History Series / Reacher

* AintToProudToBeg: [[spoiler:Langston and A.M.]] both beg Reacher for mercy once he has the advantage over them. He doesn't give them any.

* CavalryBetrayal: Reacher enlists the help of [[spoiler:Senator Lavoy's ex-military private security]] in dealing with Langston, only for them to turn on his team after [[spoiler:Langston and his cohorts are all dead because Lavoy doesn't want any loose ends]]. Reacher anticipates their betrayal and reveals he called in Homeland Security, who arrive just in the nick of time.

* BadBoss: The leader of the counterfeiting organization, [[spoiler:KJ Kliner]], frequently kills his own men in brutal fashion for [[YouHaveFailedMe failure]] or [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outliving their usefulness]].

* AdaptationInducedPlotHole:
** Joe's notes mention "Gray's Kliner File" as a source of information in his investigation, but it's never explained how he knows about the file. In the book, Gray contacted a New Orleans homicide cop who investigated Kliner for murdering EPA officials to find out what the Kliner family was up to before they came to Margrave. That cop's name is on Joe's list, so he presumably told Joe about Gray's file. In the show, the third phone number on Joe's list belongs to an [=EPA=] office and it's never mentioned that Gray had any contact with them.
** Finlay being a former smoker rather than a recovering alcoholic makes it harder to tell why the corrupt local big shots hired a competent potential SpannerInTheWorks prior to the beginning of the show. In the book, his drinking caused them to assume he'd be too incompetent to learn anything about them.
* AdaptationNameChange:
** Sherman Stoller is renamed Pete Jobling.
** In the books, Roscoe is the surname of Reacher's love interest and her first name is unrevealed (although another author using some of the ''Jack Reacher'' characters named her Ann). Here, her name is Roscoe Conklin.
** Joe Reacher's sources Walter Bartholomew and Kevin Kelstein are renamed William Bryant, and [[GenderFlip Susan Castillo.]]

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the novel, KJ was just as much of a scumbag as he is here, being part of the cleaner crew, but this adaptation has him depicted far more worse than he already was, with him [[spoiler: torturing and murdering Stevenson and his pregnant wife, killing Mary Beth in the subway, slitting his own father’s throat using an agonizing technique, and being the one who shot Joe]].

* MurderIsTheBestSolution:
** The villains of Season 1 are fond of not only killing those that fail them, but doing so in an over the top and brutal way in order to keep everyone else in line. This is arguably [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]], because such an extravagant murder method for the sake of leaving an intimidating warning makes it clear that ''something'' is going on, and indeed, the methods used are recognisable enough for Reacher to begin forming an idea of who's involved from his military experience allowing him to identify [[spoiler:the Venezuelan style of brutal execution used. He even identified that Kilner Sr had his throat slit in a manner designed to both kill efficiently whilst leaving the victim in excruciating agony, one of their hallmarks]].
** Ironically, this is also Reacher's [[PreemptiveDeclaration blasé assessment]] of how he's going to sort the problem out: find out who exactly is involved, kill every last one of them, and then move on. [[spoiler:It works very effectively]].
** The BigBadDuumvirate of Season 2, A.M. and Langston, tend to resort to murder to cover up their conspiracy. Langston toys with this; he eventually realizes trying to kill Reacher is more trouble than it's worth and offers to pay him off if he'll leave their operation alone. [[ItsPersonal Since Langston had murdered one of Reacher's team,]] Reacher tells Langston he'll only be satisfied by killing him.

** Neagley, downplayed compared to Roscoe, but we also get a scene where she casually strips off her clothes and underwear to change out of wet clothes in front of Reacher (who is similarly stripped down himself). As they're both PlatonicLifePartners they don't even react to one-another's lack of clothes. In season 2, she's forced to wear a dress when attending a performance, which O'Donnell compliments despite Neagley hating having to dress anything other than casual.

** Invoked by Reacher in season 2 when he's asked by [[spoiler:Langston]] what he wants. Reacher simply responds, "To throw you out of a helicopter," as was done to his friends.

* AlmightyJanitor: Langston is just the head of security for New Age's New York facility. However, he managed to use this position to seize control of the company and uses their resources to commit his many crimes. The senior executives are either blissfully ignorant of what is going on or have been threatened into compliance.

