Amazon’s Bizarre ‘Reacher’ Spinoff Is Officially Happening, And It’s Still A Bad Idea

Jack Reacher is a solitudinous guy. The massive-framed super-hobo likes to work alone. In every Lee Child book, Reacher is effectively a one-man army with a heart of gold. He tends to team up with side characters in every novel. Sometimes these are cops, almost always he finds himself in close proximity to a beautiful woman. Occasionally, a recurring character pops back into the story. Usually it’s someone we haven’t seen in awhile.

One of these characters is Frances Neagley, a partner at a private security firm who knows Reacher from their days as Military Policemen in the U.S. Army 110th MP Special Investigations Unit. She shows up in exactly four books, is mentioned in a fifth and has a role in a Reacher short story.

Amazon and the creators of the hit streaming Alan Ritchson-led show Reacher decided to expand Neagley’s role in the series, having her appear in both of the first two seasons, with an expanded role in Season 2. In some ways, this makes sense for a TV show where viewers enjoy seeing familiar faces. This is especially true of a character like Reacher, always on the road meeting new people and facing new bad guys and other challenges.

The problems with this move, however, are also pretty obvious: For one thing, even in the books, the story is always weakest when Reacher is tied down by anyone or anything. This is a story about a singular—and very single—man. His girlfriend arc early in the series is painful, for instance. The charm of Jack Reacher is that he’s a wandering warrior monk of sorts, a dharma bum, a man with no possessions except the shirt on his back and the toothbrush in his pocket. He’s the Jack Kerouac of action heroes. If anything, Neagley’s role in the series is way too big—not because she isn’t a good character, but because Reacher himself is a lone wolf and these stories aren’t about his friendships, but rather about the people and places his drifter lifestyle brings him to with every new adventure. Maybe that will matter less in a spinoff, but there are other issues to think of which I’ll get to in a moment.

A return from Neagley in Season 4 would have made sense, because there would have been a break as we met new characters along the way. As a major character—in a full team of Reacher buddies, no less—it felt forced. I’d argue that one of Season 2’s biggest weaknesses was making Reacher just another guy in a team of badasses instead of showing himi as the force of nature that he was in Season 1 (where he also had a team, but they didn’t all join in all the fist fights). That was just one of many problems with the hugely disappointing second season.

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All this serves as preamble to news that a Reacher spinoff is now officially happening. My colleague Paul Tassi reported on this when it was just a “maybe” but now it’s actually happening. Tassi noted at the time that Neagley isn’t that popular of a character or that interesting of one, at least as far as leads go and I agree.

This brings us to the second big problem with this spinoff. I’m just not sure who this show would be for in the first place. Who is the intended audience here? Reacher appeals to a pretty obvious crowd: Men (and women) who enjoy action movies and Reacher books. I put “women” in parentheses because while I know many women enjoy male-dominant entertainment, the vast majority of viewers for this kind of show are men. This is not an opinion; it’s a demographic reality. And while men also enjoy shows with female leads, I question whether there is a big enough Neagley fanbase in the Reacher community to bring decent numbers to a show that doesn’t include Alan Ritchson’s Reacher.

Will this be an action show geared towards women? Or a show that tries to bank on Reacher’s popularity without actually including our titular tower of muscle? If so, good luck with that. Then again, as Tassi also pointed out, this will be a much cheaper spinoff than many of Amazon’s big shows.

Currently, the spinoff is being referred to as “The Untitled Neagley Project” and will star Maria Sten who plays Neagley in Reacher. The series does have a blurb already:

“When she learns that a beloved friend from her past has been killed in a suspicious accident, she becomes hell bent on justice. Using everything she’s learned from Jack Reacher and her time as a member of the 110 Special Investigators, Neagley puts herself on a dangerous path to uncover a menacing evil.”

A beloved friend from the past killed in suspicious circumstances? Isn’t that the plot to Reacher Season 2?

The news was broken at the Prime Video Presents: Trailblazers event in London, where Sten told the audience: “I love Neagley. She’s so fun to play, she’s so quirky and has so much complexity.” I do love that the star of the show is enthusiastic about her character. I just question whether that will translate to success. I hope I’m wrong and we get a compelling new action-mystery.

Reacher creator Nick Santora and Law & Order writer Nicholas Wootton developed the spinoff and will serve as co-showrunners. Amazon MGM Studios, Skydance Television and CBS Studios are producing the series. A release date has not been announced, though it seems likely it will land after Season 3 of Reacher when that returns for a third and hopefully much-improved season.

I'll end with the most important question of them all: Why not just use the time and budget this series will eat up to simply make more Reacher? Give the people what they want. It's the most basic business principle there is.

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