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Reacher<\/a><\/p>\n City of Brotherly Love<\/p>\n \n Season 4<\/p>\n Episode 1\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Reacher relocates to Philadelphia and immediately finds himself in a peculiar case, as he\u2019s wont to do. Gone Tomorrow, the 2009 Manhattan-set Lee Child novel that provides the basis for Reacher\u2019s fourth season, spends its opening chapter running down the signs security personnel look for when trying to spot a suicide bomber. \u201cCity of Brotherly Love,\u201d the popular Amazon show\u2019s relocated-to-Philly season opener, does a skillful job of clueing us into this without dialogue. The Big Man has just stepped out of a gig at Philadelphia\u2019s Uptown Theater and enjoyed an after-midnight cheesesteak before catching a subway train at the Walnut-Locust station. He spots a visibly distraught woman at the far end of the car, and his eyes go wide. She\u2019s crying, talking to herself \u2014 praying, maybe, he\u2019ll tell a cop later \u2014 and wearing a puffy winter coat in hot weather. Her hands are inside a bag resting on her lap.<\/p>\n More red flags than a Soviet drill team.<\/p>\n Approaching her as gingerly as a canonically six-foot-five, 250-pound man-beast can, Reacher opens with a command: \u201cI need to see your hands.\u201d When that gets him nowhere, he tries a little tenderness: \u201cMay I sit next to you?\u201d Then he pivots to the assumption that she\u2019s wearing explosives under her parka, pointing out the train is nearly empty: \u201cIf you\u2019d waited until rush hour, your plan would be more effective.\u201d Reacher comes off like the Terminator, whom star and co-producer Alan Ritchson appears to have been born to play, cycling through a bulleted list of conversation starters until the woman finally tells him to go away.<\/p>\n He persuades her to show him one of her hands. When the other one comes out of the bag, it\u2019s waving a large revolver at Reacher\u2019s chest. \u201cThat\u2019s better than the bomb I thought you had,\u201d he says, but his eyes tell us he\u2019s more afraid here than he typically is when looking down the barrel of a gun. \u201cI can help you,\u201d he pleads. \u201cI\u2019m a cop.\u201d He\u2019s only half lying \u2014 he\u2019s a retired Army investigator living off his pension \u2014 but he doesn\u2019t sound like he believes himself.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one can help me now,\u201d the woman says before shooting herself in the head. After the opening titles, Reacher is questioned about the killing by two Philadelphia PD detectives. Kevin Corrigan\u2019s Detective Docherty \u2014 the more abrasive of the pair, which may be why he\u2019s sporting an unremarked-upon shiner under his right eye \u2014 asks Reacher for his address. Reacher replies by asking for the address of the precinct. \u201cSo you\u2019re homeless,\u201d Docherty says.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I see why you\u2019re a detective,\u201d Reacher quips. There\u2019s no call for this hostility, but Reacher resents that these night-tour cops are talking to him like a murder suspect when they already know the shitty case they\u2019ve caught is a suicide, not a homicide. There were four witnesses, after all, though evidently the cops interviewed only three. Reacher\u2019s detailed description of all four \u2014 including the split-second deduction that led him to conclude the guy wearing a Colorado State jersey with Colorado misspelled is Albanian \u2014 earns him the nickname \u201cSherlock Has No Holmes\u201d from Docherty. Ten comedy points.<\/p>\n Reacher calls the cops\u2019 bluff by pointing out that their allowing him to wash his hands instead of immediately checking him for gunpowder residue proves they already knew he didn\u2019t shoot anyone. Docherty insists Reacher might have said something to provoke her.<\/p>\n At last, Docherty\u2019s partner, Detective Tamara Green, admits they\u2019re stalling. Green is a more interesting new character than anybody we met in Reacher\u2019s underwhelming prior season, and she\u2019s played by athlete turned actor Sydelle Noel, so marvelous as wrestler Cherry \u201cJunkchain\u201d Bang on the gone-too-soon Netflix series GLOW<\/a>. Feds are driving up from D.C. to talk to Reacher, she says, because the dead woman, whose name was Anna Merrick, had a sensitive government job. Agreeing to stay out of curiosity \u2014 he\u2019s not under arrest \u2014 he asks for another cheesesteak.<\/p>\n Relations warm between Reacher and Green as they nosh at her desk. He asks what a cop as savvy as she clearly is did to earn such a lousy posting, but she shuts down that line of inquiry. Turning to the Philadelphia Flyers mascot bobblehead<\/a> on her desk, Reacher asks, \u201cWhat the hell is that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t be shitty to my Gritty,\u201d Green warns.<\/p>\n When a patrol officer from another jurisdiction walks in, Green points him out, telling Reacher he\u2019s the brother of the deceased. Reacher concludes from the flatfoot\u2019s posture that he\u2019s in shock. Other cops must find it exhausting that Reacher is forever pointing out cop shit like this.<\/p>\n It\u2019s daylight when the Feds arrive. Because they refuse to identify themselves or their agency, Reacher dubs the three suits Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Snap, who seems in charge because he\u2019s the only one sitting, says they checked Reacher\u2019s military record. Highly decorated, but he left the service under a cloud. \u201cAny issues with the Army or the government?\u201d Snap asks.<\/p>\n \u201cTons,\u201d Reacher replies.