In the 1st episode of Reacher Season 3, Jack saw an old nemesis of his in Maine, Lieutenant Quinn. Looking into the car that he was traveling in put Jack on the radar of three DEA operatives, Duffy, Guillermo, and Elliot. They wanted Jack to infiltrate the base of operations of an international rug seller named Beck and find Duffy’s informant, Theresa, who had apparently been kidnapped by him during Duffy’s previous attempt at putting an end to Beck’s business with a drug dealer from L.A. named Prado. But why Jack? Well, Quinn was traveling in the car that Beck had previously used, which meant that Quinn was somehow connected to Beck. If Jack and the DEA helped each other, then Jack would get Quinn, while Duffy and her team would get Beck and Prado. Jack thought that sounded like a decent idea and teamed up with Duffy, Guillermo, and Elliot to fake a kidnapping attempt on Beck’s only son, Richard. In order to reward Jack for his services, Richard took him to his dad, who was so impressed by Jack’s mettle and reputation that he hired him. This gave Jack the opportunity to investigate the storage shed near Beck’s palatial house, and he found traces of Theresa’s presence there, which he immediately conveyed to Duffy. Did Jack learn what Beck and his associates had actually done to Theresa, though, in the 2nd episode of Reacher Season 3? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Jack, meet Angel Doll
Reacher Season 3, Episode 2 opens with Jack informing Duffy that Theresa was definitely being kept in the cellar of Beck’s storage shed, but that she had recently been moved because of Jack’s arrival, who is an “uncertain” factor in their whole equation. Jack theorizes that since she is being fed, she is still alive, but that’s not necessarily a good thing because it means that Beck, or his associates, are keeping her healthy so that she can be trafficked to the highest bidder. Jack is unable to look further into the matter because he has to rush back to his room before Duke discovers that he has snuck out. That’s when he notices a guy named Angel Doll arriving at the Beck estate. We get a brief scene where, back at the cabin where Duffy, Elliot, and Guillermo are holding Beck’s driver under very dubious charges, Duffy assaults the guy in order to get him to spill the beans on Theresa’s whereabouts. But, of course, the driver feigns ignorance and says that he knows nothing about a girl being held captive by Beck. Guillermo and Elliot get her to calm down so that she doesn’t end up killing the guy before the operation is over.
The focus returns to the Beck household, where Duke orders Jack to follow Angel Doll to the impound in order to identify the pickup truck that was used to “kidnap” Richard so that it can be traced back to the people who are after Beck and his son. Before leaving, Jack conveys this info to Duffy, and he tells her that since she has sent all the cars from the “botched kidnapping” to the impound, Beck’s car is going to be there too. The official story is that, before trying to get Richard into the pickup truck, the kidnapper set off an explosion in Beck’s car, thereby killing the driver. So, technically, there should be a lot of blood and brains in that car. Since they used a flashbang and the driver is in Duffy’s custody, Jack’s story about saving Richard will fall apart as soon as Angel Doll decides to check the car after examining the pickup truck. Therefore, Duffy rushes to the impound to get Beck’s car out of there before Jack and Angel Doll reach there. While getting to the impound, Angel Doll yaps a lot, but the important piece of information that Jack extracts from all that chattering is that Zachary Beck isn’t the boss; there’s someone else pulling the strings.
Duffy Pulls A Quick One
Duffy hits a snag as she finds out that Beck’s car has been blocked by another heavily damaged confiscated car at the impound, thereby preventing her from getting Beck’s car out of there. She tries to move that second car, but since it doesn’t have its front wheels intact, it refuses to budge. Jack delays Angel Doll by taking a pee break and buying a hilariously-sized glass of coffee in order to buy Duffy some time. But it’s not enough and Duffy improvises by simply switching the plates of Beck’s car with the one that’s blocking its path and then hides underneath Beck’s car. Upon reaching the impound, Angel Doll spins an elaborate tale about why he needs access to a car that’s been seized and slides a sizable bundle of hundred-dollar bills to the security guard. The guard is too honest and smart to fall for Angel Doll’s nonsense, so the latter begins to pull out his gun. Jack prevents that scenario by knocking out the guard and taking Angel Doll to the impound lot.
Angel Doll proceeds to take detailed images of the aforementioned pickup truck, and, unluckily, he notices Beck’s car in the garage too. Since Duffy has switched the plates, Jack claims that it’s a different car and not the one that Beck’s driver was driving. Angel Doll wonders why there’s another car, which has apparently arrived all the way from Delaware to Maine, that looks exactly like the one that Beck owns and has been damaged like it has been hit by a pickup truck. Jack says that, due to the brutality of the crime, Beck’s car is probably in some kind of a “temperature-controlled” storage facility so that the evidence can be preserved for further examination by the authorities, and the one that’s before them is, coincidentally, very similar-looking. That apparently convinces Angel Doll to stop looking any further into it, and he drops Jack back at the Beck palace. Duffy, who has been hiding underneath Beck’s car all this while, heaves a sigh of relief.
