Admittedly, I had no idea how Reacher was going to bring this season home in the end when it felt like there was so much hanging in the balance.
Was it a bit neat and easily wrapped up? Sure. Was Reacher Season 4 Episode 8 still wholly entertaining? Yes, that too!
Reacher was truly knocking on death’s door by the end of the hour, but he and the gang thwarted a terrorist attack, cleared their names, and, well, he finally got to enjoy his Philly Cheesesteak properly.
The crux of this hour came down to Reacher’s standoff with the likes of Amisha and Lila, mainly the latter, and it was a brutal, and at times dragged-out affair that boiled down to blunt force versus precision.
But ahead of that, the finale wasted no time keeping it real about Sampson and confirming that he really was dead.
The likelihood of him surviving that blast with a suicide bomber was pretty much non-existent. Still, Reacher often likes to take liberties with reality in favor of entertainment, so it wouldn’t have been beyond the pale to pull off something unlikely.
Besides, they needed to reserve that for Reacher surviving getting sliced up like Swiss Cheese.
Sampson truly did die a hero, and it’s especially tragic when he was serving as the only ethical politician in existence. Reacher’s fictional world nearly had one of the greatest, most moral, charismatic, ethical, and centered leaders the Free World has ever had.
We really can’t have nice things, eh?
But it’s his death that really serves as the last great push and motivator to end this because no one likes when a Boy Scout dies.
It was easy to see how this put an even bigger target on Reacher, Tamara, and Jacob, since many assumed that with Reacher at the scene, he had something to do with the bomb.
But even I found it amusing how Reacher was both singularly focused on getting to Amisha and Lila and grumpy about Jacob being there, even when Jacob has proven to be an asset at times.
Tamara serving as the bridge between the two has worked out well for the group — keeping Jacob’s head in the game and Reacher on a certain path, too.
And things didn’t get less messy when they got to that restaurant again. It made sense that Amisha and Lila would pull the same move they do, heading back to a place the police already tore apart, because there was less chance of them returning to it again.
The desperation to figure out another way to get a large body count to prove how potent this formula was made them reckless. It also put Reacher and the B-Team in a rough position, trying to take on all of these people and stop this WMD from getting out, too.
Three of them against two Indonesian assassins and a bunch of hired goons wasn’t the best odds. Reacher was the biggest brawler in the bunch; Tamara could hold her own well enough, but Jacob at this juncture, days in, no sleep, and increasingly more emotional, was the most concerning.
There was always that thought niggling at the back of one’s mind that Jacob could easily end up dead by the end of the season, too, and that was most apparent heading into that restaurant.
But it was also clear from all of them that they could potentially be on a suicide mission, and I loved that part of Jacob giving voice to that fear (and even Reacher acknowledging it) was the thunder story.
The entire restaurant exchange made Reacher and him the real heroes, because he essentially had to take down and out most of the goons there and still face off against Amisha and Lila, too.
That came equipped with some standout moments, whether it was him hitching a ride by dangling from the elevator or him using that same elevator to decapitate a guy. Also, breaking someone’s neck with a steel door was pretty gruesome, too!
Reacher has been getting his ass kicked all season long, and this was the worst of it yet.
I do think there’s some credence to the idea that Paulie from Reacher Season 3 gave him a run for his money and rattled him in a way he hasn’t fully bounced back from, and that’s been reflected in some moments while he’s fighting, especially when he lets people get the jump on him.
Nail Guy managing to get three nails in Reacher in one fight was a bit shocking. But there were also the logistics of him running on fumes and adrenaline for most of the season because he hasn’t gotten much sleep since all of this happened.
And that was reflected as much when it seemed like his body was giving out on him. By the time we got to Lila and Amisha circling him like he was their prey and slicing him to bits, it was one of the few times in the series that it has looked incredibly bad for Reacher.
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We all knew he wouldn’t die after all of this, but the fear he had that he could was palpable, and it’s not often you actually see Reacher show genuine signs of fear.
It was a difficult sequence to watch. Every cut and stab he sustained felt worse than the previous one, and he felt like a graceless bull with nothing left but his body size and whatever power behind that to fend for himself.
Amisha and Lila had karambits, elite training, and circled Reacher like it was a dance. The full scope of their skill was evident, and the threat they posed was heightened in that moment; it could withstand a weary Reacher’s brute-force tactics.
His greatest accomplishment amid all of that, despite sustaining so many injuries he should’ve been dead, was successfully tossing Amisha out the window and thus leaving Lila emotional and discombobulated.
Injecting her later with the serum so she could suffer the same death she imposed on that poor tweaker (and found sadistic enjoyment in) felt fitting.
The cheese factor of having the earless CIA agent appear out of nowhere to try to finish Reacher off right while reciting an evil soliloquy was overkill.
Amisha somehow surviving being thrown from the third story was a whole other ordeal, but Jacob keeping her from killing Reacher and having his standard moral grapple before arresting her instead of killing her was a pretty predictable outcome.
At least keeping her alive meant they had someone to pin all of this on — a real face to all the havoc — and it helped clear their names.
And Tamara and Jacob getting the last of the WMD serum at the nightclub was a classic B-story adventure that boiled down to a series of good fortunes.
Overall, the wrap-up felt a bit too neat, but it was no less enjoyable.
Reacher at the hospital was hilarious, especially flashing Tamara his buns of steel as he defied orders to get out of there.
They remain one of the most dynamic duos in this show’s history thus far, and I hope there’s room for her to show up again in the future, potentially. She’s too fun a character to lose forever.
I still would’ve killed for a Tamara/Neagley team-up, but I’m greedy like that.
I’m glad that she got her happy ending, of sorts, with a well-deserved medal of valor and a promotion to homicide.
And it appears she and Jacob have sealed the deal with the romantic tension brewing between them. She’s been his compass all along, and his emotional support.
It’s been clear that he cares about her as well, especially when he nearly freaked out after the explosion at the restaurant.
My inner romantic supports it. I do hope that somewhere in their possible future together, there’s a world where he can pour into and support her as much as she’s done for him.
I’ve been a quiet shipper, but I still love balance and reciprocity, dammit.
Kudos to Jacob, though.
It truly sucks that he lost his entire family, but he managed to survive the season despite the odds, hasn’t completely lost himself to the point of not being able to cope, and he snagged a baddie who is totally out of his league.
And Plum getting his possible Pulitzer from exposing all of this, and that cute kitten too, is just icing on the cake. Good for him.
Truthfully, the biggest surprise for me was that Sampson’s wife wasn’t shady in any way.
She was genuinely mourning her husband in a way you expect from stoic people who keep their feelings close to the chest, and she wants to honor his memory by carrying on his work.
It looks like Springfield will be right by her side, too, which is promising.
But hell, after all that excitement, it was sweet to see Reacher back on that train, feeling like he finally did right by Anna, and sitting beside an unhoused woman and quietly sharing his cheesesteak with her.
It’s such a quiet moment, and it embodies who and what Reacher is.
Overall, the season has been action-packed, and I loved the B-Team this time around, flaws in all.
But I’m turning it over to you all, so I can go binge the five-star Neagley season! Check out that review as well!
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