‘Reacher’ Season 4 review: Prime Video Puts Alan Ritchson in Mission: Impossible mode

Reacher season 4 has apparently decided Tom Cruise is onto something.

For three seasons, Reacher has been built around a very different kind of action hero. Jack Reacher doesn’t usually run from trouble. He wanders into a town, realizes something is wrong, and sticks around long enough to beat the hell out of everyone responsible. Season 4, based on the Lee Child book “Gone Tomorrow,” blows up that routine, throwing him into a conspiracy filled with secret government agencies, heavily armed mercenaries, and a mysterious flash drive everyone seems willing to kill for. Oh, and he runs. A lot.

Reacher hasn’t suddenly become Ethan Hunt. He’s still a 6-foot-5 drifter who regards breaking fingers as a perfectly reasonable interrogation technique. But season 4 has essentially dropped Jack Reacher into Mission: Impossible Mode, and Alan Ritchson looks surprisingly comfortable there.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

Mission: Impossible movies have a habit of taking relatively straightforward assignments and turning them into conspiracies where nobody can be trusted. Ethan Hunt might start out looking for a stolen NOC (Non-Official Cover) list or tracking down some plutonium, but before long he’s dealing with rogue agents, secret organizations, and government officials trying to kill him.

Reacher season 4 embraces that same escalating paranoia. It starts with a flash drive Reacher doesn’t even have. Before long, multiple groups are hunting for it, a U.S. senator running for president appears connected to the mystery, accusations of war crimes enter the picture, and nearly everyone Reacher meets seems to be hiding something.

Even the flash drive feels like something Ethan Hunt should be chasing. Mission: Impossible has spent decades sending Cruise after nuclear launch codes, mysterious keys, and other objects that absolutely cannot fall into the wrong hands. Season 4 gives Reacher its own version, surrounded by enough government intrigue that the only thing missing is someone explaining that the drive will self-destruct in five seconds.

The similarities only become harder to ignore as the season continues. Without spoiling what happens later, one development in particular made me wonder whether somebody in the Reacher writers’ room had recently rewatched Mission: Impossible II.

Jack Reacher, fugitive

Image: Amazon MGM Studios/Everett Collection

There’s another essential ingredient to Mission: Impossible that season 4 borrows: Ethan Hunt spends an incredible amount of time being hunted by people who theoretically should be on his side. The Impossible Missions Force (IMF) he works for has disavowed him, the CIA has hunted him, and governments have blamed him for things he didn’t do.

Reacher gets a taste of the Ethan Hunt experience almost immediately. He’s questioned by mysterious federal agents in the premiere and later tranquilized and abducted. When he wakes up, he’s inside a CIA black site in Washington, D.C. Naturally, Reacher responds by knocking out his interrogators and escaping.

That changes the show’s usual power dynamic. Reacher normally arrives somewhere and gradually takes control. Season 4 keeps putting him in situations where someone else has control, forcing him to fight or escape to regain the advantage. Captivity even becomes something of an occupational hazard this time around.

Run, Reacher, run

Image: Amazon MGM Studios/Everett Collection

There’s an obvious irony to Alan Ritchson suddenly channeling Tom Cruise: Cruise played Jack Reacher first in two movies, specifically 2012’s Jack Reacher and 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, years before Ritchson took over the role.

Now Ritchson is borrowing something from Cruise’s other action franchise. Tom Cruise running is practically its own cinematic genre at this point. Mission: Impossible movies regularly find an excuse for Ethan Hunt to sprint that could apparently be prevented if he could just move his arms fast enough.

Ritchson has traditionally been asked to use his body differently. Reacher’s physicality is built around size and strength. He walks into a room and immediately looks like the person nobody should fight, which naturally means someone will attempt to fight him approximately 30 seconds later.

Photo: Karen Ballard/Paramount Pictures via Everett Collection

Season 4 discovers that the tank has another gear. Reacher runs more in these episodes than I can remember him running in the previous three seasons combined. He’s chasing people, being chased, and escaping captivity. The fights haven’t disappeared either. If anything, there are so many that “fight scene” started appearing in my notes with almost comical regularity.

All that movement makes Ritchson feel less like the star of a detective show with enormous fight scenes and more like a full-fledged action-movie lead. Cruise’s greatest asset in Mission: Impossible isn’t any particular stunt. It’s his willingness to make Ethan Hunt look like he’s constantly working to survive whatever ridiculous situation the movie has thrown at him. Season 4 finally asks Ritchson to do something similar.

Reacher doesn’t need to become Mission: Impossible. Jack Reacher is still a brilliant, gigantic drifter who solves most problems with his fists and deductive reasoning. But four seasons in, the show has to find new ways to use him without losing what made him fun in the first place — and it’s achieved just that by getting him moving.

Reacher season 4 premieres Aug. 12 on Prime Video.