Jack Becomes A Trucker
Jack tries to get some sleep because he has been up for almost 24 hours nonstop, but Beck keeps him from doing so and orders him to meet with Duke and Paulie at the gym. We get a brief scene between Zachary and Richard Beck to underscore their strained relationship before returning to Jack who is tasked with doing a truck delivery by Duke. Before heading out, Paulie (who is twice as big as Jack) tries to bait Jack into fighting him, but Jack uses his wits to get Paulie to hurt himself, thereby riling him up. Yes, we’ve all seen the trailers, and we know that these two beefcakes are going to battle each other; this is all setup for the eventual payoff, and I’m liking it so far. Anyway, Duke assigns a Bizarre Bazaar truck to Jack and tells him to deliver its contents to a location in New London, Connecticut. The truck will be tracked via GPS so that Jack can’t take any detours, and he isn’t allowed to check what’s inside the container.
Jack calls up Duffy and says that this whole thing is a test to see if he can be trusted; yet, they need to look into what he is transporting. So, he tells her to bring her team and meet him at a gas station where they can examine the goods in the truck while making it seem like Jack is getting a coffee or is in the loo. Jack gives his old friend from the 110th, Frances Neagley (who is supposed to get her own spin-off show), a call too, and tells her to see what she can find on Paulie, Duke, and Angel Doll. But that’s all the information that Jack gives to Neagley because he knows that if he asks for her help, he’ll be putting her in grave danger. After reaching the predetermined rendezvous spot, Jack makes sure that he hasn’t been followed and then meets Duffy and Guillermo. While waiting for the sniffer dog, Jack hands over Theresa’s earring to Duffy, and Guillermo opens the container to reveal that it’s full of rugs. Then, Officer Grunert arrives with trusty canine Pfizer (yes, it’s a reference to the drug company), who jumps into the truck as soon as she gets the go-ahead from her boss. After a thorough search for drugs, or Theresa’s corpse, they find nothing in the truck.
Jack Makes Up For Lost Time
Since they’ve already wasted a lot of time for nothing, Jack gives the GPS tracker to Guillermo to start moving towards New London so that it looks like things are going according to plan. Jack solders the lock on the shutter of the container so that those who are going to receive its contents don’t suspect anything. While heading to the spot where Jack is supposed to retrieve the GPS tracker from Guillermo, Duffy gets a response from ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) about how Beck has managed to stay low-key. Apparently, his shipments are searched 10 times less than everyone else’s, which means that he has connections in Customs who are allowing him to import and export all kinds of illegal stuff without getting flagged.
Jack reminds Duffy that, as per Angel Doll, Beck isn’t the one in charge; it’s someone else, maybe Quinn. Given how Jack has talked about how dangerous Quinn is, Duffy starts ruminating about how she would’ve reacted if she had found Theresa’s body in that truck. Jack says that there’s no way to prepare for such an outcome. He speaks from experience because Quinn had killed a rookie that Jack had trained; there’s some grade-A acting here from Alan Ritchson in this moment as he fails to find the correct words to describe the scene, while probably playing said scene out in his head. Seeing that, Duffy doesn’t pry. Jack drops off Duffy at the rendezvous point, takes the GPS from Guillermo, and reaches Bizarre Bazaar’s New London branch. The only complaint that he gets to hear is that he is late.
Jack Kills Angel Doll
At the end of Reacher Season 3 episode 2, Jack delivers the truck back to the Maine branch and meets Angel Doll at the warehouse. Apparently, he is the one who was tracking him all this while, and it seems like Jack has passed with flying colors. While waiting for Duke to come pick him up, Angel Doll begins to reveal that he knows that Jack isn’t as honest and squeaky clean as he pretends to be. Even though Angel Doll looks, sounds, and behaves like an idiot, he is actually quite observant. During their trip to the impound, he did notice that Jack was stalling, and he didn’t let Angel Doll kill the security guard. While dumping the minivan that Jack had used to bring Richard to the Beck palace, Angel Doll had seen that there weren’t any pieces of insulation on its floor, which should’ve fallen down there if Jack had actually hotwired it; which he actually didn’t, Guillermo did.
Based on all this, Angel Doll insinuates that Jack is working with the cops. He proceeds to talk about this with Duke, who has arrived to pick up Jack, but Jack thrusts Angel Doll’s head into a paper memo holder, thereby killing him. He stuffs Angel Doll into the space underneath his table, with the intention of discarding his body later. He meets up with Duke before he comes in to see why Jack is taking so long, and then heads home (by home, I mean Beck’s palace). This is what I was talking about in the recap for the previous episode. The plan constructed by Jack, Duffy, Guillermo, and Elliot to get into Beck’s inner circle was written in a way so that the audience, who is familiar with Reacher’s tactics and behavior, knows that something is off way before the show reveals that it’s all a ruse. But those abnormalities are actually caused by plot holes in the tale that Jack is writing. And if anybody has been in the crime world and has a habit of mistrusting everyone, it’s obvious that they’ll sniff out any irregularities, especially when someone new has stepped into their turf. So, I really like the fact that the showrunners didn’t allow Jack to walk away without facing the repercussions of using a half-baked narrative—which is a result of the time constraints that Jack and his team had—to get into Beck’s good books. Now, in order to protect one lie, Jack has gotten blood on his hands, and things are bound to get messy for him after this point; and the messier, the better.
