2x08 Fly Boy

(1,362-word review) I'm relieved that Dixon and O'Donnell are officially okay – they're survivors; they're free from being unavailable for possible returns due to either or both dying in this finale. As I mentioned in my review of the seventh episode, I had/have unexpectedly come to care about those two characters. I'm particularly relieved because that means they can be ushered back in at some point. Part of me feels like neither of them will return in the third season (maybe not even Neagley, either; the way her last scene went with Reacher at the end felt final concerning the prospect of seeing her again), but you never know. I'd welcome and greatly appreciate Dixon, O'Donnell, and her coming back into the equation cool-montage style. At least one or two of them – either in the next season or potentially (hopefully, the show receives another renewal, and we get it) fourth season.

I may have read something from someone elsewhere on the internet that specified or implied that Neagley isn't in Persuader, the seventh installment in the novel series – the novel that the third season will be adapting. But I'm pretty sure she wasn't in Bad Luck and Trouble, either, and that was the adapted material here. Her exchange of goodbyes with Reacher felt like a proper, "I won't be brought back for your next adventure" inference. Conversely, there will likely be a time skip mentioned at the start, as was the case in this season's first episode regarding the events in Margrave, which is a way to still bring her back while also saying a decent amount of time has passed since she's been involved with him/whatever he's got going on.

The action sequences, specifically the one after Senator Lavoy's three-man-operator team breached New Age's R&D facility building and Reacher freed himself, came across as well-filmed – enough to stand out to someone like myself, who's barely knowledgeable (if at all) about any aspect of filmmaking; that particular thought never crossed my mind before until now. I, for the most part, mindlessly absorb what's in front of me without seeing the finer details regarding how a scene is shot, and so on. That sort of thing escapes me because I have no professionally-obtained, educational background or comprehension of anything remotely similar – or anything at all in a general sense – let alone any varying levels of understanding that anyone could theoretically obtain themselves in a self-taught manner.

Nevertheless, something about that specific section seemed well-filmed: the camera angles and such. There was a strong feeling of flowing smoothness to how it (and possibly additional sections of other action sequences) was filmed. The director, Julian Holmes, took his job seriously and went all in on proficiency. Based on his IMDb page, his résumé is pretty decent.

And the scene, from the lead-up to the explosive climax, of Neagley using the missile with the Little Wing chip to shoot down the helicopter was great – and cool; we can't forget that part. Moments like that (where a character or multiple characters are cool-headed while doing effortlessly cool things), no matter the film or TV show, will always be entertaining to watch.

There were a couple other specific moments that were excellent, too, serving as efficient additions to the effectiveness of this finale, both concerning the "cool factor" and emotionally: the delightfully spectacular, execution-by-firing-squad death of A.M. (though his character was underdeveloped and underutilized, despite the peculiar character trait of saying the same line about comic books to kids, and the incorrect expectation that the build up of his character would have a non-anticlimactic payoff – perhaps his role in the novel had more depth and focus) and the dispersion of the $65 million to the families of those who are dead, related entities (the animal shelter), and to the other team members (Neagley – providing the round-the-clock nursing care for her father that she brought up in the second episode about how she's been striving to get enough money to get that for him herself; O'Donnell – paying for his kids' educations; Dixon – giving her the fully-funded means to get started on her watchdog group that she also mentioned in the second episode).

In particular, the campfire scene with Reacher & Crew was touching and successfully impactful from an emotional standpoint. It was a perfect scene to be our last with all those characters together – for now, hopefully. My key takeaway was the cementation of their bond and history. That intended element has been fleeting from the beginning, instead of presenting a concrete basis for evoking a genuine feeling of understanding its reality; it had been logically understood for 99% of every scene with them, including every flashback. But it became believable when they had their post-season-long-battle, retrospective get-together, with a finality undertone, at the campfire.

Smack-dab in the middle of all that, however, was the entire sequence in the helicopter. It was pure Reacher, in the sense of stretching the confines of logic and reality, which isn't necessarily a negative thing. I'm positive many people got particularly irked by it – to the point of hating this finale as a whole, and I'm not a subscriber of that mindset. I found it to be entertaining/fun. It's already obvious that this show isn't one of those shows that will provide that questionably necessary (for a decent amount of people) fix of 99.9% realism from any piece of fictional media. There's no reason to continue treating it negatively. An illusion is nowhere to be found – what you're getting has been straightforwardly authentic from the very beginning of this show.

In fact, it goes back to the source material itself. All of the individual stories within the novel series prioritize entertainment and fun above all. I'm pretty sure there's an instance in one novel where Reacher gets shot, but his rib cage "caught" the bullet because he's practically inhumanly gigantic and muscular. A similar stretch of logic was mentioned in the first season – the premiere. Finlay read aloud the details behind Reacher's Purple Heart Medal: he saved multiple soldiers after a bombing occurred at a barracks by carrying them out TWO at a time, suffering severe smoke inhalation in the process – but returned to active duty 32 HOURS later DESPITE "having shrapnel remains of a jawbone removed from his abdomen."

There's no secret present. Crazy, unrealistic things will consistently happen in this show because it's accurate to the source material. More importantly, it's all in good fun, not to mention it can be extremely entertaining. If that's too much to handle, how can anything be enjoyed? A film, TV show, or certain episodes of a TV show? You're going to encounter plenty of that in close to everything. If that's something to complain about (and regarding this show/finale, specifically), you're being unreasonable. Simple as that.

Besides that, Robert Patrick's acting before his poetic demise, his portrayal of fear and extreme desperation to prolong his life, was great. His overall acting/performance as this typical, always-pissed-off-at-something/exasperated stock antagonist character, topped with the constantly periodic placements of one-liner swear words amid his lines of dialogue, was even better. It was somewhat camp, but that was part of the charm. That can have undertones of pure entertainment – connotations of unadulterated fun.

There's a compatible ingredient to TV shows and films, in addition to various facets within them, of an overlooked, underrated, and underappreciated nature, and that's "coming across as fun." Writers should be tapping into that more often, akin to how commonplace and overarching such an element seemed to be in older, teen drama-esque shows – think Pretty Little Liars – and particular films, too, though I'm less familiar with films like that.

This was a good, enjoyable finale, with palpable feelings: heartwarming, touching, and bittersweet. The season started at a decent place, followed by a steady, upward trek until the midway point; then, it dipped slightly in quality. But this finale shot up right up there to that place at the start, possibly reaching even higher, and ended everything on a high note – a bright spot in a mostly cloudy solution.