Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is a wanderer who arrives in the small town of Margrave hoping to learn more about blues music. However, he's soon arrested on suspicion of murder and finds himself embroiled in a deadly conspiracy that threatens to shatter the town's idyllic veneer.
The series has been renewed for a second season.
This series provides examples of:
- The Ace: Reacher. He's a brilliant investigator whose cases led to a 100% conviction rate, makes deductions easily with limited information, has multiple medals for acts of heroism in combat, including two Silver Stars and is a terrifyingly effective combatant who takes out multiple opponents without breaking a sweat.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: The famous incident where Reacher got a jawbone fragment to the stomach and still managed to save several people is mentioned, but the setting is updated to Baghdad instead of Beirut as in the novels.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
- 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 Spanner in the Works 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.
- Adaptation Name Change:
- 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 Susan Castillo.
- Adaptational Badass: Roscoe and Finlay take out several bad guys at the end of the season, even killing Picard and Teale (whom they had beef with), while they were originally killed by Reacher in the book. Hubble also has a brief badass moment at the end when he headshots a mook while rescuing his kids.
- Adaptational Villainy: 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 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.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Frances Neagley appears to help Reacher in the last few episodes, while in the novels, she was originally introduced in "Without Fail".
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- Finlay is a lot more belligerent and tightly wound toward Reacher early on.
- In the book, Officer Baker comes across as professional during Reacher's arrest: courteous, quick to offer his help, and disturbed by the murders. In the show, he's surly, apparently racist, not openly concerned about the murders, and is pretty gruff while arresting Reacher. In both versions, he's a Dirty Cop working for the bad guys, but in the book, he tips off Reacher by being too calm and courteous toward him while he's a suspect in a brutal murder (as Baker knows he's innocent). In the show, it's because Baker is too apathetic. He's also more sadistic while holding Finlay prisoner.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In the book, Hubble's employer at the bank callously fired him before he got forcibly recruited into the counterfeiting ring. In the show, she seems pleasant enough and reveals that Hubble quit his job (due to being threatened, it turns out).
- Adapted Out: Three additional unnamed Margrave PD cops (a Lazy Bum desk officer and two men waiting as backup during the dinner arrest) are omitted.
- Alleged Lookalikes: The Reacher brothers are described as being near-identical, to the point Joe's assistant and lover mistakes Jack for Joe on the phone and as she dies, which Jack even claiming she'd recognise him without having met him purely off of his resemblance to his brother. Later, another associate of Joe's even remarks that there must have been "something in the water at the Reachers' place", ostensibly because Jack's build is recognisably similar to Joe's. When we finally see Joe (via flashbacks), he's a much slimmer built man lacking Jack's sheer bulk, square jaw, and military crew-cut or even hair color, instead having shaggy black hair and a far less hunky appearance. The only thing they have in common is their height. (Their younger versions look rather similar though, despite the actors not being related.)
- Amateur Sleuth: Although he's a trained investigator, Reacher is no longer affiliated with any law-enforcement agencies and participating in cases of his own volition.
- Artistic License – Law: Even in a tiny town with a population of only 1,700 people, there is no way two police officers who thought they spotted a murderer would burst into a diner, guns blazing, without evacuating the diner first. It's also a count of Artistic License – Gun Safety when one of the officers is pointing a shotgun at Reacher, but all of the patrons behind Reacher could be hit with stray bullets if he ended up needing to shoot him. Both officers would've been written up and possibly fired by any sane police precinct in the country for that behavior. Given how corrupt Margrave turns out to be, this is possibly explained by the chain of command enabling this sort of behaviour.
- Artistic License – Linguistics: Margrave is supposedly a tiny town far west of Atlanta, but the characters repeatedly refer to a dessert in the diner as "peach pie." Georgians don't call it that — it's peach cobbler basically anywhere you go in the state. Additionally, there is the use of "carpetbagger" by a white Southerner who at most might be thirty years old. This term hasn't been spoken aloud by anyone from the South in a very long time, as the term was referring to the Reconstruction Era and at most, maybe someone elderly would say it, but certainly not the snot-nosed psycho KJ. Lastly, there is the use of Yankee while describing Finlay. Most Georgians refer to anyone from anywhere north of Virginia as simply a Northerner. Yankee phased out sometime around the 1960's as a common term for non-Southerners.
- Artistic License – Military:
- Reacher is shown in flashbacks to have regularly patrolled a Baghdad neighborhood by himself. However, not only would a soldier never patrol alone, but as a major, Reacher would never even be directly involved in patrols. He would actually be overseeing multiple patrols from a tactical operations center.
- 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.
- Reacher is shown wearing the dress uniform branch colors of a US Army aviation officer (dark-blue and orange), instead of the dark-green color of a Military Police officer.
- Artistic License – Prison: In the pilot episode, Jack and another man are in prison and were placed into a cell block with convicted criminals. They should have been placed into a holding area, since they have not been convicted of any crime. Jack beats the crap out of one convict who entered his cell looking to rape Jack's cellmate. One of the convict's gang is wearing sunglasses, which Jack makes him give up. The only eyewear prisoners are allowed to wear are prison-issued corrective glasses. Sunglasses are not allowed for two reasons: They prevent guards from being able to tell where a prisoner is actually looking, and the lenses and frames can be crafted into weapons.
- Ascended Extra:
- The coroner only has one or two scenes and no name or character arc in the book. In the show, his name is Jasper and he's a regular character with a distinctive personality.
- Charlie Hubble only has a few scenes in the book, while in the show, she provides some of the exposition her husband originally did and has more scenes in protective custody.
- Officer Stevenson is relieved from duty early in the book due to his relation to Hubble, but remains on the force and has lots of scenes throughout season 1.
- Asshole Victim: The villains are a brutal group of bad guys where Murder Is the Best Solution, who will not only kill anyone who opposes or fails them, but will do so in a brutal and horrific way in order to send a message for others to stay in line. This includes threatening kids as well as murdering a mother and her unborn child in front of their father, and doing so in a way where he can't look away. Suffice to say when Reacher starts dispatching them, no one feels sorry for their fate.
- Some of their own victims as well. Chief Morrison, who is brutally killed by KJ and/or the South American assassins, was a corrupt cop involved in Pete and Joe's murders. Spivey, who is killed by the South Americans, was a corrupt prison guard who tried to have Hubble killed. And while Kliner Sr. may not have been involved in or even approved of the murders committed by KJ (hence KJ slitting his throat), he did still run a shady counterfeiting operation and cruelly forced Hubble to be a part of it.
- At one point, KJ tells Roscoe that Reacher killed some civilians in Iraq. Turns out, this was because they were child abusers.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Reacher's Desert Eagle is this In-Universe just as much as it is in Real Life. While his size and strength allow him to deal with the gun's considerable weight and recoil, he can do nothing about its tiny magazine capacity, which leaves him high and dry on more than one occasion. The Desert Eagle also being a very flashy weapon means he can't use it freely without drawing unwanted attention. It is without a doubt a cool and powerful piece of hardware that saves Reacher's bacon more than once, but it's definitely not the most practical gun out there.
- Ax-Crazy: KJ Kliner seems fairly put together at first but after revealing his true colors, he is unquestionably this, gleefully talking about all the people he's killed or had killed, including his own father, and salivating at the thought of murdering Charlie and her two kids.
- Battle Amongst the Flames: The final battle in the warehouse.
- Berserk Button: Neagley does not like the sight of a scummy patron in a strip club getting too handsy with one of the strippers during a lap dance, especially after the stripper repeatedly tells him to stop. She delivers a prompt beatdown before Reacher can even clear his seat to do it himself.
- Reacher absolutely snaps when he sees that KJ has painted the word "WHORE" on the side of Roscoe's truck. He is self-aware enough to know the entire thing is a trap to get him to beat KJ up and get himself arrested, but doesn't care and still delivers a much deserved ass-whupping anyway.
- Big Eater: Reacher tears into a massive plate of barbeque and fried chicken with great gusto and it's implied such meals are standard for him given his size and the levels of physical activity he regularly engages in. Finlay even asks him how he can "eat like that and still look the way you do". Reacher's only response is "like this" before chowing down.
- The Big Guy: Reacher stands at six feet, five inches, and packed with muscle. He towers over everyone else he comes across and sometimes has difficulty finding clothes that fit him.
- Bitchin Sheeps Clothing: Agent Picard initially appeared to be a friendly Reasonable Authority Figure and friend of Finley who helps Reacher and Co. anyway he can. The final episode reveals he is a Dirty Cop who is in on the operation and his true Jerkass personality comes out.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: As in the books, Reacher is a good person, but his time with the military means killing people is way more of an option for him than with normal people. Beating the snot out of six men - including jamming one's eye out and potentially killing others - barely gets his heart racing.
- Broken Ace: Reacher zig-zags between being a straightforward The Ace and a Broken Ace due to the murder of his brother. He is highly competent (most of the time) but is so deeply emotionally stunted that he struggles to express his appreciation or affection for people in his general vicinity that he comes to care about. It takes him quite some time to truly process losing his brother.
- Bullying a Dragon: KJ makes a point of letting everyone know that he knows everything there is to know about Reacher's military history... and he still goes out of his way to antagonize him. Once his true nature is revealed, it becomes clear that he was actively looking forward to the challenge of killing such a renowned badass.
- Bully Hunter: Reacher can't abide bullies and flashbacks show that he'd pick fights with them wherever he went.
- But Now I Must Go: Reacher at the end of the season. Once everything has been settled, he leaves town to continue his wandering ways.
- By-the-Book Cop: 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.
- Cool Car: The Hubbles' Bentley is such a cool and impressive car that Reacher has to briefly stop driving it because it draws too much attention.
- Combat Pragmatist: Reacher doesn't really care for playing or fighting fair. In his first fight in the series, he gives someone to the count of three to back off, then attacks him on "two". If he decides that beating someone is necessary, he'll do what it takes to win. He also has no issue simply ambushing and shooting opponents rather than fighting them directly.
- The Conspiracy: It becomes clear quite early in Season 1 that things in Margrave aren't as simple as they appear, and there are agents of a larger power everywhere, pulling the strings...
- Continuity Reboot: The series doesn't share continuity with the two Jack Reacher films starring Tom Cruise.
- Contrived Coincidence: The fact that Reacher finds himself in Margrave on the morning after his brother Joe is killed in the town. Finlay brings it up out at one point, but it is never addressed. Jack himself admits he stopped by the town on a whim, out of hearing a blues song on the radio and remembering his brother Joe mentioning a legendary musician named Blind Blake died there, wanting to check the place out. Given the fallout of Reacher discovering his brother's murder has on the villains' counterfeiting operation and that Reacher himself muses on the unlikelihood of him ever finding this out through official channels for a long time until the case had gone cold, given his current occupation, it's implied to be a case of Joe's spirit guiding Jack to help settle his unfinished business in the town.
- Cowboy Cop: Subverted in that Reacher is not a cop and has long stopped being a military investigator, but he pretty much plays the same sort of role. He has no care for the rules or restrictions in any situations, and has no problem breaking the law to get what he wants. As he's fond of pointing out to others, they have rules and regulations, but he doesn't.
- Creator Cameo: Lee Child played a diner patron who bumps into Reacher and excuses himself in the first season's finale.
- Crowbar Combatant: Kliner's nephew comes after Reacher with a crowbar. This proves to be one of Reacher's toughest battles, both due to the weapon and his opponent attacking with insane ferocity.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Cross the bad guys and you'll end up crucified to a wall literally eating your balls, and/or watching your family be tortured with mirrors placed all around you so you can't look away. Everyone coming across the crime scenes is suitably disturbed to see such a level of brutality reach a quaint old Georgia town... Of course, Margrave turns out to be anything but.
- The last Dirty Cop in the bunch gets crushed to death by Reacher driving a pickup truck directly into him and smashing him into the bars of the jail cell. He dies quite slowly and painfully, but had he not been a traitor, he may have died in a less horrible way.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: True to form, Reacher regularly demolishes any opponent he faces with frightening ease. Played with in that while normal people hold no real threat to Reacher, he's not completely invincible. He can be overwhelmed by superior numbers given enough time, and when facing an opponent with skill and training it's a lot harder for him to take them down, often resorting to desperate measures to take them out. Out-of-their-mind lunatics like Kliner's nephew or KJ who make up for their lack of practiced training with insane ferocity in a pitched fight require him to expend more effort than usual to put them down as well.
- Damsel in Distress: Conklin is thankfully incredibly useful and helpful the entire series, but gets damseled for the series finale. She's captured off-screen along with Hubble's wife and kids and has to be rescued. She does manage to take down Teale after Reacher frees her, at least.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to the two movies with Tom Cruise, with more violence and swearing.
- David vs. Goliath: This usually ends up being the case with most people Reacher faces off against, as he's naturally towering a foot over most people and is built like a brick shithouse, but it's most apparent in Reacher's face-off with Kliner's nephew in the penultimate episode. Said Nephew is shorter than most people and the height and muscle disparity would clearly indicate a fist-fight between them would end decisively in Reacher's favour, but surprisingly, Jack actually loses in hand-to-hand combat with him. He makes up for his shorter stature with relentless ferocity and single-minded determination, attacking Jack with a crowbar and ignoring any guns in favour of beating him to death, shrugging off most of Reacher's blows and bouncing back whenever he's tossed around the room. Jack actually seems taken aback by his sheer energy in a fight and ultimately has to resort to blasting him point-blank with three Desert Eagle rounds to put him down.
