Week by week, producers have been rolling out new episodes of Reacher Season 2, available to anyone with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. The second season is shaping up to be an impressive adaptation of the Lee Child book Bad Luck and Trouble, where Reacher (Alan Ritchson) and his former Army colleagues from the 110th special investigator division embark on a vengeance mission when powerful criminals begin picking them off. Sure, there have been subtle changes to the overall story, but nothing so drastic that it takes Child fans out of the flow of the narrative. And that’s in part, according to Reacher star Maria Sten, to the cast’s commitment to reading the source material.
Maria Sten appeared in Reacher Season 1, playing the highly intelligent Master Sergeant Frances Neagley, Jack Reacher’s right hand who has a much larger role to play in Season 2. Neagley figured out a way to contact Reacher in the first episode of this new season, and the two of them have been leading the investigation ever since. Earlier this month, I was given the chance to speak with Sten about the current season of Reacher, and how things are changing from their debut season. But we started where any Reacher conversation should begin, and that’s with Lee Child’s novels. As Sten told CinemaBlend:
I read the books when I first booked the job. I read, of course, The Killing Floor. And then I read all of the Neagley books. Which I think is like five of the books. I love them, and it was so helpful to get more insight into who Neagley is, and what that relationship is, and her mystery. There’s this mysterious aura around her and why she is the way that she is. So that was really interesting to take on. But mostly, of course, Bad Luck and Trouble is the book where we get to really understand the 110th, and the relationship between Reacher and Neagley. And also, there’s one other book that is my favorite book, where we get to dive a little deeper into that as well. So, uh, hopefully they’ll make it.
My best guess as to the book that Maria Sten is referring would be 2002’s Without Fail, the sixth Jack Reacher novel but also one that heavily features Frances Neagley. Reacher hires his frequent partner when he is asked to test the security around a Vice President-elect, who is being targeted by potential assassins. In addition to putting Reacher and Neagley in dangerous situations, Without Fail also explores a bit further some of the emotional issues that have come up in Reacher Season 2, including Neagley’s desire not to be touched by anyone, and the fact that her hands shake.
Not that anyone involved with Reacher is willing to reveal which book is the source for the recently confirmed Season 3 of the Amazon Prime original series. When I asked Alan Ritchson which book they were using, he’d only reveal:
It’s one of my favorite books. One of my favorite books. This is like on every Top 10 list. This is going to make people very happy, this book.
And when I gave my best shot at getting the information from Maria Sten, she was even more cagey, telling CinemaBlend:
Who knows? I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you anything. … I would tell you, but I would have to kill you.
Hearing that from a member of Reacher’s famed 110th is enough to give you night terrors. Speaking of, Maria Sten says that playing Frances Neagley on this show so far has opened her eyes to more things happening in the world around her. When I mentioned that being an avid reader of the Lee Child books has made me more observant, the way that Reacher can be in any given situation, she agreed and elaborated:
I am also quite observant, but I naturally am. I travel alone a lot and I go out into the wilderness by myself a lot. So I think my awareness about my surroundings and my peripheral view (of) who is around me, and – especially, I think, as a woman just moving around the world (laughs), you probably should have that awareness. And so in that way, I think this has just heightened that a little bit more. But it is naturally something that I have always had in me.
We only have a few more episodes of the current Reacher series, with new installments dropping on Fridays. Given the fact that they are filming Reacher Season 3 as we speak, here’s hoping we won’t have to wait that long for new episodes once this story resolves.