Jack Reacher returned to our small screens with 3 episodes where we saw the titular character travel all the way to Maine to nab an old enemy of his: Lt. Francis Xavier Quinn. As per Jack, he had shot Quinn in the head and left him to drown for selling confidential military intel to hostile nations and for doing unspeakable things to Jack’s pupil, Dominique Kohl. But, by some miracle, Quinn had returned, adopted the identity of Julius McCabe, taken over the rug business of Zachary Beck (hilariously named Bizarre Bazaar), and was using Zachary’s trade routes for illicit purposes. Meanwhile, DEA agent Susan Duffy had sent an informant, Teresa Daniel, into Zachary’s operations, but she had most likely been abducted or killed by Beck and his men. Given how Jack and Duffy’s mission revolved around Beck’s estate, the nomadic titan infiltrated the rug mogul’s palace with the aim of saving Teresa and killing Quinn. It was easier said than done because, given Beck had an army, as well as a bodyguard much bigger than Jack, to protect his family and workplace. Yet, Jack managed to become Beck’s number 2 by painting the men Quinn had appointed to look over Zachary as the ones who had tried to kidnap Richard (Zachary’s son), while getting Beck’s right-hand man killed in a “shootout.” Did Jack make any more progress in the 4th episode of Reacher Season 3? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Jack Is Introduced to Dominique
Reacher Season 3, Episode 4 opens with Zachary telling McCabe how the latter’s men have betrayed him by trying to kidnap Richard, and that if it wasn’t for Jack, things would’ve gone their way. After dropping Zachary off at his house, Jack excuses himself by saying that he is going outside to get some food, and meets up with Duffy, Guillermo, and Eliot. He apologizes to Duffy for blowing up a DEA safehouse to erase all evidence of Duke’s murder and then gets straight to examining the pictures that she and Guillermo had taken when a large shipment of Bizarre Bazaar had entered Maine. He immediately recognizes McCabe as the guy he tried to kill several years ago, i.e., Quinn. When Duffy tries to learn more about Jack and Quinn’s beef, he initially clams up because it’s a sensitive topic, but when Duffy expresses a little anger regarding Jack’s stoic attitude, he goes into flashback mode. Back when the 110th wasn’t even a thing, Jack was single-handedly looking into a case involving an army specialist named Roland Gorowski. His superior, General Leon Garber, assigned Sergeant Dominique Kohl to the case to assist Jack. Since Jack was, or maybe still is, the lone wolf type, he wasn’t happy about taking Kohl under his wing, but within a matter of seconds, Jack’s opinion changed as Kohl proved to be quite the formidable detective.
She posited the theory that Jack’s suspect, Gorowski, was being coerced by someone to commit crimes. She had figured out that whatever Gorowski was selling, he was doing it from a local park. So, Jack and Kohl went for a stakeout, where they bonded over their relationship with their respective dads, hunting, and more. While that turned out to be quite the sweet moment, Gorowski gave them the slip, and the exchange was done right under their noses. Even though Jack had nothing to pin on Gorowski, he had a hunch that he’d break under pressure. Hence, he put him in an interrogation room and got Kohl to grill him for selling state secrets. After a lot of back and forth, Gorowski revealed that Quinn had kidnapped his 4-year-old daughter and forced him to do his bidding. Just a side note here: in this scene, it may seem like Jack was telling Kohl how to interrogate Gorowski through an earpiece or something, but he wasn’t. Jack was talking to himself about what he expected Kohl to do, and Kohl was so good at her job that she was acting just like Jack would’ve in her position.
Quinn killed Dominique
Anyway, Gorowski warned Kohl that Quinn was so deep into the system, because he was a lieutenant himself, that if he even got a whiff of what Kohl and Reacher were up to, he’d do something to put them on the backfoot. Therefore, Kohl and Reacher had to tread carefully. With some help from Private Anthony Frasconi (who had a crush on Kohl), they zeroed in on Safwan Qasim, a member of the Syrian military forces, who was apparently buying the intel that Quinn was selling. After a violent altercation with Qasim’s men, Reacher, Frasconi, and Kohl arrested Qasim and took him away for questioning. Once they had all the necessary paperwork ready, they just needed to ascertain whether the stuff that Quinn was selling to Qasim was authentic or not. Qasim was thrown out of the country with a stern warning after Jack obtained the documents that Quinn had given to him. Frasconi located Quinn’s house, or his temporary base of operations, and as soon as Kohl confirmed that Quinn was selling real military intel, she teamed up with Frasconi to arrest him. Unfortunately, something went wrong.