- Death by Adaptation: Stevenson and his wife and Posthumous Character Mrs. Finlay are the only characters to survive Killing Floorbut die in the show.
- Decomposite Character:
- Dawson Kliner isn't in the book and has some but not all of his cousin KJ's personality traits and role as the head of the hit squad and the man who kicked Joe's dead body.
- In the book, the corrupt guard Spivey is also responsible for moving Reacher and Hubble back to the general population of the prison after his effort to get them killed fails (while seeking to cover up his crime). In the show, a second (seemingly honest) guard does that.
- Didn't Think This Through: A minor example. KJ spray paints the word "WHORE" on Roscoe's car with the intent of getting Reacher in trouble and it works. He ends up not pressing charges because, as Reacher points out afterwards, having Reacher arrested would allow Reacher legal access to the Kliners' financial information and records, potentially exposing their shady business dealings. The net result is that KJ gets bitch slapped out of his seat for nothing.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- A minor example, but Pete Jobling and Joe Reacher are shot with a suppressed pistol chambered in 9mm, 95 grain ammo (a fancy way of saying subsonic .380 ACP) instead of a suppressed Ruger pistol in .22 LR.
- Another minor example, Teale is shot in the head with a Desert Eagle like in the book, but here, he’s shot through his eye by Roscoe instead of Reacher.
- In the book, Kliner Sr. was shot in the chest by Reacher with the Desert Eagle during the climax; he’s killed much earlier here, getting his throat slit by his own son.
- KJ was part of the cleaner team that Reacher slaughtered in the Hubble house and ended up being drowned in the swimming pool. Here, KJ survives until the end, where he’s dunked in a tank of chemicals, then thrown into a bunch of burning boxes, setting him alight.
- Picard is shot in the head by Reacher with the Desert Eagle in the book, while here, he’s killed by Finlay when the latter knocks him into a money press and activates it.
- Dirty Cop: As things unfold, it becomes clear that two of the five cops on Margrave's police force are working for the bad guys. This even extends to the FBI, as Finlay's friend Picard is also on the take.
- Disproportionate Retribution: What the Margrave kill squad does to people in the organization who fail them. Not only does it bring way too much attention to their operation and it unsettles the entire town, but the sadism involved makes it easy to connect the dots for the eventual reveal of the killers.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Reacher is rather insistent that everyone call him that, not Jack. Even his mother called him Reacher, but that might be why he's so insistent about it.
- Doomed Predecessor: Detective Gray (Roscoe's mentor and Finaly's predecessor) is repeatedly mentioned before it transpires that he was investigating the Kliners just like the heroes and his death a year earlier is a case of Never Suicide. Reacher and the others examine his case files and look at an autopsy photo of him.
- The Dragon: KJ is this to his father. However....
- Dragon Ascendant: He eventually kills his father as he feels he was to weak to run their operation.
- The Drifter: Reacher pretty much goes wherever he wants, solely on what intrigues him at the moment. The reason he's in Margrave in season 1 is because he wanted to find out more about a blues singer he had recently heard on the radio a few towns over.
- Elite Mooks: The Venezuelans Reacher faces off with several times over the course of the first season prove to be some of his toughest opponents. Justified in that they aren't local thugs hired for muscle, but ex-military with specialized training, meaning they are more capable of matching Reacher in a fight. When he takes them on, he either fights them to a draw, needs help to finish them off, or can only take them on one at a time. The only time he takes out two at once on his own iswhen he lays a trap for them in the third episode, setting up an ambush and shooting both of them in the back.
- Establishing Character Moment: In Reacher's opening scene, he gets off a bus and walks along down a highway, happens upon a Jerkass threatening his girlfriend and stares the guy down until he stops and apologizes. Then he goes into a diner, but before he can start eating, notices police cars approaching, looks around the diner, deduces that the cops are coming for him, and places his hands on the table as not to give the cops a reason to shoot him. All of this without saying a single word. This establishes most of his core character in a couple of minutes: his solitude, his very intimidating presence, his sense of justice, his situational awareness, his calm under pressure, and his taciturn nature.
- Later on, when Reacher is being interrogated by Finlay and he speaks for the first time, he makes some impressive deductions about the murder, based on just a few details that Finlay gave him. He also corrects Finlay on the terminology he uses. This proves to Finlay (and the audience) that he's actually a brilliant and meticulous investigator.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: KJ takes it hard when he learns his father was killed, blaming Finlay for not doing a good enough job of protecting him. Except it's all an act. KJ was the one who killed his father because he thought he was weak and wasn't capable of doing what was necessary to maintain their operation.
- Eviler than Thou: KJ proves that he is this to his father, killing him in a gruesome manner in order to take control of his operation.
- Evil Gloating: KJ does this when he thinks he has Reacher dead to rights in their final battle, relaying a story about how he snuck up and killed a rhino in Africa under similar low visibility conditions. However, the rhino was not able to set a trap, whereas Reacher was...
- Evil Virtues: KJ's sole redeeming trait is that he isn't a coward. He never backs down from Reacher's intimidation or even after being beaten up by him and faces him head on in the finale, despite the disadvantage and even after everyone else has been killed.
- Eye Scream: Reacher shoves his thumb in a prisoner's eye during the fight in the head and later, Teale is shot through the eye by Roscoe, the aftermath clearly shown.
- Fan Disservice: A naked man is shown with his dick out, but it’s not Reacher. Instead it’s the town’s corrupt police chief, Morrison, who was nailed to a wall, sliced up with knives, and had his balls cut off and shoved down his throat.
- Faux Affably Evil: KJ Kliner never drops his polite tone but it's always laced with condescension and smugness as he is eager to let people know they can't touch him. Even after he's gone off the deep end, he never drops his manners, even as he tries to kill Jack.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Reacher and Finlay are this by the end, with both admitting they couldn't have seen it through without the other.
- From their brief interactions, this appears to be the case for Reacher and Neagley. Naturally, Reacher doesn't like showing affection, but it's quite clear based on their interactions they trust each other implicitly and Neagley immediately comes to his aid after his "luck" comment in the finale.
- Foil: Reacher and Finlay to a "T." Reacher is a loner, Wandering the Earth Cowboy Cop, with a Limited Wardrobe of jeans and a t-shirt who plays by his own rules and doesn't care who gets in his way if it means stopping the bad guys, even if it means dropping a few bodies along the way. Finlay is a Harvard educated By-the-Book Cop who wears tweed and tries to keep the body count to a minimum. Reacher loves fast food and meat, while Finlay prefers healthier alternatives and is a vegetarian. It even extends to their taste in music, as Reacher loves the blues while Finlay is a fan of 70's and 80's rock.
