Reacher Season 3's Best New Characters Break A Prime Video Trend After 3 Years

Warning: Major spoilers for Reacher season 3 below!Reacher season 3 introduced some great new characters, which helped make it one of the strongest seasons yet. Reacher season 3 adapted Persuader, the seventh novel and comfortably one of the best. As entertaining as the second series was, it can’t be denied there was a dip in quality. The story was intensely generic, and the show missed the dynamic between Alan Ritchson’s Reacher, Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), and Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald). Meeting Reacher’s old teammates from the 110th Special Investigators during season 2 was fun, but the chemistry wasn’t the same.

Season 2’s villains were also a bit lame, but the third season took all that audience feedback onboard. It featured a couple of effectively nasty villains, while the long-anticipated Reacher vs Paulie fight proved worth the wait. Overall, season 3 is a big improvement, which is largely down to the latest cast of characters it added.

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In Reacher Seasons 1 & 2, Reacher’s Allies Were By Far The Best Supporting Characters

Finlay and Roscoe are still missed

The show might be titled Reacher, but it was Finlay and Roscoe who ended up stealing the hearts of viewers during season 1. The central trio provided it with its soul, with Ritchson, Fitzgerald and Goodwin all sharing fantastic chemistry with each other. Reacher was obviously the focus – as it should be with any series titled Reacher – but it was just as entertaining to hang around with Roscoe or Finlay. It was fun watching the uptight Finlay gradually thaw and come around to Reacher’s blunt methods, while the romance the latter formed with Roscoe was oddly sweet.

There was some legitimate concern that season 2 would suffer for their absence, which was partly true. The Lee Child Jack Reacher books rarely feature returning characters, so there was never going to be another series where Roscoe and Finaly played major roles. Still, that’s not to say the Special Investigators weren’t a fun group to hang with. The 110th plotline helped fill in the background on Reacher and Neagley (Maria Sten), plus it was interesting to see Jack paired with professionals like himself.

This was in contrast to the villains, who barely registered. This was a failing of the writing as opposed to the acting, as Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and Ferdinand Kingsley did their best with thin, one-note roles. This complaint could be leveled at the source material since Child rarely fleshes his antagonists out in great detail. The bad guys in the first season weren’t much better, though at least KJ Kliner (Chris Webster) had some shades to his character.

Reacher Season 3’s Best New Characters Aren’t Who You Expect

Quinn doesn’t seem like a fun hang

After two series where Reacher’s allies were the best supporting characters, season 3 has made the villains the most interesting. That’s not to say Reacher’s latest Agent Duffy (Sonya Cassidy) wasn’t a strong addition, but the likes of the hulking bodyguard Paulie (Olivier Richters) or the truly menacing Quinn (Brian Tee) were the series breakouts. While not a total villain, Anthony Michael Hall’s Beck was the most well-developed too. He was a businessman stuck under the heel of Quinn and forced to run guns for him, and despite his posturing, he slowly crumbled as the season progressed.

This includes guilt over his son having been kidnapped and tortured by Quinn’s men and their subsequent emotional estrangement. Paulie isn’t particularly well-developed, but he was an effectively hateful foe and the first one who felt like a genuine threat to the title character. Quinn might just be the best Reacher bad guy to date, being a vicious sociopath who enjoys inflicting pain and torment, even if he tries to present himself as a businessman.

The New Supporting Characters Help Make Reacher Season 3 The Best Yet

Reacher season 3 proved Persuader is one of the best novels

There were many great novels the showrunners could have picked for season 3, but Persuader was the best choice. Paulie alone would have made up for the show’s ongoing villain issues, but the whole ensemble elevated it. The romance between Duffy and Reacher actually felt believable, and Hall’s Beck made for a complex, strangely sympathetic figure. Now audiences have accepted Roscoe and Finlay won’t be making a comeback, season 3 highlighted the benefits of starting a fresh misadventure each season.

The upcoming Reacher season 4 now has a tough challenge since it will now have to top the third year, which received a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. There have been no indications of which novel it will adapt, though the introduction of Jack’s old mentor Garber (Andreas Apergis) suggests books like Die Trying or Tripwire could be up next.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes