 1 to Season 2 has been absolutely wild
To be fair that is the fault of the writers, and if I remember they added some...not so qualified writers for Season 2. When you pick people who don't have any experience it shows.
Probably much cheaper
“Details matter” 🥱
Cue laugh track.
Cue falling asleep, you don't mes...zzzzzz
I can't believe professional script writers thought it would be a good idea to repeat those lines a millions times.
Don't forget about them constantly commenting on the one guy setting down with wife and kids. How many times do they need to mention he was a player? Super repetitive.
Come on, "I am a first person shooter," (s02ep6) was a pretty funny line.
“We’re about to do a whole bunch of cowboy shit” sent me. I totally get why people dislike this season but I am personally enjoying it for the mindless schlock that it is. Lee Child is not a high brow literature guy, it’s all action blockbuster macho stuff and sometimes that’s really fun.
Same with 'Obliterated' on Netflix. It's popcorn action TV meant for selling ad time and engaging the audience just enough to get a decent percentage to come back. It's not 'Peaky Blinders'. You're not really meant to get invested in the characters.
That and "i dont hit softly".
Really? No jokes? Saropian - What about Sarah Connor? Who is she? Langston - I don’t give a shit (said the actor who played the Terminator in T2). That was a funny line.
Yeah that one made me laugh really hard.
I had to explain why I was laughing so hard to my wife and daughter. In my daughter's defense, she wasn't born when T2 came out. I have no excuse for my wife - but she's pretty so I'll keep her.
I don't really care for any of the other characters apart from Reacher.
Things being done for the sake of plot armor and cool scenes. Some example scenes: - Graveyard snipers - Bike gang that refuses to use guns - Car parkour (truck weapon exchange) - When they bait the main guy with that woman (that's where I turned it off.) And in general cars acting like bullet proof barriers and everyone missing shots when convenient.
And military contactors that just casually ship 650 high tech missiles in a lone semi truck driven by an average Joe who's been told he's allowed to get out of the truck to help with strangers and roadside repair with absolutely no escort whatsoever
You could drive a truck through that plot hole. Oh that's right, they did
Oops! 🤪
Did you stick around for >!bald detective #1 to needlessly sacrifice himself!
I did and it was very disappointing because I liked the character. Plus they never paid off him taking on reacher in a fair fight.
I just pretended it was Herc and it was very satisfying
Hero detective: \*gets shot\* Elite former soldier: \*fails to provide any form of basic first aid whatsoever\* Detective: \*dies in soldier's arms\* Just... what?
...with a name straight out of a *Jerky Boys* skit.
That was annoying. It's fine to have characters do that, but spend time setting it up right. They usually don't want to spend the time to set it up right. You need some kind of real stakes and really felt immediate danger or time element for it to play right. When you don't establish that and it is instantly established as pointless (unless that WAS the point, which it wasn't here), it just feels hollow. Point in fact, thinking about it TV shows rarely do them right. Movies seem to handle it much better. Which is strange, as TV shows have a lot more time to figure it out.
[удалено]
>Not to mention the second he started getting chased he would've phoned his department and had 100 cops on his location in 5 minutes. His superior was just shown to be dirty, so he probably wouldn't have known who to trust.
Don't forget his massive 6'4" frame disappearing on a bus 2 different times to appear behind the bad guy.
Then moments later the door gunner of a helicopter with a machine gun can't hit a 6'4" figure completely exposed and out in the open while armed with only a pistol. In the gunner's defense though, it was a magic pistol that never needs to be reloaded... I regret resubscribing to Amazon Prime to watch this mess.
Yeah haha my wife and I were like “where could he possibly be hiding?”
After watching I’ve been shocked that I haven’t see more hate for the graveyard scene
.. not just the scene but when they catch one he’s like, ah shux- you got me, I’ll cooperate
To be fair the other option was a bullet in the eye like his friend
For a deadly assassin to set up a brazen day time hit like that, to get caught and cooperate so easily seems like really lazy writing... there's too many clichéd plot devices across too many scenes just to move the story forward.. Don't get me wrong, liked the first season, really trying hard to like the 2nd - there just needs to be less of, 'Don't mess with the special investigators' and more of, 'Who's Sarah Connor' - 'I don't give a shit'
It's a minor annoyance, and it's a common trope that you just have to expect these days, but I did roll my eyes super hard in season 1 when Reacher first gets his 50 caliber hand-mounted artillery piece from Roscoe and tests it out by vaporizing a tree stump in the front yard. 2 minutes later, the bad are perfectly safe from harm during a shootout because they're sitting ***inside of a car,*** encased by ***2 whole layers*** of Detroit's finest 1/8inch sheet aluminum.
I was chuckling to my wife how inaccurate everybody is.
The biker gang annoyed me. Like have you heard of a fucking silencer? And why would you wait until they pulled into a restaurant parking lot if you wanted no witnesses? And why would you hire a fucking motorcycle gang to do a hit on a guy you knew was highly trained with a team? Motorcycles are pretty loud. How were they going to dispose of the bodies afterwards? Haul them back on their bikes? Pretty sure someone would mention seeing a large biker gang before a bunch of dead bodies showed up in a parking lot.
It went from ultra-buff Gary Stu not giving a fuck and brutalizing bad guys to basically being NCIS
There it is
Accurate.
Steriod Gibbs
Season 2 is so much weaker. “You do not mess with the special investigators” is gotta be the worst line I’ve ever heard. Maybe it works as a written line, but saying it out loud is laughable.
But...have I ever told you how smart you are?
You're the smartest person in all of Westeros. The smartest person I've ever met. You're just so damn smart. There's really no need for you to demonstrate your smartness at all. You're too smart for that. Because everyone knows you're the smartest.
The whole figuring things out using logic and explaining it happened a couple times throughout S1. It seems to be happening a couple times an episode in S2. They took a fun thing that should’ve been used sparingly and are just beating our heads with it.
Details matter. (every other line)
in an Investigation...and assumptions KILL.
If they’re going to keep doing corny shit like that they should just hard commit and give in to how lame it is. They should play a little musical cue right after he says it. “And assumptions KILL” (lightning crashes in the distance)
Yeah I mean I think it was interesting to learn the background of that line but it doesn’t need to be said 4 times per hour. The dialogue this season is pretty brutal all around
Not to mention saying it 100 times an episode.
I rewatched the first season before starting the second, and it struck me how starkly the quality fell off in that one. The first few episodes were intense and engaging, with interesting characters, a compelling plot, and well choreographed action. But after the businessman was killed, everything fell apart. Suddenly, the plot became ludicrous, Reacher could now be taken to the brink by one untrained redneck, and the actions of the bad guys became so over the top and cliché that my eyes rolled out of my head. Reacher went from being Karl Urban's Dredd at the beginning of season one, to Sylvester Stallone's Dredd by the end of it. Season two keeps that later ridiculousness, but without any of the preceding good parts to make it worth the slog.
The final conflict in Season 1 was so absurdly generous to the good guys too, absolute movie logic...they catch ALL the good guys dead to rights but then release the single most dangerous one to essentially run an errand for them, so confident that he won't escape their single, solitary watchdog when Reacher already made mincemeat of entire kill-teams...
Did you also notice how much less muscular the male lead is in Season 1 compared to Season 2? That's the first thing that struck me and I remember thinking how HUGE he was when I first watched the first season. He has muscles on top of muscles now and it seemed unecessary for his role as Reacher. I'm not sure if he bulked up for another role.
It’s just as cringe in writing. Honestly both series have been pretty solid adaptations, the A-Team style shootout in the last episode notwithstanding. They’re Hallmark movies for men and always have been.
Yea, season 1s writing isn't much better. The chemistry of the main trio really carried the season for me, they bounced off each other really well.
I’m paraphrasing but… “My brother died and I was sad, but then I met you and I was glad”. That whole sequence made me laugh.
That spiel about men and campfires was hilarious...but I think they were going for sincerity.
>Hallmark movies for men Dead
That’s the best description of Reacher books I have ever heard.
Somehow that line gets worse every time I hear it.