- Foreshadowing:
- The villains seems to have a surprisingly large reach and insight into Reacher and his allies' attempts to uncover the truth, ranging from being able to intimidate a policeman in another state into killing his partner and attempting to kill Reacher and Neagley as well, to tracking down Hubble's family at the FBI safehouse Picard stashed them at. It's noted that their plans would require a corrupt FBI agent on the inside to prevent any investigations into their international counterfeiting operation and the finale eventually reveals The Mole, Picard himself.
- Picard notes several times that he warned Finlay not to take the Margrave posting when the former continually runs into opposition from the locals and his own allies inside the force. It's given a different aspect to it once its revealed that Picard is The Mole for the counterfeiters, and didn't want Finlay investigating the town or he'd have to kill him.
- Early on, Reacher gets into a brief knife fight with what appears to be a random thug Spivey hired to kill him, only to later reveal that said thug was actually a trained ex-soldier from his fighting stance, hence him being able to land several cuts on Reacher during the fight. When Reacher punches KJ for spray-painting the word "WHORE" on Roscoe's car as a harassment tactic to antagonise Reacher through his friends, during the ensuring beatdown, KJ grabs a nearby knife and adopts a similar pose, visibly struggling to not attack Reacher with it when his father interferes to diffuse the fight and order Reacher out of town. It's later shown that KJ is one of the primary hitmen in The Conspiracy, having learned the art of torture and murder from their Venezuelan partners, and is a great deal more psychotic than he appears to be on the surface.
- When Reacher and Finlay first meet, Reacher deduces that Finlay's wife has either divorced him or passed away. He concludes divorce based on the fact that is the more likely option for someone Finlay's age, and Finlay never corrects him. Later, when Reacher mocks Finlay's wife for leaving him, Finlay gets incredibly upset and tells Reacher to keep his wife's name out of his mouth. Finlay's reaction is understandable given that Reacher assumed wrong, and Finlay's wife did pass away, and he blames himself for not being able to save her.
- Reacher notes that Kliner's farm has an unusual amount of animal feed, even for a pasture farm with 116 cows on it. It later turns out the animal feed contains a chemical they can use to clean up the chemicals that they use to bleach the ink off of the US dollar bills to allow the paper — one of its unique identifying markers — to be re-used to create counterfeit 'super-bills' that can pass for the real thing. They do this to avoid the resulting pollution that almost got them caught before in their previous location.
- To make Roscoe behave, Teale threatens to drown Hubble's kids in the bleaching chemicals used in the counterfeiting operation; Reacher later dunks KJ headfirst in a vat of said chemicals, only to take him out and throw him into a burning stack of boxes, setting him on fire.
- After Reacher and Roscoe meet up with Picard to find out what happened to Joe Reacher's notes, they are quickly ambushed by the Venezuelans right after they discover the hiding place where Joe had stashed them. They wonder how the Venezuelans were able to find them so quickly, and reason that it was due to Stevenson being The Mole inside the police department. Later on, after Roscoe takes over watching Charlie Hubble and her kids from Picard, they are again tracked down by the Venezuelans in short order. The reveal of Picard working for Kliner's forces shows that this was due to him tipping the bad guys off on where to find Reacher and his associates.
- Friend on the Force: Picard is this to Finlay. He's also The Mole, working for the bad guys.
- Friendly Sniper: The sunny-natured Neagley is an amazing shot, turns out.
- Friend to All Children: Downplayed, but Reacher is noticeably more soft-spoken and less taciturn when around Hubble's two young daughters than he is with most adults.
- Gender-Blender Name: Officer Roscoe Conklin. Reacher at first assumes Roscoe is her last name and is clearly a bit surprised, noting that he never met a woman named "Roscoe" before.
- Genius Bruiser: Jack is as big as a house, can take apart multiple opponents with alarming ease, and is able to make brilliant deductions based on only a limited amount of evidence. In the first episode of season 1, Jack is able to conclude that there were three people responsible for a suspect's death based solely on hearing a brief description of the victim and how he was disposed of.
- The Ghost: Joe Reacher doesn’t make a physical appearance, aside from his younger self in Reacher's flashbacks and brief shots of his arm and his forehead in the present, until the season finale, where he’s shown in person during a flashback when him and Reacher visited their dying mother.
- Good is Not Nice: Reacher is firmly on the side of good but he is abrasive, blunt, anti-social, often rude, has no issue intimidating and threatening even allies, and is perfectly willing to brutalize, seriously injure or outright kill opponents with no hesitation or remorse.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Reacher's preferred style of fighting is to simply use his hands and feet to brutally demolish opponents. Given his size, strength and fighting skill, he can usually get by without weapons. However, this preference comes back to bite him near the end when facing Kilner's nephew who nearly kills Reacher with a crowbar and Reacher's skill can't make up for being unarmed.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Kliner Sr's Venezuelan partners who are providing the muscle for his money laundering operation, relying on his system to create counterfeit bills they need to finance their criminal operations in the south, and whom are behind the main incentive for the villains to commit such over-the-top murders as a warning to keep their operation in line when Joe's investigation threatens to derail their promised reward. Despite being the main driver behind the counterfeiting operation, it's ultimately still their American partners whom are the main antagonists that Reacher has to deal with, as whomever they are is simply too far out of his reach to realistically enact retribution against.
- Guns Do Not Work That Way: When going over the murder in the first episode, Reacher points out the bullet is 9mm and "95 grain, subsonic." 95 grain bullets are supersonic with a standard powder charge, as their light weight increases the velocity. Bullets must be heavier to be subsonic, with subsonic 9mm ammunition typically being 147 grain and designed specifically for use with suppressors.
- Hand Cannon: 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. While it's still 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.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Reacher gets repeatedly sidetracked by the plight of a mistreated dog. Finlay is annoyed at first, but eventually takes up the dog's cause as well.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- KJ gloats in the final battle that he'll find Reacher in the low visibility conditions due to a similar experience hunting a rhino in Africa, where he was able to sneak up on the animal because it didn't know where KJ was in the fog. Reacher sets a trap for KJ, luring him into a specific area to get the drop on him, essentially reversing KJ's situation with the rhino. Reacher then dunks his head in the same chemical bleach his family used to remove the ink from the $1 bills for their counterfeiting operation, and tosses him into a pile of burning money.
