2x04 A Night at the Symphony

(1,916-word review) This episode was essentially this season's most important one yet – in the grand scheme. Less importantly (but still a significant detail/revelation), we discovered that Langston is the Head of Security at New Age, NOT the CEO. I assumed he was the CEO, as I'm assuming plenty of others also assumed; honestly, his actual job in the company makes so much more sense than being the head of EVERYTHING, at least within the company's hierarchy concerning its supposed legitimacy on an official level.

That reveal does present a new question – a possible, additional mystery: who is the CEO of New Age? We might get a reveal that Langston is doing what he's doing, which still isn't fully apparent to us, under the orders of someone else: someone above him. Hortense Fields, perhaps? He doesn't seem entirely trustworthy in the flashbacks. And he may end up being one of the "sharks" behind the heroin case, including the aviation fuel case, as it presumably was related, given Reacher asked Dixon to pull its file after they examined the crime scene of Private Simms, the kite-imprint-on-his-palm guy in the previous episode.

The more important information we got in this episode was the info dump about the Little Wing project. There are a few more things, either related to that or related to other pieces of the overall puzzle, that have yet to be unearthed, but that chunk must be the main piece.

And the close-to-full-picture we now have is much larger than what got in the first season. It's barely comparable if it's even comparable at all. A counterfeiting operation vs. selling software to the highest bidder that can make missiles bypass every countermeasure, always hitting their target; while, yes, the counterfeiting storyline did increase in proportion, having substantial scope, it pales in comparison to what we're getting here.

This plot perfectly fits the mold of an action-oriented blueprint more than the first season's blueprint, making me circle back to my assumption after the premiere that we'll receive a good amount of action this time around – a larger amount than before.

However, there isn't much of a palpable sense of urgency to stop terrorists from using this software to deal significant damage to anything in the sky, particularly commercial aircraft. It merely feels like a backdrop for Reacher to unleash limb-breaking headbutts and superhuman-like physicality in his rigged-to-be-successful mission to be the winner, in addition to avenging the deaths of his friends, which, let's be honest with ourselves, is 99% of his motivation. This terrorism plot is small beans. Thwarting it is a bonus. And we're here for it. We're here to see him break bones and steal souls.

I can't "complain" about the lack of urgency to thwart the bad guys' evil plot. The first season was the same. But that's usually the case with most similar plots throughout films and TV shows. That element has been diluted through repetition. Logically, high-scale plots would have it. Now, they've been overdone and are so commonplace that it's been transformed into a straightforward backdrop for other things to shine: for maximizing the enjoyment and experience. Nobody really cares about how this season's plot is a massive step up in severity compared to before. Most people should at least notice and acknowledge the logical reality of that, even if the essential elements to make you FEEL it is not present.

Moving on, I bet Swan's involved in Marlo Burns' supposed disappearance act, and she's holed up with him somewhere. The specifics of his involvement in the full picture of everything beyond that scenario are still a mystery. It's looking like he may have stumbled upon something, then brought it to her, and she's not in on it; they team up, hence his coded email to her, he went into hiding, and now that the situation with Trevor Saropian happened, she went straight to getting the hell out of dodge with her daughter, possibly joining up with him.

Their possible team-up could've also been in the sense of skimming a piece of the pie, whatever the "pie" is, as it's starting to look like it may not be money, or ONLY money – not to mention her bag of money that was still in her house, which is undoubtedly a suspiciously specific, important detail. But in what way? If that's the case, she may've been captured or killed by Langston, and he/his guys were smart enough to convincingly make it seem like she left herself. I predict that whatever went down with her will be very vital in the following episodes, and I predict Swan has to be involved somehow – out there somewhere, in hiding for some reason. He's quite possibly the most relevant piece of the puzzle. I suspect something big concerning him is on the horizon.

Then, of course, we have the most riveting antagonist in both TV show and cinema history: Mr. "Do you know why I like comic books so much?" Adrian. That shtick of his has already gotten old and irritating, with only two instances of experiencing it. I get it – an antagonist with such a character trait, shrouded in an air of mystique, is theoretically compelling, especially on paper. The application of an on-screen persona is where the problem lies. The writers are trying too hard to make him intimidating through this mystique-enveloped, emotionally-void "personality" of unadulterated professionalism, while simultaneously attempting to give him depth and substance through this character trait of being obsessed with comic books because "the good guys always win."

