Season 2

(1,153-word review) Compared to the first season, this one's scope was easily greater. It was noticeably scaled up, having detectable similarities you can put side-to-side with action films – the genre component we got previously came across as a character-driven, mystery-solving adventure that was set in a small, out-of-the-way town of a typically expected uniqueness. There wasn't this overarching sense of the first season being similar to watching an action film.

This time, the stylistic impressions that felt present and conveyed throughout the season, in and of itself, and its relation to the main plot, seemingly emitted dust particles from the same ballpark as the action genre, or it was at least adjacent to it. Though, in some ways, the totality of this season got somewhat dragged down by that. Taking things up a notch was either too large of an undertaking or the increased difficulty of doing such a thing proved to be that exact, tough undertaking. It felt like the writers came short of fully mastering the execution – it was lacking due to the slightly negative impact from that, diminishing the prospect of overall effectiveness being pinpointed and condensed for maximum efficiency, which led to a weaker, more spread-out effect on the way it was presented to us: the manner of which everything flowed and progressed.

You can also float the idea of accuracy to the source material, as I've read how Lee Child's novels can sometimes feel all over the place regarding the broader scope due to him supposedly writing them as he goes along, from beginning to end – page to page, page by page. That means they usually have odd pacing and fluctuating stories/underlying tones: feeling one way at a particular point, then jumping to a completely different feeling – coming across as all sorts of things at different points within the story without any steadfast commitment to an individual thing. As you can imagine, "unnecessary"/convoluted layers can surface from that, coming with avoidable confusion and slight overwhelmingness.

He doesn't have everything mapped/planned out before hopping into the writing process of this novel series, and honestly, in a manner of speaking, that's an intriguing, possibly fruitful (in an out-of-the-box fashion, of course – the result/final product can be oddly captivating in ways you wouldn't have expected because of the untethered-from-tradition, unconventional creative mindset) way of going about creating fictional stories – a written body of work of such by somebody like Lee Child.

That reminds me about something Nicolas Winding Refn said in an interview revolving around Too Old to Die Young (a phenomenal miniseries – the only series/film of his I've seen so far, besides Bronson, which I need to rewatch expeditiously, but I need to get around to watching some of his "iconic," well-known films like Valhalla Rising, Drive, Only God Forgives, in addition to his other films, as well) boiling down to you having the option to watch the episodes however you'd like – out of order, from end to beginning, or some other pattern, and still be able to follow along. He has a mastery over that type of creative thinking, and perhaps Lee Child does, too. But this is an adaptation, not the novel, or any of his novels.

And the execution of that aspect, whether intended to be adhered to or ended up manifesting itself in a similar but different fashion, was lacking. But maybe it feels lacking in the novel, too. I don't know. I've never read it. I do think scaling down the size and scope of the plot in the next season, even if it goes against the potential reality of it being a similarly large-in-scope story in the original version, would likely be more beneficial for the sake of this TV adaptation medium.

On a more positive note, the chemistry between the cast members was excellent, and it translated well to the characters. It was looking a little iffy, momentarily at the start there, regarding if they'd successfully rival the chemistry the trio of Reacher (Alan Ritchson), Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), and Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) had, especially those two supporting characters themselves. I'm very pleased that aspect of this season was just as palpable.

Reacher's ensemble this time around, consisting of members from his old army unit, felt comparable to the stars-aligned, picture-perfect execution of Finlay and Roscoe's characters, in addition to how well/similarly their characterizations and the acting performances flowed with Reacher/Alan Ritchson – though the progressive journey to FEELING that connection/bond instead of only knowing the intention behind what the writers were attempting to properly convey didn't fully cement itself within MY mind until the finale.

I wasn't consciously aware of the subtle but slow-paced success of that intention on me – especially the extent of my investment in them – because the cementation was taking slowly enough to where it seemed like it wouldn't solidify before the conclusion. The at-long-last, awaited connection to their connection did come out of nowhere, given its arrival was long overdue. It would've been preferable to have obtained that earlier in the season, but I suppose it's possible my brain, how it works, and how I view things are more at fault than the writers.

Lastly, the brutality/gore element, generally and within the fight sequences, felt turned up a notch compared to the extent we got back in Margrave for some reason. And I say that because, while, yes, it WAS enjoyable, it's also odd: there was still a notably high level of gore there that the writers/directors didn't shy away from. I'd even go as far as to say the first season was gorier, contrary to the opposite sentiment that I've been seeing many people express. For this one to FEEL like it went further – that's nothing short of odd. The finer details behind such a peculiarity could, perhaps, revolve around general gore (visually) vs. brutality (depicted through the fight sequences and of a deeper, viscerally reactive nature, e.g. bone breaks) – the latter being the category at play here.

Overall, this season had a serviceable start: the beginning was good, and there was a gradual increase in enjoyment and engagement for a quick moment, while the presentation's quality was at a decent enough level. Soon after, though, there was a noticeable downward dip in those qualities, occurring around the middle of the season. It wasn't to the degree of significantly weakening the totality of it, possibly in the form of making things super uninteresting, but it did somewhat throw a wrench into the works. The flow of everything was hindered and interrupted, which subtly broke some of the engagement. We can chalk it off to a minor setback/bump in an otherwise sufficiently enjoyable journey, especially because the penultimate episode served as an on-the-house meal of appreciatory redemption, topped with an even better finale – a satisfying, heartwarming conclusion to a sporadically underwhelming-to-acceptable season, while conceivably being the overall high point.

I'm six episodes through this season, and it's not nearly on par w/ the first season. The first season storyline was interesting, and it was about an outsider and loner who partnered w/ two people to bring his brother's killers to justice, although he still worked alone much of the time. The second season moves away from this premise, where he quickly sheds his loner persona and joins his old military buddies to track down some dirty, former cops. The problem here is that the story for the second season is lame and generic. It's the same thing that any movie about investigators/cops would use. I realize that this can't necessarily be helped, in this instance, b/c it's derived from the source material. However, I think that they could develop some original material for this character that would be much more interesting.

In addition, much of the season has the look and feel of those terrible network cop dramas, such as CSI: Miami or Law & Order: SVU. Even though these programs are episodic in nature, they still have a soap opera feel to them. They're not character-driven programs; they're story-driven programs. Reacher is the opposite. He's the main character, and he drives the story forward. I checked the credits of the directors, and many, if not all, of them have worked primarily in network TV dramas, many of them cop dramas. I think that that was a bad choice to direct episodes of this show. These directors hired recycled actors from the shows they'd previously worked on. I recognized three or four character actors, at least, who had been in this cop drama or that cop drama.

They also brought Malcolm Goodwin in as a callback to the first season, which I really liked, as he was great in the first season, but they utilized him so poorly. He essentially stood around during an interrogation by Reacher and his associate. It was really pointless. I noticed that they also did this during the sixth episode, where a young girl was being protected by one of Reacher's associates. She was in great danger of dying, and they utilized her more as a prop than as a human being. She was just there. I felt that this was really poor writing and direction. They could do a lot better than this.