- Ultimately this is what brings down the entire operation. They decided to frame the first easy target they could for the murder of Joe Reacher, unaware that the drifter they try to pin it on is both Joe's brother and a One-Man Army Genius Bruiser who wouldn't have bothered them had they not gotten him involved. He wouldn't have even learnt that the murdered man was his brother had dragging him into the situation not put him in a position to identify his body.
- Honest Corporate Executive:
- As shown in a flashback, currency manager Paul Hubble only got involved in the counterfeiting ring after he was tricked into moving dirty money for a seemingly legitimate purpose and is horrified to find out (even before being forced to witness a murder to warn him) that his new boss means business. Despite the risks and being offered four times his previously salary, he never becomes comfortable with the racket and tries to tip off the authorities the first chance he gets.
- While Finlay is posing as a junior employee to pump Hubble's former boss at the bank for information, she seems respectable and accommodating and mentions that she didn't lay Hubble off even though his division of the bank was doing poorly.
- Honor Before Reason: Reacher is of course fully aware that Roscoe can take care of herself and that KJ was setting him up by painting "WHORE" onto her truck. Reacher doesn't give a shit; he still goes inside and whups KJ's ass anyway just to defend her honor.
- Hostage Situation: Defied in the season finale. Though the bad guys promise to at least spare the children if the good guys cooperate, everyone involved is well-aware they aren't going to spare anyone and plan accordingly.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Reacher's basic modus operandi. He'll do whatever needs to be done to resolve the situation. He'll take cheap shots, lie with ease to avoid distracting conversations, use counterfeit money to purchase supplies and get information, and even shoot people in the back. As he states, this isn't the movies — if he see's an opening, he'll take it.
- Innocently Insensitive: Reacher doesn't necessarily mean to rub people the wrong way, just his direct, to-the-point attitude and style tends to alienate more than endear.
- Insistent Terminology: When Finlay calls him a vagrant, Reacher corrects him and says he's a hobonote .
- Irony: Discussed a few times regarding Reacher and Finlay's music preferences; Reacher, a white man, is a big fan of black blues singers like Blind Blake, while Finlay, a black man, finds the music irritating and gets sick of it quickly. Finlay himself, meanwhile, is instead a fan of white rock singers from the 80s and 90s, such as Kansas (of Carry On Wayward Son fame), music which Reacher thinks is shit. Both of this results in Reacher explaining to Finlay (again, a black man), how important and influential blues music is to African-American culture, while Finlay gushes to Reacher about how he appreciates how much white boys can rock out, with the other mutually expressing bafflement at the other's enthusiasm for their chosen genre.
- It's Personal: Played with in the series premiere. Throughout the episode Reacher protests that he has no personal stake in what is happening in Margrave and he just wants to get out of town as soon as possible. Then he finds out that the murder victim is his brother and he realizes that it has been personal all along and he vows to kill everyone responsible.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: Once KJ is revealed to be Joe's killer. Jack even stays behind in a burning building filled with volatile chemicals just to make sure he's dead, and pointedly gives him the most painful, drawn-out death he can as the circumstances dictate.
- This ends up also being the case for Roscoe, who winds up fighting Teale, who murdered her police force mentor and made it look like a suicide, and Finlay, who fights his Evil Former Friend Picard.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Kristin Kreuk appears as Charlie, the wife of Hubble. Kreuk's most famous role is Lana Lang in Smallville, which featured Reacher himself, Alan Ritchson, as Aquaman.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Reacher is blunt, taciturn, anti-social and often insensitive and intimidating but he's not a bad guy at heart. He is capable of being very kind to those he gets close to and even total strangers, he has a soft spot for kids and dogs and he isn't totally insensitive and is able to tread lightly when necessary. He also tells Roscoe that if anyone could've gotten him to settle down, it would've been her and grows to like and respect Finlay, telling him he couldn't have succeeded without him.
- Karmic Death: KJ is tricked into an ambush set by Reacher who uses the animal feed his father brought in to use in the counterfeiting process, then has his head dunked in the bleach used to strip the paint and markings off the $1 bills, then pushed into a burning pile of counterfeit money, essentially meeting his end by the tools of their operation.
- Knight Errant: Reacher was specifically created to be this. While he's not actively seeking to right wrongs wherever he goes, nor will he allow them to go unpunished.
- Lancer vs. Dragon: In the season 1 finale, Kliner's Co-Dragons Picard and Teale are dispatched by Finlay and Roscoe, respectively. Meanwhile, Reacher kills Kliner.
- Last-Name Basis: Reacher is always addressed as "Reacher". Flashbacks show even his own mother and brother called him that. He even corrects people who refer to him as "Mr Reacher", preferring to just be addressed as "Reacher".
- Lazy Alias: Roscoe checks into a hotel using the name Eudora Welty, a famous writer. Reacher lampshades this, and says that he uses forgotten vice-presidents and Yankees' second basemen.
- Lightning Bruiser: Reacher's large size belies blistering speed, as he is able to move around quickly to fight multiple opponents while avoiding most attacks.
- Limited Wardrobe: Justified in universe. Reacher travels with only what he's wearing at the time, and if he needs to change clothes he just buys something new at a local thrift store.
- Man on Fire: How KJ meets his end. Reacher overpowers him and starts drowning him in one of the chemical vats used in the counterfeiting operation, before hauling him up for air, shooting him a venomous Death Glare and then pushing him into the nearest pile of flaming money to go up like a Roman Candle.
- The Man in Front of the Man:The mysterious ringleader of the villain's operation is revealed in the final episode to be KJ, Kilner Sr's Spoiled Brat son. His father was the one who arranged the operation in the first place, but KJ turns out to be a great deal more bloodthirsty and ruthless than his father, having participated in or caused most of the vicious torture and gruesome deaths throughout the show, including Joe's, and eventually murdered his father to take over the operation entirely. Everybody who learns this, from Reacher, to Finlay to Hubble, is taken aback that he's not just the rich kid riding his successful father's coattails that he appeared to be from the outset.
- Menacing Hand Shot: In the pilot episode, just before the brawl in the prison head starts, the camera lingers on a shiv in the right hand of a prisoner standing behind Reacher.
- Mook Horror Show: Reacher vs the "cleaners" in episode seven. Given that they had just tortured and killed a young couple that were expecting their first child in an inhuman fashion, even for them, it's hard to feel sorry for them as Reacher picks them off one by one.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: The villains 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.
- Mr. Fanservice: Reacher. He's fond of wearing t-shirts to show off his bulging biceps and we even see him stripped down to his underwear in the first episode, and a few more times after.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Roscoe is played by the lovely Willa Fitzgerald, who gets a brief topless scene when Roscoe joins Reacher in the shower, and herself strips down to her underwear in the second episode.
- 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 Platonic Life-Partners they don't even react to one-another's lack of clothes.
