Reacher Season 3 Book Has Been Chosen, Author Confirms Solo Jack Story

Summary

• Reacher season 3 will focus on a solo story for Alan Ritchson’s character.
• Lee Child, author and executive producer, reveals that they chose a story that allows Reacher to be more independent.
• The team creatively sequenced the story to highlight Reacher’s character and found a compelling opening scene.

The book for Reacher season 3 has been selected, confirming a solo story for Alan Ritchson’s titular character. Returning to Prime Video for the record-breaking season 2, the story featured Jack Reacher teaming up with Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) to uncover why friends from their past are all being murdered. Across eight episodes, adapted from the Lee Child novel Bad Luck and Trouble, the show dug deeper into the protagonist’s history and past relationships. Reacher season 2 ended with the hero parting ways with his team after seeking revenge against Shane Langston.

In comments to The Messenger, Child confirmed that the book for Reacher season 3 will see Jack Reacher on his own. The executive producer also teased a great opening scene that sets the tone for the upcoming episodes. Read the full quote below:

We’ve picked it up, it’s chosen. It’s a good choice, I gotta say. I think we’ve been very creative about how we’ve sequenced the type of story.

We felt we needed a book that was more Reacher alone for the third season. And so it was a question of which story would work best for that, and which one would have a great opening scene and all of that, and we found one that we loved.

What Will Reacher Season 3’s Book Be?

There are 28 entries in the main Reacher novels, with a 29th installment debuting later in 2024. Of those, Worth Dying For fits the bill of a lone Jack Reacher story. Released in 2010, the novel has been described as one of the best in the series. The story begins as Jack arrives in a rural Nebraskan town late one night. In a lowly motel bar, he overhears a drunk doctor who refuses to help a victim of domestic abuse.

The doctor changes his tune once Reacher intervenes. He also breaks the nose of the abusive husband. But it turns out that the abusive husband is the scion of a powerful clan, which gets the titular hero caught in an unsolved disappearance. This would continue a Reacher tradition, as each season has featured a scene of Jack standing up for a domestic abuse victim.

Another possible candidate, Die Trying, is Ritchson’s favorite. The solo adventure sees the show’s hero kidnapped in Chicago, along with a very important woman. Although the decision for season 3 was made well before season 2 even debuted, the solo focus will be a welcome change to some after the divided response to Reacher‘s season 2 team-up.

Does Reacher Season 2 Prove The Character Works Better On His Own?

The Prime Video adaptation, which is developed by showrunner Nick Santora, debuted to strong ratings, but, as the second installment aired, there has been discussion about whether the supporting cast has made Reacher less likable. The trio, along with Jack Reacher himself, rarely face any real adversity throughout season 2’s eight episodes. That changes toward the end, but by then the heroes seem fairly invincible.

This is in contrast to season 1, in which Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald) and Finland (Malcolm Goodwin) provided a counterpart to the main character’s bravado. They would even call him out on it, which gave the adaptation’s early episodes a more grounded feeling. Reacher season 2, by being much bigger and much more tied to the backstory and the history, was a sharp departure from the small-town charm that initially earned the series praise. Reacher season 3 focusing more on Jack as a lone wolf can help the show return to its roots in a way that both honors Child’s source material and season 2’s divisive story.

All episodes of Reacher are streaming on Prime Video.

Source: The Messenger