** [[spoiler: The Iraqi criminals who try to assassinate Reacher are shown breaking into an apartment where he lived, but this would never happen. Reacher would be living inside a base that Iraqi civilians would have no access to.]]

** In season 2, when Neagley and Dixon go to question AmbiguouslyEvil executive Marlo Burns, they find her house abandoned, with signs of frantic packing, a bag full of money left lying in a closet, and a jewelry box left behind, all indications that Burns fled with the bare essentials.
** When one of the hit men hired to kill Reacher's team at Frantz' funeral sees his colleague get [[BoomHeadshot headshot]] by Neagly [[ImprobableAimingSkills from twenty or so yards away with a handgun]], he takes off running for his getaway car.

** In season 2, when Neagley and Dixon go to visit and question AmbiguouslyEvil executive Marlo Burns, they find her house abandoned, with signs of frantic packing by her clothes dresser and in her bathroom and a bag of money and a jewelry box that Burns chose not to take with her for some reason.

** In season 2, when Neagley and Dixon go to visit and question AmbiguouslyEvil executive Marlo Burns, they find her house abandoned, with signs of frantic packing and a bag of money that Burns chose not to take with her for some reason.

* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler:KJ]] is revealed to be [[spoiler:Kliner Sr.]]'s assassin. [[spoiler:He felt he was to weak to run their operation.]]

** This is the reasoning behind the location chosen for the CruelAndUnusualDeath method used by the villains in season 2. Being dropped out of a helicopter hundreds of feet above the ground is not always ''guaranteed'' to be fatal, despite the odds, and it is possible to survive the landing. To remedy this, they intentionally dump them in the woods around the Cascade Mountains, away from the hiking trails, to ensure that even if the unfortunate victim survives the fall, they won't be found, and will either die of their injuries, exposure or wild animals in their immobile state.

* VillainousCrush: KJ makes it clear a few times he's interested in Roscoe; in fact it seems his initial hostility towards Reacher is less down to the fact he's a potential wrench and more the fact he's got chemistry with Roscoe. He writes "WHORE" on her car, but while its an attempt to get Reacher in trouble by antagonising him in the hopes he'll respond in broad daylight, it seems he chose this method specifically because he resented that Roscoe didn't reciprocate his feelings. Notably, while going after Reacher in the climax, he compares him to a rhino KJ had killed during a safari, saying that it did whatever it wanted in life, including fucking whoever it wanted (and this is after [[spoiler: Reacher and Roscoe have slept together]]).

** In season 2, Reacher mentioned that he'd encountered James Barr in Indiana a year earlier, implying that the events of ''One Shot'' (the basis of the 2016 ''Film/JackReacher'' film) happened between seasons 1 and 2, without being shown.

* HandCannon: When Reacher is finally given a gun by his allies, he's presented with a Desert Eagle of all things, one of the largest semiauto handguns in existence. Reacher quickly demonstrates the sheer power of the thing by testing it out on a tree stump and blasting a sizeable hole through it. While it's still [[AwesomeButImpractical quite impractical]] compared to more sensibly sized guns, Reacher's enormous size and strength enables him to deal with most of its worst drawbacks (namely, weight and punishing recoil). It might also have been a deliberate pick by the showrunners because anything smaller would've looked like a toy in his hands (notably, throughout season 2 he's largely using modest handguns like glocks and berettas, and they ''do'' in fact look like toys in his hands).

** A line in season 2 indicates that ''One Shot'' will not be adapted, as its events were the basis of the 2016 ''Film/JackReacher'' film. Reacher infers that he dealt with that adventure during the timeskip between seasons.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere:

* ByTheBookCop: Finlay is this, trying to do things the legal way. He'll bend the rules to get what he wants, but as he emphasizes, everything he does is legal.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[Spoiler:Russo in season 2, episode 6. Pinned down by three hitmen armed with automatic weapons, with limited ammo, and knowing that when they eventually kill him, Marlo's daughter, who he's protecting, will be next, he instructs her to run before coming out of cover to draw their fire away from her, and manages to take two of them down with him.]]