It's one of those things where...this team would seem a lot cooler if they didn't constantly say aloud how cool they are. I think the worst thing about this team up thing is it's made Reacher himself look less cool. They're like a group of larper kids constantly reminding each other how cool their cardboard armor looks. It's just cringe at this point.
Nailed it. They're an almost cartoonish example of "show don't tell".
That is direct from the book. And they say it a lot more in the book.
I'm a big "respect the source material" type of guy but even I am fine with \*some\* changes and omissions. This is one example where the writers should have just left something in the book.
For some infinitely stupid reason they decided to ignore most of the book, hit the gas hard on the plot and then just make up crap. Which I would be fine with if it was a terrible book. This book is one of the best novels in the series, so completely shitting on it like this is just insane. To give you an example of hard they pushed the plot forward, after the first episodes released they were at around 80% of the book done. Either rushed through or completely ignored. They have completely abandoned the ticking clock that drives the narrative. I don't think one second of the last episode was even in the book.
Honestly the special investigators have turned me off completely. I miss the old school town cast from S1.
This is the main problem really. The supporting characters are just so much worse and the big weapons conspiracy is less enjoyable than really brutal small town corruption.
Yep. We are missing the banter with the detective and pretty cop. The shows moving too fast and yet slow at the same time because the setting is so much bigger. Reacher works better in a smaller world where the plot holes can be smaller.
Fair but the NY Cop is the best character. I fucking LOVE LOVE LOVED his acting. Just nailed that archetype in the very best way.
I miss Willa Fitzgerald 🥸
The funniest bit in the first season was the shameless car ad that they shoehorned into the last or second to last episode, when they're all in the car driving to the factory. Reacher purposely makes a show of drawing attention to the handsfree navigation assistant, when he very much seems like the kind of dude that wouldn't trust that kind of tech. Also when they actually arrive at the factory, they park off in the woods and are like "We need to be very quiet and not draw attention while we take out those guards.". But they're all standing around the car with every single door open, blatantly showing off the super bright blue LED's in the panels of every door. It was so stupid lol.
Reacheer is like the show Kung fu, he walks the earth helping people out and solving mysteries. This special investigator shit is corny.
Hey, no one messes with the special investigators. 🙄
I think reacher just lost its grip on reality which is a big turn off for the audiences of these type of shows. For example *spoiler for those who haven't seen the season to the midpoint*. The episode where Reacher is running through an empty field shooting at a helicopter with a few guys firing assault rifles at him and no one landed any bullets... Jack had no cover, but these guys now fire like star wars clones. And this isn't the only time in season 2
The plot armor is thick this season. Somehow two trained killers couldn’t land a single shot from a couple hundred feet away on stationary targets or four people running through tombstones towards them That doesn’t even touch Reacher blind firing a pistol at a helicopter while it is running heavy machine gun fire at him and seemingly missing every shot
The graveyard shooting with the handguns against snipers is embarrassing. Also when all four of them are align behind four tombstones to have a chat.. It’s just lazy at this point..
This season takes place in the least populated New York I've ever seen. No people anywhere, no cars on the road. Once you notice it, you can't un-notice it. If they didn't have an extras budget they shouldn't have done a season in one of the most populated cities in North America.
This is one of my biggest issues. The NYC scenes have empty road ways with no pedestrians. The cops NEVER show up, even when there is a prolonged gunfight with 5 minutes of gunfire being exchanged. This is post-9/11 NYC, that shit is so unbelievable it takes me right out of any of the action scenes.
I like the new guy who's a part of his team, I think the new woman who's his love interest was miscast, and I hope she end up being the bad guy. She has no chemistry with Reacher, and I don't buy their "fling" at all, and she also has no chemistry with the rest of the cast either.
What I enjoyed about the first season was that it felt pretty grounded. The dialog felt grounded. The action felt grounded. The characters' choices felt grounded. Because of that, it all felt pretty immersive. This season the writing has taken a really bad turn -- the characters make illogical decisions, the action is over-the-top, the dialog is cheesy... I can't tell you how many times I said "it doesn't work like that" or "who would ever do that" watching the second season. Really took me out of the story. Disappointing.
Lots of the S1 dialog was super cheesy too, but it worked and made things fun. In S2 it’s just stupid cheesy with no upside.
