#238. Reacher Season Two Finale
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This short bonus episode has Sonny, JVL, and Mike recapping the Reacher Season 2 finale, and the verdict is unanimous disappointment. Sonny and Mike single out the one genuinely satisfying "feat of strength" — Reacher holding a gurney out of a plummeting helicopter with one hand while fighting an attacker with the other — but everything else draws complaints: the traitorous-senator subplot is underdeveloped and dumped in late, Robert Patrick's villain is given a speech before dying, which JVL argues betrays the books' own running joke that Reacher never bothers monologuing (he walks through two Lee Child anecdotes to prove it, including Reacher shooting a mob boss mid-ice-cream-cone), and the season's real Big Bad, the arms dealer A.M., gets anticlimactically gunned down in a Pulp Fiction-style group unload rather than a one-on-one Reacher showdown. Mike also flags a darkly funny beat where an oblivious diner waitress comments on the news about the helicopter explosion to the very bloodied team responsible. JVL declares the season "radically worse" than Season 1 and Sonny agrees it's "much, much worse," and the two debate which Lee Child novel the already-filming Season 3 should adapt, with JVL favoring 61 Hours (or maybe a military-era book) while urging the show to "hit the good button" next time. Being a short recap-only bonus episode, there's no extended opening banter — it launches straight into the discussion and closes on the running gag about the Sub-Beacon itself needing to "hit the good button."
From the show notes
Finale, finally.
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Welcome to the bonus episode, the final bonus episode of the Sub-Beacon that we're talking about the second season of Reacher, the season finale of Reacher season two. And all I can say, guys, is thank God we're at the end. I can see the end.
Sonny00:00:28Can I say, the thing I find flummoxed, so first off, this episode did things that I liked with Reacher.
Mike00:00:36Agree, agree.
Sonny00:00:37Did things that I liked with Reacher. Feats of strength, feats of strength where he's holding the gurney from falling out of the helicopter while also fighting a guy with the other hand.
Mike00:00:48Which forced me to say, which I've been waiting all season to say is, oh my God, which I've been waiting to say all season long. And this was the first moment where I like burst out. In like, I can't believe what just happened.
Sonny00:01:01Like, he's grabbing the gurney. Did you say it like that? No, I don't. Did you say it like in that ridiculous voice?
Mike00:01:08I didn't want to scream and break my microphone.
Sonny00:01:11Were you, I don't know.
Mike00:01:13I said, oh my God.
Sonny00:01:15Is that, is that a reference to something? No, it says just how I say it. That's just how you say, oh my God.
Mike00:01:20All right, can we move on, please? There's just like more to talk about.
Sonny00:01:24God, now I've lost my train of thought.
JVL00:01:26All right, but the other thing.
Sonny00:01:28The other thing I want to say here is as you, as you, as you predicted JBL, you couldn't have any way of knowing this from having read the books. Jack Reacher throws Robert Patrick out of the helicopter. Good for him. That was, that was great. That was well-deserved. But the thing that is, the thing that is most fascinating about the show is that they, you, you have this, you have this show that's insanely overly long. It's like, it's an eight episode show when it should have been like a five episode show. And it still feels incredibly rushed at the end. And it still feels like, like all of the sudden the, like you have a whole subplot where Jack Reacher is taking down a sitting United States Senator who has essentially betrayed the country and is also like trying to murder these guys. And it's just, it just kind of comes out of nowhere almost at the, like this guy's been in two other episodes for like a total of 300 seconds in the rest of the show.
JVL00:02:26He commands his own SEAL team.
Sonny00:02:27Commands his own SEAL team.
JVL00:02:28That's how the chain of command works in the military.
Sonny00:02:30And I was just like, I was just like, I feel like, I feel like we really could have spent more time on traitor Senator man. And, and the payoff would have been much more satisfying at the end when, when he gets, when he gets taken down instead, it just gets like kind of tossed in there. It's, it is.
Mike00:02:49Suggestion. Here's what they should have done. They should have had the end of the season be those three guys. There's three commandos for Senator LaVoy saying, all right, now it's time to clean up our loose ends and like show them going after Reacher and his team to set up a season three where we get into, because I don't want to spend any more time in this season. But if they're going to do a season three, like let this be the seed of a whole, like we got to, we got to break open what's going on in the U S government kind of thing.
