Reacher ended up being a surprise smash for Amazon Prime Video, mainly because it was one of the best shows Amazon Prime Video had to offer on its streaming platform. Numbers for streaming shows tend to be a massive mystery, but Reacher did so well in numbers that we can track, the streamer greenlit a second season almost immediately, giving fans multiple Reacher questions they’d like to have answered before the second season arrives on the service.
One of the questions we hear often is whether or not characters introduced in season one will return for season two, which prompted Reacher showrunner and executive producer Nick Santora to tell TVLine the following:
I will say this, and I’m not trying to be coy or cute: You never know if a character might come back. We might come up with a great idea and say, ‘You know what? Maybe that character can work in Season 2 or Season 3,’ and then you bring them back for a bit or for an extended visit. (But) Reacher is not a character who runs around with an entourage. He’s a lone wolf, so you have to stay true to that.
This is an important point. Almost every book in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series starts up in a new location, with Reacher getting pulled into a different dangerous situation. So there’s no real room to have, say, Willa Fitzgerald’s Roscoe or Malcolm Goodwin’s Oscar Finlay to drop in and help Reacher solve whatever his next obstacle will be. Even though Fitzgerald improvised some of her coolest stunts and was a fan favorite, overall.
But if you know Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, and you remember a key character who was introduced, you can see someone who Nick Santora might be hinting at, without giving up the farm. Yes, a character who could work in the upcoming story “might come back.” And that’s because Maria Sten’s character, Frances Neagley, is a colleague from Reacher’s Military investigator days, and often assists him on missions when things start getting out of hand. In fact, there’s a terrific book that focuses heavily on Neagley recruiting Reacher to track down missing members of their old unit, called Bad Luck and Trouble, that would be an excellent source for season two of Reacher. It’s largely set in Los Angeles, teams Reacher and Neagley against some seriously capable antagonists, and would show us a different side to Reacher than we saw in the first season.
Here’s a shot of Maria Stan’s Frances Neagley:
We don’t know for sure which book that Reacher will use for season two, though we picked the Lee Child books that would be perfect for further exploration, and Reacher star Alan Ritchson told us the book that he would like to see adapted. But he also admitted he has no say, so he’ll just show up, bash heads, and entertain audiences.