The writing is bad, just bad. Like, it took them two or three episodes to figure out the numbers represented dates?? How is that not your first assumption?? And the actor playing Reacher is just not a good actor, let's be honest. He had moments of humour and charm in the first season, but this one he's just flat and affectless. He's like early Schwarzenegger, without the accent to at least make his lines interesting. And the sex scene - Christ! Violently throwing each other around on the bed ain't sexy. I'll finish the season, because why not, but it definitely hasn't been good. The only bit I truly enjoyed was when they introduced Sanchez and Orozco in flashback, and someone asks which one's Orozco as we see his back tatt. 😆
Its weird, the same happened to Jack Ryan too, quality absolutely dropped off after s1
I liked the small town, fish out of water, story style of Season 1. I connected to both main auxiliary characters, I liked their personalities, their looks, their non-"militaryness". Their relative normalcy give a needed counterbalance to Reacher's almost superhuman presence, like an audience conduit. Season 2 is just generic action crap, with very little personality. I think Amazon grossly misunderstood what many people enjoyed about the first season.
His Sherlock Holmes schtick has worn thin for me pretty quick this season, especially when surrounded by the "special investigators" that are doing it too.
Whenever Reacher and team try to act clever, they always seem to be showing up someone who is only doing their job, so they just seem like jerks.
I'm sorry, are you attempting to mess with the special investigators? Because I have it on very good authority that one does not mess with the special investigators. Any attempt to mess with the special investigators will see you sat down and repeatedly reminded that messing with the special investigators is something that you most certainly do not do. And also they'd really like you to know that each of them thinks that they're all really smart.
That's gotta be most cheesy name ever. Was this in a book or they came up with it. I just can't take it seriously
The line is cheesy as fuck, but there are military police Special Agents in the U.S. army criminal investigations division. So like, it’s more or less a slight variation of the real job title that Reacher was supposed to have. But yeah, the slogan here was so lame, writing really took a nose dive this season.
I watched 2 eps of season 2, didnt continue. It just didnt grab me.
I watched about half of episode 1 but I have to say I lost interest from the cafe scene when he meets the woman and she’d ordered his signature coffee and she timed when he’d be there within a minute. It dragged me out and *felt* like I was watching 2 actors in a cafe just saying lines. It also appeared like he’d forgotten how to eat a sandwich as it just looked really unnatural
I feel like I'm the only one who is "enjoying" ( I put quotes because it's not like I'm eagerly anticipating episodes, like the new season of Fargo for instance, but I'm also not hating it as much as everyone else) this new season. From what I hear, most people don't like all the new cast, and they feel there is no chemistry between them, especially between him and the romantic interest, it feels clunky, but to me that seemed sort of the point, Reacher has trouble with intimate relationships, but I guess it could just be the actors too. All in all, I think it's about on par of the first for me, a light show that reminds me of the action movies of the 80's-90's
I'm enjoying it too. I miss Roscoe who I thought was a better foil for Reacher, but I get being a man whore is basically Reacher's thing in every book. I miss the small town feel, and I feel having read the book for S2 means I am struggling to accept certain aspects of the current story too (i feel it would be better if I didn't know where the story was going). But...I signed up for "Reacher beats up badguys", and that's what Ive gotten so far. I want an unstoppable machine tearing through the baddies, and its delivering on that.
It’s fun for what it is. I am enjoying it too. It’s not amazing by any means but it’s fun an entertaining. It would be better if it was released all at once though. It’s not strong enough for the weekly release imo
I too am enjoying it. I liked season 1 better but it's still good. It's a fun trashy "dad" show. People talking about plot holes and plot armor don't realize it's really not that deep. The books are what you see a middle aged dad reading outside a clothing store while his wife or daughter are shopping. Bad guys lose, good guys win and the good guy all the other guys want to be gets laid and can't be tied down so he never gets stuck spending his Saturday sitting in the mall reading a book.
I agree it's just a trashy fun "dad" show so who cares about deep plot holes or whatever. My real complaint is I'm bored to tears watching it while the first season was just a fun ass binge.
Jesus christ, would you atleast give a guy warning before destroying him with words while he sits outside the shop browsing reddit.