- Neck Snap: During the cleaner’s assault on the Hubble house, Reacher drags out the driver of their truck through the window and then stomps on his neck.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The money Kliner gives to the city's budget is the only reason Margrave was able to afford a highly competent Boston detective with 20 years of experience, who ends up being a key ally that helps Reacher bring the Kliner's operation down.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- A very unfortunate case with the honest cop who helps Reacher and Neagley talk to his C.I. to investigate a lead on the counterfeit ring. The bad guys found his partner off-screen and threatened him and his family, so he shoots the honest cop in the head and is about to pull over to kill Reacher and Neagley as instructed, but Reacher manages to kick through the police car's grate and they're driven into the river. The cop knows that he's a dead man for failing to kill them and chooses to stay in the car and drown rather than let the killers find him.
- Joe's secretary, Molly, also becomes a casualty when she offers them the files he was working on before he was murdered. She dies in Reacher's arms and he takes it very personally, especially when he finds out that KJ is the one who killed both her and Joe.
- Not Hyperbole: When Hubble tells Reacher what his criminals bosses threatened to do to him if he jeopardizes the operation, it sounds too absurdly over the top...and then we see the Morrison crime scene, where it is played out to the letter. Since Hubble isn't a law-breaking citizen, he had no reason to get so specific and graphic with the method of death, which ties into the later reveal that he's already witnessed one such unfortunate victim killed in this manner in Venezuela, as a warning from Kliner Sr's partners to keep his mouth shut.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Two examples in KJ and his cousin Dawson. KJ is presented as a spoiled brat rich son of the potential Big Bad, Kliner, who is nothing more than an annoyance to Reacher and Conklin. He harasses them during their investigation, seemingly to protect his father and because he is jealous of Reacher getting close to Conklin. Dawson is first shown as KJ's lackey who can't think for himself and is just dumb muscle. Nothing can be further from the truth. Dawson turns out to be the lead guy on the hit squad that is murdering the people connected to the counterfeiting ring to cover their tracks, and comes the closest to killing Reacher during their fight. KJ turns out to be the true Big Bad of Season 1, and is the main guy behind the murders. He also murdered his own father and took over the counterfeiting operation. Murdered Reacher's brother Joe and his girlfriend when she tried to give Jack information that Joe's investigation uncovered. Reacher himself, who is usually spot on with his Sherlock Scan, is surprised after he learns KJ was a lot more dangerous than he gave him credit for during their earlier encounters.
- Oblivious to His Own Description: In the final battle, KJ rants to Reacher, as he hunts him in a smoke filled warehouse, how this situation is similar to the time he hunted a rhino, whom according to KJ, lumbered through life doing whatever he wanted, unaware that he was being led to a trap; KJ was obviously associating Reacher with the rhino, but not only is he like the rhino in his story, who did whatever he wanted without thinking of the consequences, but he’s also unknowingly being led to a trap himself, set up by Reacher.
- Odd Couple: Finlay is a By-the-Book Cop trying to live a quiet life in a small town by following the rules of law. Reacher is a wanderer Genius Bruiser who goes and does what he wants, regardless of what stands in his way. Played with in that circumstances force the pair to work together as it becomes clear as The Conspiracy unfolds that they are part of the limited people they can trust in this circumstance and they need each other's skills and resources.
- Out-of-Character Alert:
- Finlay makes a point of not only not swearing, but criticizing others for swearing as he feels it is a sign of a limited mind. It makes his cursing out of Kliner all the more shocking, which shows just how much Kliner pissed Finlay off.
- Neagley realizes that Reacher is in trouble simply by asking how he knew a suspect was dirty by him saying it was a "Lucky guess." This is because Reacher doesn't like to guess, nor does he rely on luck, as he only relies on the cold hard facts. Neagley states Reacher saying that was pretty much a cry for help.
- Outside-Context Problem: Reacher is this to the villains. He was just a nameless drifter passing through town, who knew nothing of their larger operation. After Reacher learns about the death of his brother, he successfully manages to destroy the entire operation and kill off most of the heads of the conspiracy within a week and a half.
- Pants-Positive Safety: Reacher usually carries his Desert Eagle tucked in his waistband at the small of his back. Although no sensible person with firearms training would ever do that under normal circumstances, it's justified in his case because he simply doesn't have a holster he could put it in, and it's still better than shoving it in his pocket.
- Patricide: KJ does this to his father.
- Pet the Dog: Reacher literally does this to a dog tied up in a yard that has no water. He later returns to make sure the animal is being fed, and Finlay ends up seizing the dog since the owner is abusive.
- Pintsize Powerhouse:
- KJ's cousin Dawson is one of the smallest of the badguy's henchmen, and Reacher seems to assume he's a weak man clinging to his more charismatic cousin, but he's also the one who comes the closest to actually killing Reacher in a fight.
- Roscoe is 5'5", and her short stature is commented on at least once, but she's an Action Girl who herself manages to down several of the Venezuelan mercs and personally kills Teale.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Neagley and Reacher; they're clearly as close as family, closer even as they appear to have zero compunction about stripping naked in front of one-another and don't even react to the other's state, but there's zero attraction and Neagley herself appears to be a minor Shipper on Deck for Reacher and Roscoe.
- Police Are Useless: Intentionally invoked by the dirty Margrave authorities. Once Morrisson is dead, Teale appoints himself Chief of Police specifically to steer the investigation away from the suspects he already knows are responsible. He then finds an excuse to fire Roscoe for a minor mistake and later cans Finlay once he realizes they're going behind his back investigating the real clues instead of the fake ones he's given them. In the end, though, Finlay goes rogue to help Reacher and Hubble save his family and Roscoe, so Teale's efforts were in vain.
- Police Brutality: And how. But forgetting the Dirty Cop list, when Finlay is in Spivey's place looking for him, the two cops who sneak up behind him somehow don't notice his expensive three-piece tweed suit and proceed to beat the living tar out of Finlay before hauling him in for the B & E. Afterward, they find out he's the Margrave police captain and insist that he should have identified himself, implying it would have made a difference in their response. Finlay, through Tranquil Fury, tells them it shouldn't have mattered.
- Pursued Protagonist: The first few seconds show informant Pete Jobling running through a cornfield before being shot in the back.
- Real Men Don't Cry: Reacher's brother, Joe, taught him from a young age not to cry in public. In a flashback, Reacher holds back his tears while visiting his dying mother and only starts crying when Joe gives him the go ahead when they're in private.
- Reason Before Honor: When Finlay warns Reacher not to go off and kill Kliner Sr before they get all the information about his operation, Reacher tells him he has no intention of doing that just yet, as simply killing Kliner wouldn't put a halt to whatever he's doing. Reacher intends to first dismantle whatever is going on, then he'll kill Kliner.