Sonny00:03:25Something they could have done. They could have done something. Just suggestion. Uh, but it was, it was, it was, it was, uh, I, it was, it was unsatisfying and also like vaguely annoying, but that's a pretty good synecdoche for the whole show. It's, it's, uh, this season was much worse than last, than the first season. It's, it's like both boring and, um, poorly structured. And I, like, I didn't, I didn't care for it. Uh, and I feel, I feel bad that we did the whole, that we did the whole, and we didn't even have, I like, again, I talked about this. But there wasn't like, there wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, Jack Reacher got on that bus at the end and then, uh, picked it up and threw it at somebody. You know, that's how the, that's how the season really should have ended. Him chucking a bus at that Senator. Been like, I've.
Mike00:04:18Will my trailways pass cover this?
Sonny00:04:20You got, we got, I'm trying to think of a one-liner. I can't do it. See, this is why they get paid the big bucks. But it, the, the whole, it should have just, that's how it should have. You know, that's how it should have.
JVL00:04:30Try to get past this bus.
Sonny00:04:33Something. It's literally anything.
JVL00:04:36What did you think of the finale and this season? So I, two things. First of all, I would love to see the data on how, what percentage of the audience clicked off before the final credits. Because the story ends when they fire a missile to blow up the helicopter, killing the last two employees of little wing. Yes. And yet it goes on. It goes on for 12 more minutes. Keeps going. It's, it's like, uh, the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's just, you know, like all of a sudden Reacher and Neely are heading off, uh, across the Western sea with the elves and shit. And I, I could care less who's getting which pieces of money. The fact that we spent 15 seconds showing that they gave a million dollars to an animal shelter or something and cash like, who cares?
Mike00:05:28Oh, did we see, by the way, did we see the, the lady and her daughter who they sent away? Did we ever see them get any money? I don't even know.
JVL00:05:34Like, I don't, who can say, right? We saw, we saw one lady and a child get it, but I don't know if it was the same lady.
Mike00:05:40That was like some, that was the wife of a friend. That was a wife of one of their buddies.
JVL00:05:44But I'm going to do my final, but in the books thing of the season, which is that this, there was a very specific betrayal of something, which is a stated thing in the books and which is funny in the books. Books are often quite funny. I think I've told you about, there's a scene in one, one book where Reacher and the bad guys have been like working out of the same, uh, you know, high Marriott courtyard for a week without realizing it because they, neither of them had seen each other. And when he, he and one guy are coming out of the elevator together and they're walking to the parking lot together and it dawns on both of them sign him simultaneously. Fuck, this is the guy I'm trying to kill. And Reacher, Reacher kills him with a single punch. He punches him in the solar plexus and because he's a little fella, he's a little, little Filipino dude, I think, uh, it just stops his heart and he dies. So in another one, Reacher does this whole thing where he talks about how in the movies, the, the good guy always has to tell the bad guy why he's dying and that there's always a speech and there's always a one-liner and it's because it's not satisfying to the audiences unless they know that the bad guy is, but in real life, Reacher says, none of that matters. The bad guy's just got to die. Like you just, you know, you got to make sure that, and this is funny because in the first time I think we hear this bit in the book, the big bad for the, the story he's in is this enormously fat Ukrainian mobster. And he's, he's like kingpin fat, orca fat, and Reacher has been sort of hunting around this guy in this little small town. You know, for like three days or something. And then he's just walking down the street and sees this guy sitting, eating an ice cream cone, like in the, on a picnic table in the back of the strip club that he owns. And Reacher's like, geez, he's just, Reacher just walks up to him and shoots him in the head and walks away. It's, it's really funny because Reacher's like, yeah, you know, in the movies, you got to tell the guy, but, but the truth is sometimes it's like the bad guy's just right there and you just shoot him in the head and the problem is solved. Sure. And here we get in this movie. And we get this thing with him and Robert Patrick, where he has to tell Robert Patrick why he's going to die. And like, there's the speed and there's a one liner. And I'm just like, this is, the books literally make fun of shit like this. It's a betrayal. No, it is. It's like, it's a betrayal. It's a minor betrayal. It's just commerce. I don't really care. But it's a way in which the books are superior. And there's no reason that that ethos couldn't have been translated into this. It's a choice that was not made of necessity. It's an artistic choice. And I think it's choosing something that's less interesting over something that's more interesting.
