Spoilers for the Season 3 finale of Reacher are ahead! If you have not watched it yet, you can stream it with an Amazon Prime subscription.
The Season 3 finale of Reacher is titled “Unfinished Business.” However, in the episode that just dropped on the 2025 TV schedule, Alan Ritchson’s character most certainly finished it. That was especially true in the case of Xavier Quinn. After failing to kill his enemy the first time, the titular character took Brian Tee’s villain down in epic fashion, and the antagonist’s actor told me how he tried filming it in “different ways” and why they ultimately “nailed it.”
During CinemaBlend’s Reacher interviews, I asked Brian Tee about his character’s final moment. I specifically noted the juxtaposition of Reacher shooting Quinn in the cheek and off a cliff in the Episode 4 flashback after everything that happened to Dominique and this scene where he successfully killed him. In response, the actor told me:
You know, I think intentionally, we try to mirror it in that context too, but yet two different circumstances, and it bookends itself. And Nick Santora, you know, one of the best showrunners I've ever worked with, really was thoughtful in really creating the arc, especially for Reacher and Quinn, as they kind of travel through this whole journey in the season.
To quickly recap, in the finale, when the Russian mobster Taktarov tried to take Tee’s character away, Reacher stopped it, noting that Quinn was his. Then, Reacher’s whole team showed up to help him, and they were able to trade money for the bad guy.
Ultimately, Quinn’s life ended right after Reacher reminded him that “her name was Dominique,” and we flashed back to the Dominique Kohl episode and the moment the protagonist first shot the villain in the cheek. This time, though, he made sure he was dead, and we saw him fall over after being shot in the head.
Tee was very complimentary of the showrunner, director and Ritchson while breaking down why this final scene worked. He said they had tried it quite a few different ways to see which dynamics worked best, and that hard work certainly paid off, as he explained:
And, you know, I think in preparing for last moment, we did it multiple ways to give different dynamics to it. And to Alan's credit as well, he's all in 100% of the time. And we would even talk after certain takes and think about what moment we actually want to try to deliver here. And it was very pointed and very, very specific.
I think the part that got me most was Quinn’s final close-up, where we saw what looked like a tear forming in his eye. Whether it’s fear of death or remembrance of what he did to Dominique is unclear. However, his reckoning with what he did certainly made this big moment even more satisfying.
To that point, Tee told me that working with this whole team on this scene is what made it so great, and he rightfully thought they “nailed it,” saying:
So it's great. Such a great collaborator with him and Sam [Hill] directing, and obviously it starts with the writing, but in that continuous collaboration, I think we really nailed it in the end.
Overall, this, mixed with huge action sequences like Reacher’s fight with Paulie, was an epic way to close out the season and tie this fiasco with the Becks and Quinn back to a deeply personal tragedy Reacher faced years ago.
Now, it’s time to look forward to Reacher Season 4. Season 3 easily solidified the series as one of Prime Video’s best shows, and big full-circle moments, like Quinn’s death, showed just how much thought and care is put into each season’s overarching story. So, yeah, I can’t wait to see what bad guy Alan Ritchson’s Reacher takes down next and the epic way he does it.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