A potentially upcoming, deeper backstory to that (for example, experiencing some traumatic event as a child, and he coped by reading comic books, or they were nearby during the traumatic event) isn't going to resuscitate what was already dead. It's so uninteresting, and he's even more uninteresting. He's an incredibly underwhelming antagonist so far. His death will be so satisfying to see. There better be broken bones.

I also find it slightly death-flaggy that the script included O'Donnell receiving a call on his burner phone from one of his kids, with the cherry topping of him saying to Reacher that he doesn't know why he gave them his burner number. That makes me wonder if something will happen to him, perhaps not in a definitive way – but that will assumably lead to his phone being stolen, resulting in his family being in danger.

I'm probably going to the extreme point of questioning and looking too deeply into everything, particularly things that have obvious alternative connotations. It could've only been a means to bring about the relationship/marriage conversation with Reacher, not to mention it feels like too big of an undertaking to suddenly drop a family-in-danger, "We need to rescue them" subplot into the mix with everything else that's going on, which happens to be plenty by itself. But I suppose that can be included, executed, and resolved super easily – and quickly enough to where it barely feels like an inconvenience to all that's going on concerning the main storyline.

But, lo and behold, the matter of the ambush at the end of the episode slithered right in, ordered by Langston. How did he know where they'd be – or rather, how did he know where they were for the bikers to either follow them until they drove into the restaurant parking lot and parked their car or for someone else to follow them and pass on their location to the bikers?

O'Donnell's phone call could've been code: "Hands are for helping, not hitting" could mean to take a quiet approach and not use guns, while "Share your Legos, okay?" could mean passing that information along. He even went straight to attempting to excuse the call to Reacher by mentioning how he doesn't know why he gave them his burner number, only Reacher was distracted: his attention was elsewhere, and he wasn't 100% focused on that. Even if he was 100% focused, it's already been established that he has a blind spot when it comes to the members of his unit, with how adamantly defensive he is regarding Swan.

The problem with that theory is that none of those things explains how the bikers found them, though maybe we're meant to figure O'Donnell's been feeding them their location, even if it was off-screen, as long as that phone call WASN'T his son.

He even conspicuously looked behind them at a car that was perfectly positioned for us to see and didn't mention anything. The car might've been a random person's car, but what if he was keeping an eye out for the motorcycles? Nevertheless, there's a good chance he was merely making sure nobody was on their tail, though it is odd that he was the only one who did it in a potentially intended-to-be-noticed-by-the-audience way. These details of potential relevance, in coordination with the ambush's timing, are interesting. Maybe the explanation of how Reacher & Crew were found comes down to plot convenience.

Now, it's time to address the biggest takeaway from this episode: Finlay's cameo return. Unfortunately, it was spoiled for me through a YouTube reaction video thumbnail: a nonchalant fashion to get yourself spoiled. But, to be fair, it's been months since this season premiered. I wasn't that bothered by it. It was a pleasant "surprise," besides the surprise part. I'm pretty sure his momentary return was not in the novel being adapted here. I like that the writers took to heart the reception of the first season, specifically the characters of Finlay and Roscoe. I bring her up because, from what I've seen, a lot of people wanted her, in particular, to make a return, which may still come to fruition. I doubt she will, though the writers can still bring her back for her own cameo appearance in the third season.

Don't worry. You're practically at the end of my review. There are two remaining talking points I want to say a thing or two about.

1.) Reacher's course of action for him and O'Donnell, most likely happening in the next episode, about going to Homeland Security to find out what they may know about A.M., makes me wonder if Marlo Burns, Swan, or somebody was/is working undercover for them. This is the second mention of the DHS; the first one was in the previous episode when we saw Franz's printed document of a DHS case about A.M., including Reacher telling Russo he'd want them to flag all of his aliases. And now Reacher and O'Donnell will be going there to learn more. It feels extremely unlikely that they won't glean anything new. I have a feeling we're about to get another reveal as far as they're concerned.

2.) That fight sequence at the end was this season's best. The cinematography (the aerial, tracking shot of Neagley and Dixon walking around Marlo Burns' house was also great), the direction, with the steady snowfall, topped with the good-looking fight choreography, especially the brutality by mostly Reacher (catching the chain and yanking the person off the motorcycle, the headbutt arm-break, the leg-break, the second leg-break, the pipe across the face, Dixon's shoe heel in the eye of one of the guys, and knocking the last person off the motorcycle with the pipe) were all excellent. There better be more where that came from in the remaining episodes. My only criticism was that the editing was a little too choppy, but thankfully, it was nowhere near the extent of ruining it.