Mike00:08:36It's a bad artistic choice. Here, I have many beefs with this season and with this episode. But it's all encapsulated in the way that they dealt with the other supposed big bad in this, which is A.M., the guy who we've been following.
JVL00:08:58For the whole season.
Mike00:09:01He's James Bond until the last episode. But it's like, yeah. So, like, he's literally gone through every episode. We've had like three minutes of this guy as he crawled across the country. And every time we see him, he does some awful amoral, like, just like totally transactional, like, killing of somebody. It's like gruesome. He's a monster. He's a barbarian in a suit. And with. With a nice haircut and like in a British accent. So, like, we're built up. It's built up the entire season that there's going to be some big moment with between Reacher, who's like all brawn and all American. And this, like, put together bad arms dealer who was willing to slice a guy's face, slice him through the neck just so he could steal his ID. And when he shows up and knocks on the door at the cabin where they're all waiting for him, where the good guys are waiting for him, just drag him in to the cabin. He gives some stupid speech about it's all business. And then they all just they don't know anything about what this guy's done. They don't know about all the brutality. They just all lift their guns and shoot.
JVL00:10:23It's like the scene in Pulp Fiction, too, where they just like just. Four people unloading like, you know, 30 rounds of ordnance.
Mike00:10:33But it's like it's like it's supposed to be satisfying for us because we've seen all the terrible things this guy's done. But the characters don't know that. They just know that he's buying. And they're like, yeah, we're going to fuck you up, too, you son of a bitch.
Sonny00:10:45It's like there is there is an interesting amount of bloodlust from Jack Reacher and his guys when they're like, all right, let him go on the helicopter. And then they're like, let's see how this thing works. And I it's like, OK, I mean, look, I have no problem with this. I'm fine with the I'm all in favor. Yeah, that actually that that that's fine. But it is it is a little weird for a show of this nature.
Mike00:11:12I unintentionally laughed. I don't think they were trying to get a laugh out of here. But when they were in the diner afterward and they're all like bloody, like they've clearly been through the shit. And the waitress like looks up at the TV where they're well, no, no, not that way, where she's like. Where they're doing the news story about like a helicopter exploded over the Hudson River. And she's like, isn't that awful? Like, don't you think the bloodied up for military grade people might have something to do with that? And she's just like, isn't that awful? And they're like, yeah. Dumb.
Sonny00:11:46I know. I mean, I think I think that was an intentional laugh. I think that that's the point there is that they were. But but it also like. No, I mean, I don't I don't think this poor waitress. Should have known that they were involved in it because it's played in. Isn't it played in the news as like a mechanical accident or something? They say it like this.
JVL00:12:05But a fisherman said that he saw a rocket string. Here's my here's my question. Was this did this do enough to merit a third season?
Sonny00:12:15They're already making. Oh, yeah, they're they're already shooting.
Mike00:12:17Could they just make it better?
JVL00:12:19Because here's what I don't understand.
Sonny00:12:20Just want a good. I just want to just do it better.
JVL00:12:23They should hit the good button, but it's not hard because they have the stories. They have the character. All they have to do is just make better choices. It's not. This is not like starting from a blank page. In the universe of things that the Reacher books are built for this. They are built to be told in long form serial.
Mike00:12:47What is your ideal source book of the Reacher books for a third season? JVL.
JVL00:12:56And pick one. They're all the same. Right. They're all. I mean, it's not true. They're all the same. Some are better than others, but they're all they're all pretty good. Sixty one hours is pretty good. I really like sixty one hours. This one. Bad luck and trouble. I would have would have said would be a good one. They might want to go back for season three and dip to do one of the ones that is set when he was in the military. That might be interesting. Yeah. But I just I do think, Sonny, that this was radically worse than season one.
Sonny00:13:27Much, much worse. It's radically worse. Yeah.
JVL00:13:29And so could they just not again just choose choose to press the good button because they chose to press the bad button for this season.
Sonny00:13:37It's like they missed. They just they hit the wrong button. They're like, oh, shit. They realize it like halfway through. They're like, I guess we got to keep going. Hit the button again. Maybe that'll do it.
Mike00:13:48Ah, it's worse. We should remember to hit the good button for for the sub-beacon. Have we ever?
Sonny00:13:57Wouldn't. It's in the back.
JVL00:13:58Wouldn't hurt to start. All right. I'm sure it's fine.
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