- Retired Badass: Roscoe reads out Reacher's bio, which details dozens of investigations, a 100% prosecution rate, and acts of heroism in warzones. Reacher's actions in Margrave show that he hasn't slowed one bit since leaving the Army.
- Retirony: Stevenson and his wife are murdered right after talking about quitting their jobs and moving out of Margrave in favor of a better town.
- Revealing Cover-Up: The string of murders, starting with Joe, only serve to make it obvious someone is trying to tie up loose ends.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons:
- When Reacher meets Finlay, he believes that his gaudy suits in a quaint Georgia town is due to the fact that his wife isn't around to help with his fashion choices. Reacher assumes this is due to Finlay being divorced due to his reaction when in reality it's due to Finlay's wife having died prior to the series. Finlay merely never corrected Reacher when he assumed he was alone due to divorce.
- Reacher correctly figures that Margrave is a key location for an international counterfeiting conspiracy but his reasoning is backwards. The money isn't printed in Venezuela, smuggled to Margrave and then distributed across the US. The money is printed in Margrave, smuggled to Venezuela and then distributed internationally.
- Running Gag:
- Reacher being really bothered by the Kliner farm having too much feed for its cows. He's of course completely correct — they're using the feed as part of the counterfeit ring to bleach the printed bills. The farm has 116 cows, just shy of the 120 that would subject it to state inspections, so the operation keeps it below that number and successfully covers up where the bills are processed.
- Reacher really just wants one damn slice of peach pie — though, note, it should be referred to as cobbler— and in the season 1 finale, he finally gets it. But in typical form, his only comment is, "I've had better."
- Barely an episode goes by without someone commenting on Reacher's hugeness, usually in an amusing fashion.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- As soon as he wises up to the scope of the shadiness going on in Margrave, Reacher wants to immediately leave town and not get involved. He changes his mind when he finds out the dead body is his brother Joe.
- Jobling's widow leaves her home and the state almost as soon as Reacher and Roscoe inform her of his death, wanting nothing to do with the criminal activities that got him killed. This saves her life when the bad guys burn her house to the ground to destroy any evidence Jobling might've stashed in it.
- Downplayed, but Stevenson and his wife decide to move closer to her parents in a different town as bodies keep piling up and it becomes clear that the investigation will likely lead to the end of Margrave as they know it. Sadly, before they get a chance, the hit squad comes after them for information they don't even have.
- Self-Made Orphan: KJ is revealed to be Kliner Sr.'s assassin. He felt he was to weak to run their operation.
- Setting Update: The Killing Floor was published and set in 1990s. The first season updated the time period to the 2020s and changed Reacher's back story so that he served in the Global War on Terror while his mother is the child of a French Resistance fighter rather than being a former member herself.
- Sherlock Scan: Reacher can deduce minute details just through observation, such as when he is able to figure out that Finlay is a Harvard graduate, an ex-smoker, and estranged from his wife after spending just a few minute together in a conference room. And just like Sherlock, Reacher can get things wrong since he usually goes by an assumption of details that are close to being right, but not exactly, and can let his own biases cloud his judgement. Case in point, he deduced Finlay's wife was either dead or had divorced him. The way Finlay played it made Reacher conclude it was divorce, only for Finlay to later reveal she had passed away. He also completely overlooked KJ as a threat, seeing him as just a Spoiled Brat and being blinded to how dangerous he actually was, considering him a mere lackey for the new leader of the operation like Teale, rather than the actual leader.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: The soft-spoken, overweight coroner disappears from the plot after the conflict starts to come to a head.
- Shower Scene: Reacher has two; one of the romantic variety, the other where he's cleaning off blood after demolishing the Margrave kill squad. The towel rack politely hides everything below the waist in the second one, but there is still plenty of Fanservice to be enjoyed.
- Single Tear: Reacher sheds a single tear in a flashback after visiting with his dying mother.
- Smarter Than You Look:
- Reacher is written off quite easily as just being a big, dumb ox. Few are prepared for the fact that he is an analytical genius with a keen eye for details and Spotting the Thread.
- KJ has this in the opposite way; due to his unimpressive build and casual arrogance, people are quick to assume he's just the smarmy Spoiled Brat son of Kliner Sr, and Reacher is quick to confront him under the belief he's a simple would-be "Alpha Male" sort. Reacher is visibly surprised when KJ then lists private information about Reacher's own service record, and is a few times caught off-guard by both how smart and how sociopathic KJ actually is. Reacher is still way out of his league, but the underestimation gives KJ a surprising advantage.
- Spotting the Thread: Reacher notes that Kliner Sr is bringing in a lot of animal feed, and the operation to unload it is unusually efficient. Finlay and Roscoe write it off as Kliner Sr owning a large cattle farm and that's just what people in Georgia do, but Reacher points out that Kliner's farm isn't that large with only 116 cows, which would put it just under the limit where federal regulators would come in to inspect the operation. Reacher's instincts turn out to be correct, as the animal feed contains a specific ingredient necessary for the counterfeiting process, meaning the cattle were just a cover for the mass purchase of raw materials.
- Southern Gentleman: Played cringing-levels of straight with Teale, down to him wearing an all white suit and having a white hair and beard like Colonel Sanders and carrying an outdated cane with a fake diamond on the handle. It's so distinct it actually makes him identifiable as the one who killed Roscoe's mentor, as the diamond handle on the stick matches the injury he sustained prior to his death.
- The Starscream: KJ killing his father and taking over the operation.
- Strong and Skilled: Just like the books, Reacher is both very strong and an extremely skilled combatant who is well-versed in numerous fighting styles, favoring Krav Maga, Muay Thai, Aikido, Judo, Karate and Wrestling.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- After almost an entire season of Reacher effortlessly demolishing mooks, during his fight with Kliner's nephew at the Hubble house, Reacher actually loses the fight and is almost killed. Why? Because when swung around by a reasonably strong person, a crowbar is a devastating weapon, and all the advantages in the world in size, reach and hand-to-hand combat skills are only going to take a man so far if he is unarmed.
- While Reacher is an skilled fighter who can demolish pretty much any regular thug he fights with ease, other trained soldiers are a different matter. While his size, strength and speed give him a considerable advantage, he still struggles more against someone who knows how to fight than he would against regular criminals who he can take down in seconds and even more so when facing multiple opponents at which point Reacher only wins through assistance or separating and fighting them one at a time.
