Yahoo News Alan Ritchson Previews Reacher ‘Family’ Reunion — and Season 2’s Most Brutally Badass Moment
Viewers can expect some “Reacher-size cracks” in the superstoic man mountain’s emotional accessibility when Season 2 of the Prime Video thriller begins streaming this Friday (with the first three episodes of eight).
Based on Bad Luck and Trouble (the 11th book in Lee Child’s series of Jack Reacher novels), Season 2 of the Prime Video hit finds the veteran military police investigator (played by Alan Ritchson) receiving a coded message saying that the members of his former U.S. Army unit, the 110th, are being mysteriously (and brutally) murdered, one by one.
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Pressing pause on his drifter lifestyle, Reacher reunites with three of his former teammates: Frances Neagley (played by Season 1 returnee Maria Sten), with whom Reacher has the deepest connection; Karla Dixon (Coroner‘s Serinda Swan), a forensic accountant for whom Reacher has long had a soft spot; and David O’Donnell (Outer Range‘s Shaun Sipos), a switchblade-wielding family man whom Reacher finds great sport in teasing.
Mixing it up with the old team, whose original dynamic is also explored in flashbacks, will allow viewers to access the Reacher character in new ways.
“That’s the fun of this season, seeing how Reacher reacts to seeing his former family from the 110th having grown up,” series front man Ritchson tells TVLine.
As everyone shares what they have been up to since last together, “A lot of questions come up about whether or not Reacher made the right choice in having a ‘career’ as a wanderer,” Ritchson previews. And that, “in a Reacher way, will create an opening for some emotional availability that we don’t normally see with him. Now, those might be little, Reacher-size cracks, but hopefully it will be enough to endear us to him a little more.”
Whereas Reacher enjoys a playful bromance with O’Donnell and the igniting of a long-suppressed romance with Dixon, the character’s deep-seated connection with Neagley — barely touched upon in Season 1 of the TV series — stands out for Ritchson.
“There are a lot of us who wish that we could transcend sexual tension in our relationships,” the actor posits, “that we could enjoy relationships on a deeper level that didn’t have that element poisoning it.” With Reacher and Neagley, he says, “There’s an intimacy that’s completely sans sexual intimacy, and that’s such a rare thing to see in storytelling these days. It’s just so refreshing to know that their relationship is built on this deep respect for one another and their idiosyncrasies.”
Get Reacher Season 2 Trailer, First Photos
OK, that’s enough talk of feeeelings.
After all, Jack Reacher is first and foremost a bruiser on an epic scale, and as he contends with new adversaries played by Domenick Lombardozzi (Breakout Kings), Ferdinand Kingsley (Victoria) and Robert Patrick (Peacemaker) — plus a multitude of low-level minions/cannon fodder — the thunderous beatdowns will be in abundant supply.
The trailer alone shows Reacher triggering a car’s airbag with a kick to its front grill, and him punching through a carjacker’s driver’s side window. Does Ritchson — who bulked up his 6-foot-3 frame to 245 lbs. for Season 2 — have a favorite bit of “brutal badassery” (as we put it)?
“There is a sequence that we shot near the end, and it involved a lot,” the series star reports with a grin. “It involved getting shot at and shooting, and hand-to-hand combat, and fighting with guns and fists… It was such a cool sequence that we endeavored to shoot as a oner, and we succeeded.
“I don’t think it actually made it in the [final] cut as a oner, strangely,” Ritchson notes, “but that for sure stands out to me as a big win. I was really proud of that fight.”
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