Sophie Giraud/Prime
Who needs Tom Cruise when we have Alan Ritchson? The muscular actor is now the face of the much-loved roughneck, Jack Reacher, in more adaptations of Lee Child’s top-selling novels than his predecessor. Judging by the feedback for the third season of “Reacher,” it seems Ritchson was born for this role.
The third season of the Prime Video series premiered with three episodes this week on Amazon’s streaming platform. The reaction from audiences and critics has been overwhelmingly positive. With a 97% Fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating, 28 out of 29 of the RT-endorsed critics who previewed the season gave it a thumbs up. This rating propels the new season into the Certified Fresh category, joining the ranks of other remarkable 2025 releases such as the third seasons of “Yellowjackets,” “Invincible,” and “The White Lotus,” the bold second season of “Severance,” and Max’s groundbreaking medical drama, “The Pitt.”
Unlike most of the shows mentioned, “Reacher” delivers a unique blend of pulpy, testosterone-driven excitement with a hero who consistently fights for the nation’s good. At first glance, it aligns perfectly with Prime Video’s stealthy staple of action-filled, semi-patriotic shows like “Jack Ryan,” and “The Terminal List”, making it more akin to “Yellowstone” than “Yellowjackets”. However, “Reacher” spices things up with its subtly subversive scripts and a surprisingly complex and charming mythic hero, not to mention the actor portraying him.
The third season of Prime Video’s Reacher series is on fire
Jasper Savage/Prime
In /Film’s personal critique of season 3, Jacob Hall wrote, “the show smartly centers its action on the sheer delight of seeing someone as formidable as Alan Ritchson pummel his way through a whole cast of villains.” According to Hall, Ritchson “continues to be an impressive visual spectacle,” embodying the “American take on the invincible heroes of ancient myth” that Child envisioned when he started the novel series decades ago. The gripping plot of season 3, drawn from “Persuader,” Child’s seventh “Jack Reacher” book and a fan favorite, certainly adds to the appeal. The storyline includes a kidnapping, a bait-and-switch revealed in the season’s premiere, a man even more massive than Reacher, and a villain played by Anthony Michael Hall in the Prime Video version.
At present, “Reacher” season 3 holds a higher Rotten Tomatoes rating than the show’s debut season and significantly outshines both Cruise-led films from the 2010s (2016’s “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” received well over 100 negative reviews from critics – that’s got to hurt!). The series continues to follow a weekly release schedule, with fresh episodes expected to stream every Thursday on Prime Video until the end of March. By then, we anticipate Reacher will have amassed a mountain of defeated adversaries, outsmarted the most intelligent people on the planet, and respectfully connected with one or two capable attractive women. After all, that’s the “Reacher” way.
Credit: www.slashfilm.com