<\/p>\n The G-men think Anna gave something to Reacher before she shot herself. Frustrated by their refusal to specify what this MacGuffin could be, Reacher walks out.<\/p>\n We\u2019re more than a third of the way through the episode and Reacher has kicked precisely zero asses. That shortfall rights itself when two goons accost him outside the station and request the flash drive Anna gave him. New information! Reacher asks who sent them, and they attack, the poor fools. Reacher is fast for a human elephant, slamming one of them into a Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper box. (Legacy media is not dead.) After he takes down these two errand boys, Reacher spots the patrolman Green pointed out earlier \u2014 Anna\u2019s brother \u2014 in a greasy spoon across the street.<\/p>\n Officer Jacob Merrick (a sad-sack Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette) is in mourning. He\u2019s dreading having to tell his 20-year-old nephew, a linebacker at Temple University, that his mother is dead. Jacob fills Sherlock Has No Holmes in on what Anna did for the government \u2014 human-resources work for the Army. He and Anna were adopted, and they were close. Reacher is sufficiently moved by Jacob\u2019s account of his sister\u2019s kindness to put himself back in the center of the mystery. When the two guys Reacher beat up moments earlier return, Reacher gives a kid at the counter of the diner $50 for the thumb drive on the kid\u2019s laptop. He tells the two leg-breakers it\u2019s the drive they were seeking. He\u2019ll give it up only if they take him to their boss.<\/p>\n Enter Indonesian pop star Agnez Mo as Lila Hoth, who apologizes to Reacher for her cousins\u2019 (!) poor manners. She\u2019s with her mother, whom she tells Reacher had an affair with a Delta Force operator stationed in Indonesia in the late \u201990s. Anna was using her access to classified Army records to help Lila find the father she\u2019s never known because Lila is a leukemia patient who will soon die without a bone-marrow transplant. What Anna discovered was that the soldier who sired Lila was one John Sampson, now a U.S. representative from North Carolina and a likely presidential candidate. Given his earlier audience with the tight-lipped trio of Snap, Crackle, and Pop, Reacher finds Lila\u2019s story credible and compelling. Lila gives him her number, and he agrees to keep investigating.<\/p>\n Back at the precinct, Green is angry to find the Rice Krispies taking the file about Anna\u2019s suicide from her desk. Docherty warns her off. \u201cThe machine fucked you sideways, and you still didn\u2019t learn,\u201d he says, our second hint of a tragic, Chinatown-style backstory for Detective Green. \u201cPunch in, punch out, and hope the phone doesn\u2019t ring in between,\u201d he waxes. \u201cIt\u2019s about the income, not the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Reacher and Jacob seek information on Rep. John Samson from an investigator\u2019s paradise: the Parkway Central Library<\/a>. Finding nothing incriminating in the newspapers, Reacher asks a librarian if the facility keeps military records.<\/p>\n Down in the basement stacks, he hears someone creep up behind him. \u201cGive me the flash drive,\u201d the creeper demands. Everybody wants that flash drive! The guy has the most adorable little knife, woefully insufficient against a Reacher-size enemy unless you can get him in the throat or in the eye. Reacher defends both soft spots, catching the blade in a thick hardback volume. The would-be killer gets a few ineffectual kicks in before Reacher wraps his arms around him and hurls him over a desk. The best library fight since John Wick: Chapter 3<\/a> concludes with Reacher crushing his opponent between two stacks while the dying man tries to get his blade to reach Reacher\u2019s face. Reacher drags the corpse to the library\u2019s well-marked \u201cCOAL ROOM (Staff Only).\u201d<\/p>\n Inferring that Lila must\u2019ve been targeted too, Reacher and Jacob race across town to her hotel. Reacher bursts into her room just in time to intercept another would-be assassin, whom he throws out a window. Reacher tells Lila to buy herself a muted wardrobe \u2014 \u201ca woman like you stands out enough as it is\u201d \u2014 and find a different, cash-only motel. He and Jacob will go to Washington to confront the congressman. Jacob protests that he drove his police cruiser across the Jersey state line to Philly and must return it. He tells Reacher he\u2019ll meet him for the 6 p.m. train to D.C.<\/p>\n The moment they part, Reacher is accosted by another group of men in black suits. Four, this time, armed with tranquilizer guns. \u201cEnough to take down a gorilla,\u201d their leader says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d the Big Man says. Sure enough, it takes two darts to get him to release his grip on the leader\u2019s throat, and all four of these guys to lift Reacher\u2019s out-cold ass into their van.<\/p>\n Reacher\u2019s prior two seasons were each a little worse than the one before, but this opening frame of season four is promising. Good quips, an intriguing mystery, an inventive library-sciences-themed kill, and a welcome new face in Detective Green.<\/p>\n \u2022 Several characters from Gone Tomorrow get their names punched up here. Philly detective Tamara Green was NYPD detective Theresa Lee in the novel. Susan and Jacob Merrick were Susan and Jacob Mark on the page, while the presidential contender John Sampson was called Sansom. Odd.<\/p>\n \u2022 In the greasy spoon where Reacher and Jacob meet, \u201cStoned,\u201d by the Old 97\u2019s is playing. Good song. Terrific band. The only public place I\u2019ve ever heard it is at an Old 97\u2019s concert.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
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