Now that Prime Video’s Reacher is entering its fourth season and preparing to debut its first spin-off series, Neagley, it feels like a good time for the show to experiment. Season 4, in particular, marks the perfect time for the show to take a different approach that works in tandem with the source material. We already know that the story will be adapted from the Lee Child novel titled Gone Tomorrow — but the show needs to shake up its format by utilizing the unique style of the book, which stands apart from many other Reacher stories.
‘Gone Tomorrow’ Features a Style and POV That’s Unique From Other ‘Reacher’ Books
Gone Tomorrow begins with Reacher witnessing a horrific act in the opening chapters before the former military police officer seeks to get to the bottom of what caused a character’s violent death. While most of Child’s Reacher books are written from a third-person perspective using an omniscient narrator, a few are exceptions to this rule — and are actually written from the first-person perspective of the series’ protagonist. Gone Tomorrow is one of several books told from Reacher’s point of view, in which he directly narrates the story with his own thoughts and feelings, imbuing the plot with a heavier, more visceral perspective. (For example, rather than the famous line of “Reacher said nothing,” Reacher, as the narrator, frequently states, “I said nothing” throughout the novel in a humorous shift.) Along with the first-person point of view, Gone Tomorrow reads much more like a neo-noir detective mystery, and since Reacher serves as the narrator, his POV and narration permeate the story with a hard-boiled edge.
The first three seasons of Reacher could be described as closer to action thrillers, requiring a major fight or action sequence in every episode. Season 4’s choice to adapt Gone Tomorrow should result in the show trying something different and leaning more into the neo-noir aesthetic of the novel, offering something more cerebral and stylish, and showcasing more of Reacher’s detective and deductive skills over his brawn. Of course, Season 4 shouldn’t be devoid of action, but Gone Tomorrow‘s format offers a way to freshen up the series, rather than repeating the same formula.
Since Gone Tomorrow unfolds in the first-person POV, Reacher Season 4 could also lean into that format with some good, old-fashioned, voiceover narration. The television series has utilized voiceover before, but never with Reacher, and it would offer a nice change of pace. Gone Tomorrow depicts Reacher more like a classic detective protagonist, similar to Philip Marlowe, so it would be fun if the TV show followed suit and utilized this narrative trope.
‘Reacher’ Season 4 Will Take a Less Personal Approach
Another important angle in Gone Tomorrow that will unfold in Reacher Season 4 concerns the main character’s motivation, which differs significantly from the previous three. In the past, Reacher has been out to get the bad guys because they took something personal from him. In Reacher Season 1, based on The Killing Floor, Reacher learns that his older brother, Joe Reacher (Christopher Russell), was murdered by the Kliners to keep him from exposing their counterfeiting ring. Reacher Season 2, based on Bad Luck and Trouble, sees Reacher reunite with his former military unit to track down and kill the individuals responsible for murdering their former teammates. In Reacher Season 3, based on Persuader, Reacher goes undercover to locate and kill Xavier Quinn (Brian Tee), the man responsible for murdering his first protégé, Dominique Kohl (Mariah Robinson).
Essentially, each story is about Reacher joining an investigation to take violent revenge for the death of a close friend or loved one. Gone Tomorrow, and by proxy, Season 4, don’t have such an angle. The major death that catalyzes the plot concerns a character that Reacher does not know. It’s merely Reacher’s moral code and strong sense of justice that inspire him to uncover the mystery behind the character’s death, providing an interesting conceit. This uniquely less personal scenario for Reacher also reinforces the novel’s neo-noir aesthetic, offering a new avenue for the series to explore in Season 4.
Ultimately, Reacher should explore more opportunities for experimentation, especially now that it’s three seasons in. If the show never pushes boundaries with its format, it’ll never discover its limitations. Long-running shows like Reacher often find themselves in a creative rut, sticking to the same formula over and over again, but Gone Tomorrow offers multiple organic ways for Season 4 to be the most uniquely refreshing and creative installment yet.
- Release Date
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February 3, 2022
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Nick Santora
- Directors
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Omar Madha, Carol Banker, Julian Holmes, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett, Norberto Barba, Stephen Surjik, Thomas Vincent
- Writers
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Cait Duffy
