Whenever you are watching an adaptation of a piece of source material you enjoyed reading being put on screen, you’re always asking yourself some of the same questions. How will they do it? Will all the characters be there? Will they add anything new and stuff like that? These days, we have added a new question: “What are they going to destroy?”
But I am happy to report that these free episodes of season two of Reacher don’t need that last question being answered because it’s simply a good-faith adaptation.
Now, in terms of comparing the show to the book, there are some minor changes. It’s nothing to scream or be mad about. The only people whose words are absolute purists who didn’t want to enjoy this thing in the first place.
Season 2 Plot/Review
The series so far is well constructed with good characters that you start rooting for straight away. One fear of going into any new series in the modern day is if we’re going to have useless characters or insufferable girl bosses, neither of which are present in these three episodes.
All the main characters, both good and bad, seem to represent what is in the book. I do think there is one exception and one name change, but it is still the same character. But apart from that, everything is going as it should. In fact, the series advances upon it.
I am not in the habit of recommending a show so quickly, so let’s just say I’ll be looking forward to the remaining episodes coming out each week.
The plot is relatively straightforward. We have reintroduced the characters that we met in the last series, the title characters Reacher and Neagley. Neagley informs Reacher that one of their old army friends has been murdered, which is all he needs to abandon what he’s doing and head towards her location, which in this series is New York, an alteration from the book where it was originally set in West Hollywood, CA.
Once he arrives, they start going through the details and trying to get in contact with their other army buddies to no avail. Eventually, two of them do show up, Carla Dixon and Dave O’Donnell. That is after a lot of prodding from Reacher on the bone to get them there.
The episodes go through many flashbacks of their time as special investigators, starting from where they all met and solved various crimes together. This gives the audience a working knowledge of why these people are so close and gives us the opportunity to see their skills in the original area that they were intended for.
As the episodes go along, they find out many details about their fallen comrades. I say comrades as plural because more than one of their old friends is found dead as the case continues. That is, over the course of these three episodes, more than one person is presumed dead.
Season 2 Filming Locations
The second season of Reacher was filmed in Ontario, Canada. This includes Toronto, the province’s capital, which displayed signs throughout the production’s Sep 2022–Feb 2023 shooting period that had the working title “Chimp.”
Similar signs also appeared in Brampton, another city in Ontario. In early November 2022, filming took place in downtown Brampton for roughly a week. The filming of Reacher Season 2 was limited to a single street in a low-rise neighborhood.
At about the same time, pictures of co-star Shaun Sipos and Ritchson at Toronto’s Hendricks Restaurant started circulating online. Given that the scene does not match any from the first three episodes of season 2, we don’t know if the restaurant will be in the second season or if the two were just grabbing a bite at the place.
Filming Locations
In April 2021, Reacher’s showrunners visited Ontario, Canada, and successfully recreated Child’s vision. Through creative set design, the showrunners transformed an Ontario movie backlot into Margrave, the main backdrop for Reacher in the first season. This set was used to create a number of significant locations that were featured throughout the show, such as the Margrave Dine and Mosley’s barbershop.
Still, a good number of the first season’s sequences were also filmed in real locales. For example, during the filming of Reacher Season 1, The Piano Inn and Cafe in Port Perry was converted into JJ’s Ale House.
Reacher’s production was looking for background actors in and around Kingston Penetiatry in early April 2021. You can see the former high-security facility—now a museum—in the first episode. After that, Episode 2 takes viewers on a tour of Port Perry’s Queen and Perry Streets and includes an exciting action sequence in which Jack Reacher fights a group of young people in the Stratford Suburban Motel.