Frasconi died trying to protect Kohl, something that Jack had warned him not to do during an active crime scene because he knew that Frasconi’s feelings for Kohl would cause him to give up the strategic advantage he had over his enemies. And it was evident that Quinn had abducted Kohl to get her to talk about the dirt that she had on him. Jack and Garber worked together to locate a secluded house that Quinn had under his name, because they knew that he’d need a place well away from human civilization to torture Kohl. Instead of waiting for backup, Jack got a hold of Quinn, walked him to a ledge near his villa, and shot him in the head, which caused him to fall into the river. Jack used Quinn’s gun to shoot him, and, apparently, it used small caliber bullets. So, it didn’t injure the inside of his head; it just lodged into his skull, leading to some memory loss. That said, Jack couldn’t save Kohl. Even though the show tried to obfuscate what Quinn had really done to her, it was obvious that he had tortured her for quite a while, and she had bled to death. The scene was so gut-churning that it horrified Jack, a man famous for not breaking under any circumstances.
Duffy and Guillermo Walk Into a Trap
In the present day, Guillermo assures Jack that, this time, he’ll kill Quinn for good. Meanwhile, Duffy compares Jack’s decision to send Kohl to arrest Quinn with her decision to send Teresa to bust the racket being run by Zachary and Quinn. She says that Jack never pressured Kohl to do anything. He mentored her, and when he felt she was ready to get the job done, he gave her the green light to finish what they had started. Maybe they underestimated Quinn’s ruthlessness, but there was no doubt in Jack’s mind that Kohl was ready. In stark contrast to that, Duffy had essentially forced Teresa to go into Zachary’s den by cooking up a completely false story about how Teresa’s past with drugs was going to haunt her if she didn’t take part in Duffy’s mission in Maine. So, yes, while Jack wants to put Quinn in the ground because he had failed to do so the first time, Duffy’s burden is slightly more messed up.
Anyway, at the end of Reacher Season 3, episode 4, as Duffy stews in her complicated feelings of guilt and remorse, Jack heads back to the Beck household. While having a chat with Annette, the maid, and Agnes, the cook, Jack learns that Zachary’s 50th birthday is on the horizon, which will be attended by bureaucrats and politicians, because they love Zachary’s money, and Zachary likes the sense of importance that he gets from them. The following day, Annette brings some new clothes for Jack because he is Zachary’s number 2, and he can’t go around wearing stuff that hasn’t been washed in months. After donning the new set, which looks exactly like his old set, Jack goes out to give some boxing lessons (which double as life lessons) to Richard. While all this is happening, Guillermo and Duffy reach a warehouse, with the help of Angel Doll’s laptop, to see if they can find anything damning there, especially because the investigation into Bizarre Bazaar’s Maine warehouse was a dead end. Unbeknownst to them, Angel Doll’s laptop is being tracked by Quinn, and he has sent his men to retrieve it, since it has all the shipping details in it, and to kill the people (Beck and Quinn assume they are Angel Doll’s associates) who currently have it in their possession.
Zachary tells Jack to go to the location where Quinn’s men are headed to make sure that the people who were in cahoots with Angel Doll, Sklar, and Ballinger are punished for “kidnapping” Richard. Jack knows that it’s Guillermo and Duffy who are using Angel Doll’s laptop and rushes out to rescue them. There are 2 issues here, though. Firstly, Quinn’s men are already at the warehouse that Guillermo and Duffy are in. Secondly, Jack can’t reach Duffy’s phone, so he doesn’t know where she and Guillermo are. Jack’s phone isn’t sophisticated enough to track Guillermo’s location or anything like that. The only person who can do that is Eliot, who is busy babysitting Beck’s driver. Even if Jack somehow manages to get Eliot to track Duffy and warn her about what she and Guillermo have walked into, it probably won’t be enough. Today’s episode leaves us on this cliffhanger. So, we have to wait till next week to know if Jack has to deal with the loss of Duffy and Guillermo while being constantly tormented by Kohl’s death.
