Reacher Season 2 Showrunner Discusses Which Book The Show Could Follow
Reacher showrunner Nick Santora opens up about the potential plot for the season 2. Amazon Prime Video has found another hit series in Reacher, which earned a season 2 days after the premiere of the first. Reportedly, the series was one of the streamer's 5 most-watched ever in the US and globally within a mere three days of its release, the majority of viewers streaming all eight episodes of season 1 within the first 24 hours.
Adapting the first novel, Killing Floor, from Lee Child's Jack Reacher series in a mostly faithful manner, season 1 finds the hulking military man and perpetual drifter (played by Alan Ritchson) in the quiet town of Margrave, Georgia. Initially there to visit the grave of blues musician Blind Blake, Reacher quickly finds himself entangled with local law enforcement after he's framed for a murder. Eventually, he ends up working with the law to uncover a conspiracy involving a counterfeiting ring. The season ends, as the book does, with every loose end in Margrave mostly wrapped up, and Reacher off to his next adventure.
While Ritchson believes the show should follow the books chronologically and adapt Die Trying for season 2, Santora cautions fans not to assume this will be the case. Although Die Trying was Child's second novel, the books are so episodic in nature that the showrunner doesn't feel beholden to follow them so strictly. Speaking to TVLine in a recent interview, Santora seems excited by his bounty of prospects. He's mentioned in the past that the near-immediate renewal for season 2, while a blessing, came so whiplash-quick that it caught him and his writing team off guard. Regardless, he doesn't seem dissuaded, but rather encouraged. He had this to say in the interview:
Lee Child has set up stories in small towns, in big cities… in the United States, and stories that take us to Europe…. There’s a plethora to select from. It’s just a question of everyone putting their heads together, talking it out and deciding what would be fun for fans. The good news is you can pick almost anything and you’re going to have a good story.
The difficulty in figuring out the path moving forward is, in fact, an embarrassment of riches. Since Reacher will adapt one book per season, that leaves 25 other novels, not including short story anthologies, to choose from. Later stories follow him on such far reaching exploits as protecting the Vice President of the United States and unearthing conspiracies involving meth and WWII artillery, while others delve deeper into his past as a military investigator. With Child serving as an executive producer on the show, in conjunction with Amazon, Paramount, and Skydance, it seems likely that wherever the show goes next will adhere faithfully to its source material, since so far that approach has paid dividends with viewers and especially fans.
The true question lies with whether this faithfulness will evolve in season 2 (and any seasons after) to better suit the television medium. The episodic nature of the books effectively keeps the amount of recurring characters to nearly zero, which means season 1 favorites Roscoe and Finley will likely be left in the dust. However, the inclusion of the character Neagley in season 1, a character who doesn't appear until the sixth book in the series, Without Fail, shows that Santora and company could be open to expanding the one-off nature of the book characters into longer-lasting arcs. This less-serialized approach seems more in line with modern audience expectations and how viewers grow so deeply invested in characters. Regardless of where Reacher goes next, Santora and company have their fair share of roads to travel down.
Source: TVLine