Maybe you've felt the tremors: A souped-up beast of a guy has wandered into TV land, and his name is Reacher. Season 1 of the Amazon series that bears his name was a huge hit when it debuted in early 2022, and Season 2, which ends January 19, looks to be even bigger, becoming the No. 1 global title in its debut weekend Prime Video. And the series critically crushes it, like Reacher crushes a villain's skull. At the beginning of January, the new season had a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience rating of 84 percent – when do critics ever rate a beefy action show higher than audiences?
Everyone loves this “Reacher”.
And of all of them, the reviews seem to indicate, this primarily means every man.
A review in Paste Magazine had this succinct summary: “I'm not saying it's just for guys, but I think we're on safe ground if we say it's mostly for guys.” And what guys seem to like , is minimal emotion and maximum fisticuffs carried out by a mountain of muscle – a former army investigator turned roving crime solver who wastes no time blackmailing his own huge, meaty hands about little things like a permanent residence or even a change of clothes.
But the special thing about “Reacher” is that women also watch the film. According to Nielsen, 58 percent of season 1 viewers were male. Still, there remains a fairly large number of people who don't. When it comes to Jack Reacher's popularity, the general opinion is that men want to be like him and women want to be with him. But I assume that some women also want to be like him. Or at least they want some of his freedom.
Jack Reacher was created by writer Lee Child and has published a series of best-selling novels since 1997 that have long had a strong female readership – publisher Penguin Random House estimated it at around 60 percent in 2018. One of its biggest mainstream champions is a woman, New York Times critic Janet Maslin. I have read about 20 of these novels, most of them in their natural habitats (flights, holiday apartments), and I am proud to share a following with the British writer Antonia Fraser, who wrote in a 2022 letter to The Guardian: “The The thought of there being a new Jack Reacher to read in the evening makes the whole day fly by.”
Now the Amazon series starring Alan Ritchson finally offers a worthy film adaptation. That's welcome news after two 2010s films that were ridiculed for casting Tom Cruise as a man described in a book as having “a six-pack like a cobbled city street and a chest like NFL armor.” Biceps like basketballs and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue.” Ritchson not only meets the physical requirements – which are so crucial to the character’s essence that they are non-negotiable – but he also has a sense of dry humor and is so light on his feet as a person the size of an industrial refrigerator can be.
Reacher appeals to men in general and fathers in particular because, as NPR television critic Eric Deggans writes, he is “a character freed from all the constraints and responsibilities that many fathers face every day” – a pretty representative critical one Assessment based on many reviews I have read. “He has no wife, no regular partner, no children or family,” Deggans continues, “not even a mortgage, no rent payment or a full-time job.”
But I suspect that many mothers would also welcome the opportunity to be exempt from these requirements. (And they're more likely than fathers to feel guilty for even harboring that fantasy.) Reacher, who travels the country with nothing but a toothbrush, an ATM card, and the clothes on his back, doesn't have one duties other than those that he sets for himself. I'm not a mother, but I have a spouse, a desk job, and bills to pay, and I often think, “I'll take what he has.”
Consider the Pros: When Reacher needs a change of clothes, he just buys something cheap wherever he is. (Miraculously, he always finds his size, which appears to be InfinityXL, at thrift stores or thrift stores.) In the first episode of this season, he spends $22 on a new outfit. Getting a complete outfit effortlessly on a double-digit budget is living the dream.
His diet is also uncomplicated. There is always bacon and eggs for breakfast. Otherwise it's a cheeseburger and fries, and he always wolfs it down with great relish. Forgive me for thinking that sounds more satisfying, if only for a day, than eating “girl's food” – especially since his eating habits miraculously translate into muscle instead of fat.
However, perhaps the most enviable thing about Reacher from a woman's perspective is that he is never afraid. Dark alleys and threatening strangers don't bother him, and what woman doesn't envy his self-confidence? As I stew in silence and powerless while some idiot harasses a woman in public, I have often dreamed of walking up to him and reducing him to a quivering puddle of fear with just one withering look.
Reacher can do that. And if that's not enough, he can also plunge him into obscurity. For some of us, the transference is real.
There's no denying that Reacher can come close to being a lone sociopath (although he tends to return rather than incite violence or at least strike preemptively). But Child has cleverly ensured that even though Reacher roams alone, he rarely acts alone, forcing his hero to behave like a human and giving the women other vicarious opportunities to connect with him. Season 2 is a team story as Reacher reunites with members of his Army investigative unit, including Frances Neagley (Maria Sten). Her fear of being touched may be one reason why her relationship with Reacher is successfully platonic; They have the kind of committed friendship that women rarely see in books or on screen with straight men, which I find incredibly refreshing.
Reacher is also capable of being a thoughtful and attentive lover. In Season 1, he works with two local police officers, played by Willa Fitzgerald and Malcolm Goodwin – you can only guess which one he sleeps with. In season 2, he and his former army colleague Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan) consummate an attraction that was forbidden at the time he was her boss. In both cases, as usual, he respectfully avoids a messy romantic entanglement while still providing the much-coveted action between the sheets.
This side of beef has been tenderized for short but meaningful tosses. Believe it or not, many women want this too.
Because of course there are fans who actually want to be with Reacher. Fair enough. For them, it's worth noting that in one novel he is described as being so good in the sack that “the floor shook.” The hall door creaked and closed. “I'd venture a guess that, if ever anything, it was just that anything close to this scene makes it into a future season of “Reacher,” which could be the rare thing that unites men and women, fathers and mothers, straights and gays in one big burst of joyous laughter.