Well, this day had to come eventually: Reacher (Alan Ritchson) made a mistake, and as a result a lot of people are dead. This is hard to take, not just because it means the plot can no longer be discussed without spoilers, but also because there’s an unpleasant subtext kicking in that the previous episodes of this season’s Reacher had largely avoided. Is that to say this season is suddenly taking the hard swerve into irredeemable nastiness that the previous one did? Well, no. This is still by far the best season of the show. But the vibe from here on out is wrapped in the red white and blue in ways which don’t always add up (and more on this later).
The drive-by in the suburban neighbourhood makes this vividly clear. This is the kind of criminality that the suburbs were designed to prevent but which suburb-dwellers spend a lot of time thinking about. They could stand their ground, guns a-blazin’, except what saves Tamara (Sydelle Noel, who does some excellent stuntwork in this episode) and Russell (Kevin Weisman) is Jacob (Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette)’s local knowledge. Later there’s an unpleasant direct confrontation that involves the baddies having the stereotypically terrible aim needed to prolong a work of art, but which provides plenty of time for our good guys to wonder if they are out of their depth. Reacher of course is not flustered by anything, and continues to enjoy the willingness to get gross that enables him to maintain his freedom with minimal harm done, except to one person’s one body part. Docherty (Kevin Corrigan) and Reacher trade insults, Jacob’s honorary police-chief uncle Monty (Nick Searcy, aka the guy from Justified) shows up to patronise the crap out of him, and nobody trusts the federal government to do their jobs. We all have to protect each other! While trusting no one! Except Cyrus (Richard Walters) the chop shop owner, an ordinary decent criminal. (We also get reminded that Mr. Rodriguez-Marquette terrified everybody back in 2011 as the cannibal serial killer in a late episode of House. His skill for seeming meek and mild but with terrible hidden talents underneath is really rather impressive.)
We also trust the laws of physics: when the running and jumping section of the program turns into the falling section, we maintain confidence that Reacher will keep his head and prevent Tamara from losing hers. The ways in which they outmanoeuvre dozens of Philadelphia cops, who weirdly have the same lousy aim as those villains in the New Jersey suburbs, is propulsive viewing. The fluid camera work throughout gives these scenes a sense of space and freedom even within the panicked attempts at escape. A show that specialises in close-up action sequences doesn’t always provide itself this much air.
The main thing is that at last we learn what all the fuss is about vis-à-vis the jump drive: it contains a single photo of young Sampson (Marc Blucas) and a colleague arm in arm with the nasty Indonesian general who committed all those war crimes Lila (Agnez Mo) and Amisha (Anggun) are so upset about. But that image, which has left at least ten people dead and several others maimed for life, does not seem worth all this fuss.
Clearly finding out what we’re missing will be the push for the rest of the season, but as we wait we should consider why the metaphor of bridges was emphasized in this episode. There’s the bridge where Jacob demonstrates being from a small town is actually a saving grace, and there’s the bridge under which Tamara and Reacher take a break from risking their necks to hide from every other cop in town. Is that photo Jacob’s sister died for so dangerous all this destruction is justified?
Well, yes. A positive overlap between the ways things are and the way things should be is the goal for every decent society, and for every decent person, too. And Reacher, the man without fear, the woman respecter, is willing to do more than most in order to draw those two different things together. His sense of justice might be more violent than most, but through that violence he is able to achieve what many other Americans can only dream of. Jacob’s concerning willingness to go as dark as Reacher has not as yet been backed up with lethal force, but we can all tell that will be needed soon.
And yet this show is busily and loudly reminding us other countries exist beyond their interactions with the American military, and have as desperate a hunger for justice as we do. The terrible crimes attributed to that general in the photo did were not acceptable just because they happened in Indonesia. The people who were tortured and killed there had plans and dinner orders and exhausting jobs just like people in suburban Philadelphia do. The American government in the person of Sampson may pretend it is not responsible, but we are all responsible. We are all people in the world. And yet in the face of such horror most people feel they can do nothing. Reacher exists to remind us that 1) this is not true 2) it’s not always hard to do a good thing. Sometimes all it takes is holding out your hand to another person. Sometimes all it takes is folding that hand into your own.
One final thing: Anggun represented France at the 2012 Eurovision with a song she co-wrote; I must insist this song be given a new video with Reacher, Jacob and Russell as her back-up dancers.
Credit needle drop: “Mess Around” by Cage the Elephant.
Reacher Season 4, Episode 5 is now streaming on Prime Video.
Learn more about the show at the IMDB site for the title.
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