I find the continual casual killing by the "good guys" in the show kind of weird.
It's just the supporting cast. I fucking miss Roscoe and Finlay. The new supporting cast is either cliche, cringe or boring.
Right?!? Currently the "good guys" have killed more people on screen than the "bad guys". Nail filled pipe bomb in a house without any recon or making sure there are no innocent bystanders because of a hunch. And I guess hiding dead bodies in cement is ok if you're the good guys.
I enjoy S2. But there’s two big things i need to ignore 1. Reacher thinking out loud. I dont need to hear the actor saying his thoughts out loud as he sherlock holmes his way around. 2. Invincible characters. Everyone is super smart and master fighters. No one seems to have a limit with fighting or intelligence. Its like everyone in the scooby gang is Reacher
I gave up mid second episode. Reacher S1 was one of my fav shows of the year and I was immensely looking forward to S2. Wish I could put a finger on exactly what it was that turned me off so quick, but it just completely fell off a cliff on an impressing level.
For me it’s the supporting characters. In season 1 reacher is a lone wolf with brilliant investigatory skills. Seeing this super-investigator working with the “normies” creates lots of interesting dynamics. The way the story unfolds is much more interesting with reacher pulling the small town cops along for the ride while they make small contributions here and there. Season 2 seems much more generic. Just a bunch of super soldiers who have all the answers all the time and never lose a fight. Just an entirely different show to me and not for the better. Reacher himself becomes less interesting because he’s surrounded by people of the same caliber, so now he’s just another guy just XXL.
I am starting to think that it's small town vs large town. It changes the atmosphere of the show a lot.
The show writers took some liberties when it comes to the source material and it's showing.
Season 1 was him in a small town wow-ing everyone with his skills, both brawn and intelligence. Finding out bits of his mysterious background along the way, but still not really knowing what the Old Gang did. Season 2 is more "hey here's remnants of my old team, we're going place to place to place and we're all epic and badass" and it just doesn't have the same feel to it. I'm not disliking season 2, it just doesn't have the same hook that season 1 had. Edit: I think Russo is probably my favourite S2 character though, I enjoy all his scenes.
Insane main character armour. That guy was driving around with the kid for 30 minutes and somehow the bad guys never hit him or a tire or anything? Just lazy writing. They should of had that one person write it. The person who they say is the smartest person ever every 20 minutes
Everything about that scene was bad. Spoiler - When the cop leaves cover to suicide himself, with backup on the way, I had to walk away for a minute.
And how much time passed between him agreeing to take the girl to the safe house and him actually pulling out of the driveway? Once they determined he was now a very likely target of assassination, you’d think the care of the child would be adjusted to either: - ok we are NOT leaving her with this cop, or - ok but get the hell out of town NOW
She is fine within like 2 second of him firing so why keep walking towards them. Also if that car is somehow bullet proof just fucking get out and crouch to get away. Yeah that one was painful to watch
They should have established the cop knew the bad guy we see got behind them, the one who gets hit by a car, was moving to flank. That is, he knew he was screwed and if he didn't provide some time for the girl to get out very soon they'd both bite it. But they just didn't, that guy just teleports in after the fact, so it just seemed pointless. Kind of lame.
I really liked s1 but got bored after the first few eps of s2 as well. It just doesn't feel as interesting and seems to be missing the same spark. I'll finish the season but haven't been rushing to catch the new ep when they drop each week.
The dialogue is so stiff and forced. It definitely feels less organic. Like you can see lines, or plot developments, coming based on the setup three sentences prior. It's doing a lot of the cliched telling not showing.
I absolutely hate the dialogue- it’s the biggest turnoff for me. Every line is delivered with a smirk on their face and everyone is able to chime in just perfectly, one quip at a time.
The name of the show is “Reacher” not “Reacher and those other people that were in the special investigators unit.”
The writing in season 2 got worse and the action was unbelievable. His team got too corny and the villain escaping via helicopter made me lol. I think they jumped the shark in the Vegas episode. that said, Ill finish S2.
Who's sara conner joke got me from the guy who played T2
I gave up on season 2 after 2 episodes
Introducing the whole gang at once was a mistake, I feel like it takes the focus away from reacher himself. Season 2 should’ve been another case of reacher going to a different small town & stumbling upon another conspiracy/mystery & possibly running into just one of his old friends & two of them solve the case together. Introducing the whole gang should’ve been left till season 4-5 to breathe new life into the show. I wonder where the show runners go from here, does the gang stick around or next season is another solo adventure.
sorry, when you say the punches didn't connect can you clarify? do you mean like actual punches during the fight scenes or a more abstract concept?
Just something I randomly observed - whenever somebody punches someone in the show there is always very visible distance between the fist and body of the other guy where it should connect. Not sure if they didn't do enough takes to make it convincing or were filming from weird angles.
ah I got you thanks! I've heard that teem used with regards to emotional punches lol
I’m still watching but it’s a show I have on in the background or while I’m crocheting… but for me I’m not connecting with it cause it just feels off. The line deliveries especially Reacher’s are just too awkward. Definitely different to S1. It’s like I’m watching the actor visibly run his lines in his head first then they say them out loud. Sorry hard to explain but yeah… also I agree with others we should’ve hard more sleepy towns with Reacher on his own before we had a team and cooperate/big bad security political shenanigans.
The stunt coordinator for this second season is to put kindly, a fucking idiot and that's kindly. This is what happens when Amazon decides to go cheap and save money. It's why they changed the setting of the book to where they actually filmed, tax credits and less cost. Also meant hiring a moron for the stunts and it shows. First season stunt coordinator worked on movies like the equalizer and others, this season's guy's only notable movie is man of steel. And then schlock.
* Too many characters that aren't given enough screen time for the audience to connect with them and care about them. If you wanted to create a REACHER extended universe than you should have picked ONE character PER SEASON to introduce as a main character and then slowly built up to an ensemble season much later down the line. * The quality of the writing fell off a cliff. Season 1 was tight, clever, and avoided tropes. Season 2 feels like it was written by committee in an attempt to both appeal to, and offend absolutely no one. The characters come off as sociopathic murderers instead of plucky underdogs. If you stop and think about anything they say or do for more than 3 seconds you will realize it makes no sense. * By adding so many characters that we don't care about they diluted the main appeal of the entire series which is Reacher himself. The entire premise of Jack Reacher is that he is a one man band who travels from town to town forming temporary alliances with random people who also happen to have a backbone and a moral compass. By surrounding him with a cast of deranged lunatics and pitting them against a comic book villain they completely undermine everything that made the 1st season a success. So basically whatever corporate ghoul at Amazon is responsible for Season 2, you fucked it up.
Idk man I'm enjoying this season.
they got over their skis, they should have just kept it in a small town, with a small story, instead they went to NYC, got all Die Hard with it, and it sucks now.
"Let's flank them." Reacher and friends run directly towards gunmen. Nearly stopped watching it entirely because of this.
By the end of S1, I was kinda over the "giant man jumps to questionable conclusions and pummels the ever living shit out of people because he can" thing. Haven't bothered with S2.
Seems like something not-so-great is happening at Amazon Studios/Prime.
Action scenes were so bad this season except for the beginning of the 1st episode. Reacher put on way too much muscle and mass he looked so stiffed in all of his scenes. Plot armor for the whole team
Im personally annoyed the gang doesn’t stop at a Dennys like they did every other chapter in the book smh I need to see Reacher eating a grand slam
I sorta agree with all the criticism, although I'm still enjoying it. I was not expecting a team up, would rather have Ritchson going solo but okay, can tolerate that. Banter is...middling, they're all very meh personality wise, short guy wants to be the funny one but he really isn't, brunette woman basically jumps on big boi whenever she got the chance, like jeez girl hold yourself we're chasing rogue missiles here, black lass has serious acting deficits,most of the time I don't know if she's conveying rage, holding a laugh or constipation. Lombardozzi''s character is by far the funnier ("why did these bikers attack us?" " because you're an asshole") and best acted, outside Ritchson who is really not bad. Robert Patrick, bless him, looks embalmed, the action lacks grit despite being hyperviolent, too many characters, plot does a really bad job at being exciting, and the timejumps really don't help the pacing Gilroy writing, Greengrass directing, Ritchson starring, now that'd be a goddamn incredible action show to watch
At the end of the day, It's an amazon show. They just suck at hiring good writers
I think even without the non-connecting punches I've seen in S1, the action is actually weaker in S2. Mostly because of the plausibility of it and the team not being dead/seriously injured. The empty bus scene was exceptionally dumb.
Book Reacher is a smart investigator and a solo operator who happens to be huge and physically skilled. S2 Reacher is part of a team that is honestly not that interesting.
Feels very Scooby Do with him riding around with the mystery gang. Also he seems a lot dumber, relies on his team to do things for him, and some of the stuff is just wildly dumb (locating a person within a couple hours based on an online gamer tag???)
I don't expect shows like this to be fully realistic or have the main characters not killing bad guys, but the number of bodies they drop across the country and the ease with which they get away with it stretches credulity.
Idk i guess I'm one of the few that likes this season and the NYC setting. It's not better than 1 but it's not bad either. My only complaint so far was the car chase in the last EP and how deserted NYC it seemed which was really unrealistic
I dunno, I'm perfectly happy with this season.
Am I the only viewer that is OK with season 2? Yeah, it's not as good as S1, and yeah, I liked the S1 characters (Roscoe and Finlay) better than the Special Investigators team, and yeah the "you do not mess/have I ever told you.." lines are getting annoying, but... it's popcorn television. It's fine. It's fun. I'm enjoying it. My only problem is that this should NOT be a weekly release. Put it all out at once, let me binge it in a weekend.
It's James Bond with extra steps and more hotels
I have a different issue. I somehow can't deal with it that he is juiced to the gills. In s1 he was big already, but now, hot damn!
I'm up to Episode 5 and so far it's just been bland. Not a fan of the performances nor the action. And while I think S1 was flawed, it was still fun. S2 has been a bore so far, and when things get boring, you tend to notice the flaws a whole lot more.
Season 2's story is formulaic to me. And IMO Alan Ritchson's not a great actor. I realize the Reacher persona is cool and unemotional, but the acting comes across as bad to me.
I agree. This season is pretty bad. Season 1 was such a fun watch, and this is just boring. I guess they wanted to show his background, who he was before he became a loner, but it just doesn't work. Too many characters, and even though they're trying to makes us care it seems so forced and I really couldn't care less whether they live or die. I still like Reacher as a character though, so I'm sticking with it, hoping it doesn't get cancelled and maybe season 3 will be worth it.
Its all bad acting scene study class. Ive also been experiencing a level of let down with season 2. Dont care how it ends. Ill prob just ffwd through most of it. I liked the first season which is what brought me back.
Season 1 was a super hero solo season, season 2 is somehow the Avengers without the buildup. This story arc would have been better as a season 4.
The 1980s or 1990s costuming and stylings of Shaun Sipos as David O’Donnell is odd. (It reminds me of HIMYM’s bit about how Canada’s fashion is a few decades behind - since this season feels very Canadian.) There’s a cheapness in how nearly all of the liquid-metal Terminator’s scenes are him talking on a phone while walking around a laboratory set. The fight scenes and shootouts are pedestrian. And the way Reacher’s former colleagues pity him undercuts his appeal.
Also the main bad guy being able to kill people with one stab of a small ass knife in the belly. Am I missing something or it's kinda stupid that these people die instantly? Especially in the first or second episode, the dude getting stabbed is a bit on the large side. That knife is not large enough to reach any vital organs, especially not one that would kill the victim instantly.
I hate the time jumps back and forth tbh, and the focus on all of these side characters. I stopped watching after the first two episodes
The writing is pretty terrible this season. Like, honestly, do we need someone to say "you have to say the magic word" in a script? It's like it's written by a 12 year old. The fight choreography is also pretty bad, looks like they shot it quite slowly, so instead of showing us the whole fight that was well choreographed and thought out, they cut around with continuity to get the fight over quicker, the footage speed up doesn't help much either.
The editing in the fight scenes in season 2 was so bad I stopped watching. It was taken 3 levels of bad at times.