- Similarly, while Reacher's size is commented on multiple times, and he does demonstrate feats of impressive strength, this is typically done in casual, non-combative methods, and his fights are instead won by skill, and other skilled fighters do surprisingly well against him despite the size disadvantage. While size and strength aren't useless by any means, skill and experience will very quickly close that advantage immediately; of note, the average height of a US servicemen is between 5'6-6'1 (so basically, the average height for non-servicemen), as the US military does not make an effort to prioritise physically stronger/larger recruits when the training regime is already specifically designed to turn anyone able-bodied into a trained killer.
- Roscoe getting her ass kicked while fighting Teale in the finale. She is faster than him and more than half his age (and she demonstrates some skill when fighting), but she's also tiny and barely weighs 100 pounds, so he easily throws her and tackles her before she wises up and handcuffs him to a nearby bar to even the odds in her favor. Teale stupidly thinks he can outdraw her and gets shot through the eye for his trouble.
- In the same episode, we see Neagley also get into a hand-to-hand fight with one of their mooks and she does far better despite her opponent being in better shape than Teale; though Neagley is also a woman, she's much taller and visibly more athletic than Roscoe, while the mook she fought was of average height and size, making the size/weight gap far less significant. As Neagley is also a trained special forces vet, she's trained specifically to kill men in armed combat and has much more experience at this than Roscoe, who though a demonstrative Action Girl is still just a cop in a small town that seemingly didn't have much crime.
- Reacher demonstrates an impressive Sherlock Scan from time to time based on his background as a military investigator, but like the great detective, he's not always correct in his deductions — he's often close, but sometimes the actual facts are not quite what he assumes they are, since he's partially guessing the context from an outside perspective. For example, he assumed Finlay's wife had divorced him, when she had actually passed away. And whilst he's fairly open-minded and non-judgemental, Reacher does have a few biases that can offset his deductive prowess. He assumes that KJ is an arrogant Spoiled Brat, which is true, but that blinds him to how dangerous KJ is besides just being a rich kid riding his dad's success.
- Another case of this which also counts as its own SRO is his guess that Neagley would be staying in a lower-cost motel due to having grown up poor. Instead she's happily staying in a much fancier hotel as she can afford such luxuries now; he assumed that her background would make her frugal and that she would share his own minimlaist approach, but in actuality, it made her appreciate what she can afford to do now and take advantage of her higher income to treat herself.
- Suspicious Spending:
- Reacher and Roscoe investigate the second murder victim and discover that he was a truck driver with a huge house who also paid off his parents' mortgage. When they confront his widow, she admits that she always knew that his money could not have been obtained legally and she suspected that he was stealing air conditioners that he was supposed to be transporting. Reacher and Roscoe quickly realize that the guy had way more money then he could obtain from stealing a few air conditioners every month and he had to have been involved in crimes that were way more lucrative than that.
- Reacher quickly realizes that there is something off about Margrave because it is much nicer looking and well-maintained than a small Georgia town like that should be. Kliner's foundation donates a lot of money to the town and makes sure that the town stays prosperous. This way the locals have a strong disincentive to look closer at Kliner's operations.
- Kliner is very careful with his spending and hired Hubble specifically to make sure that all his financials look above the board. Reacher becomes suspicious when he realizes that certain aspects of Kliner's operations, like his cattle herd, are right below the size limit where they would attract additional government oversight. Reacher correctly concludes that these are the areas requiring further investigation.
- Reacher notes on several occasions that Kliner's foundation spends a lot of money on animal feed despite only owning a fairly small herd of cattle, which no one else seems concerned by. The feed is used to mop up spills from the chemicals used to bleach the $1 notes used in the counterfeiting operation, and the herd was just a decoy to ensure that no one local would ask too many questions, as cattle farming is common in the area and they'd just chalk it up to that. Reacher took note of it because he's not local.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Margrave appears to be a friendly little town that has benefited from the Kliner Foundation making it their home base and saving it from economic ruin. In reality, it's a cover for an international counterfeiting ring. The currency is printed in Margrave and distributed in Venezuela, and the people in charge use deadly means to keep a tight leash on their operation.
- Trapped in Villainy: Hubble never wanted anything to do with the criminal conspiracy. He was forced into it through a combination of trickery, coercion and witnessing a man get brutally crucified, castrated, and murdered right in front of him.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: KJ reveals he spent time in an asylum as a kid at his father's doing, indicating he's been showing sociopathic tendencies since at least adolescence. Reacher only quips in response that the treatment didn't work.
- Truer to the Text: Alan Ritchson is both taller and more muscular than Tom Cruise, making for a Reacher much closer in build to the books than his depiction in the 2016 filmnote .
- Underestimating Badassery:
- Despite being 6'5" and built like a tank, it's astonishing how many people seem to think they can push Reacher around or intimidate him. Justified in that while he is large, his opponents aren't usually prepared for his intelligence, combat skill, speed, or his willingness to fight dirty.
- Reacher underestimates KJ and Kliner's nephew, dismissing them as spoiled brats who are used to hiding behind money and whose arrogance far outweighs their actual competence and bravery. Reacher is genuinely blindsided by how dangerous, cunning and surprisingly brave they turn out to be.
- Villainous Crush: 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 Reacher and Roscoe have slept together).
- Villainous Valor: It's hard not to respect Kilner's nephew for being willing to face down Reacher despite being much shorter, less muscular and nowhere near as skilled a combatant, showing that, whatever else he might be, he's no coward. To say nothing of the fact that he comes closer than anyone else, even trained soldiers, to killing Reacher through sheer brutality and persistence. KJ himself is also not lacking in bravado, wanting to kill Reacher personally and not backing down, even after Jack has wiped out his whole operation.
- Violence Really Is the Answer: Reacher is basically completely right — just killing everyone involved with the counterfeit scheme works wonders. The only problem will presumably be what the Venezuela thugs do when they find out who Reacher is and will probably want revenge for him torching their operation.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Reacher and Finlay develop this dynamic over the course of the first season.
- Walking the Earth: What Reacher was doing at the start of the series, with nothing but the clothes on his back, his passport and wallet. He returns to this life at the end of the season, continuing to go wherever the road may take him.
- Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Finlay wears expensive suits that are a bit too gaudy for a police detective, especially one in a small town in the deep south. Reacher surmises that it's because Finlay's wife isn't around to correct his fashion mistakes.
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": Finlay decides to adopt the dog he and Reacher rescued and names him Jack since Reacher doesn't like to use his first name anyway.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The show doesn't make it clear exactly where in Georgia the town of Margrave is located. It's an hour away from Atlanta, but also close enough to the Alabama border that Conklin can take Reacher to a bar there and expect to be back in the same evening.
- Would Hurt a Child: The cartel has no issue whatsoever threatening the children of people involved to guarantee their cooperation and KJ is practically gleeful at the thought of killing Paul Hubble's two young daughters, largely out of pure sadism.
- You Killed My Father: KJ was responsible for Joe's death.
