TV Review: Reacher Season 3 (2025)

Reacher Season 3 (2025) adapted for television by Nick Santora based on the novel Persuader by Lee Child

Reacher (Alan Ritchson) gets involved in an attempted kidnapping in a small Maine town he's wandering through. Local teen Richard Beck (Johnny Berchtold) is almost snatched off the streets. Beck is the son of Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall), who is a very rich rug merchant. His son was kidnapped once before for ransom, so it is plausible that Beck Senior wants to hire Reacher as security for his son, even though they live in a highly secured seaside estate. Viewers find out pretty quickly that Reacher is really trying to infiltrate the home because Beck is involved in blackmarket shipments, using his international rug trade as a front. DEA officer Susan Duffy (Sonia Cassidy) has recruited Reacher because she wants to bring down what she assumes is drug trade and to find a young woman, Teresa (Storm Steenson), who was an inside informant working at the estate. Reacher signs on because he sees a guy he thought he had killed in the past. Reacher wants to finish the job. As part of the new security, Reacher has an ongoing feud with the even larger security guy Paulie (Olivier Richters), who usually mans the front gate (which includes a very large, tri-pod-mounted machine gun). This situation gets more complicated and violent as the story plays out.

The story has an interesting, well-crafted plot that slowly builds up the tension and excitement. Reacher has something of a fatherly relationship with Richard, as much as Reacher ever could. Ritchson does a good job as Reacher. He has the physical menace and enough smarts to make a good action/thriller hero. The rest of the cast is good too, especially Cassidy as the DEA agent trying to keep her investigation going with all the chaos that Reacher introduces. Some moments are a bit preposterous, including the typical Reacher sex scene that takes a surprisingly long while to happen. But this season is not as preposterous as the previous season, which had too many over-the-top moments for my taste. This show isn't perfect but it is very entertaining.

Recommended, highly for Reacher fans.

As of this writing (September 2025), the show is only available streaming on Amazon Prime. 

Book Review: Destro Vol. 1 by D. Watters et al.

Destro Volume 1: The Enemy written by Dan Watters, art by Andrei Bressan and Andrea Milana

In a continuation of the Energon Universe storyline, James McCullen Destro XXIV is a high-tech arms dealer whose family has a long tradition of selling weapons to any and everyone who is willing to pay. He has some competition, as any business would, but he has a star client in Cobra, an up and coming military force trying to sew war all over the world in hopes of achieving world domination. Before that can happen, Destro has to reckon with several competitors, especially Tomax and Xamot Paoli, the "Crimson Twins" who offer highly-trained soldiers to whoever will pay. They naturally want to muscle in on the high-tech end of the business, which makes Destro a prime target. Especially when he hosts an arms sales convention in an Eastern European country he has just taken over, putting his cousin on the throne. When the convention gets attacked (and the twins didn't even show up for the convention), a war breaks out among the weapons manufacturers of the world. Can Destro come out on top?

I played with the G. I. Joe figures of the 1980s and Destro was my favorite villain back then. He's given a lot more backstory here, which is good and handled well. The whole conflict between various villains is not so interesting--obviously readers are meant to root for Destro and he does have some clever tactics. But there's a lot of scientific nonsense and less than convincing alliances among characters. The plot became dramatically unconvincing about half-way through the book. I was very underwhelmed by this and am bailing out on the series. Sorry, G. I. Joes!

Not recommended.