The 5th episode of Reacher Season 3 came with 2 major deaths. The first was that of Eliot, who was babysitting Cooper. Despite being ordered not to show any compassion to the guy, Eliot kept entertaining Cooper’s demands. That allowed the seasoned criminal to get the better of the rookie DEA agent and kill him. While Duffy informed Eliot’s family about his death, Jack teamed up with Guillermo to stop Cooper before he reached Beck, and shot him to death, thereby avenging Eliot. In Jack’s absence, Beck did a full sweep of his house, on McCabe’s orders, to check for moles. It seemed like they were going to discover Duffy’s badge, which Jack had in his possession, and bring his mission to an abrupt end. Instead, Annette, the maid, got outed as a secret ATF agent and was subsequently killed by Paulie. Due to this revelation, Beck and Jack (since he was the chief of Beck’s security) were ordered to meet up with McCabe. Even though Jack knew that there was a chance that McCabe/Quinn would recognize him, he took the risk and attended the meeting. What was the result of their reunion? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Jack Meets Quinn Again
Episode 6 of Reacher Season 3 opens with Quinn finally meeting Jack again after the latter shot him in the head and left him for dead. No, Quinn doesn’t recognize Jack at all. And, no, I don’t think Quinn is faking his amnesia. He doesn’t have any reason to. If he wants Jack dead, he can just gun him down in the Bizarre Bazaar warehouse and be done with it. He doesn’t need to wait for Jack to be at his weakest point to get the jump on him. Jack is a big dude, but he isn’t strong enough to deflect bullets, which is a roundabout way of saying that he is automatically at his weakest point when he is surrounded by Quinn’s men. Hence, I think that Quinn actually doesn’t remember anything about his last altercation with Jack. After reprimanding Beck for allowing a mole to live in his house for such a long time, Quinn even has a little chat with Jack. While they are talking, a guy carrying a customized dress walks in, and Jack notices it in a way that it catches Quinn’s eye. That’s why when the conversation veers into the topic of who that dress is for, it doesn’t seem like Jack is interrogating Quinn or sniffing out clues. This is where it’s revealed that Duffy’s confidential informant, Teresa, is being kept alive because she is a redhead. Yes, she was caught snooping by Beck and his men. But then Quinn learned that one of his buyers has a thing for redheads. So, in order to “sweeten” the deal, he intends to give her away to the gun buyer for free.
Jack, as well as Duffy and Guillermo, who are listening in on this whole conversation, are horrified at this information, but they bury their feelings and focus on Quinn’s interaction with Taktarov. Taktarov is unhappy about the delays in Quinn’s operation, and he warns him that if anything like that happens again, Quinn is going to pay for it with his life. Once Taktarov is out of the picture, Quinn orders Harley to contact his associate in Arlington and ensure that their business is airtight. Now, who is this Taktarov? Well, Beck gives Jack a nice explainer on the topic on their way home. He says that when Quinn (Beck refers to him as McCabe, but I’m calling him Quinn) moved his operations to the East Coast, he needed money. Since he couldn’t just take out a loan from the bank, he joined hands with the Russian mob. Apparently, the Russians helped Quinn kidnap Richard so that he could strong-arm Beck into letting him use his connections for his benefit. Contrary to Richard’s opinion, Beck was never a “rug seller.” He was always a gun runner; Quinn didn’t turn him into one. Quinn was simply aware of Beck’s base of operations; he orchestrated a hostile takeover, and Beck had no option but to give in.
Jack Tells the Truth to Richard
What Quinn did to hijack Beck’s business is in the past. In the present, Quinn is planning to send this massive shipment to some Middle Eastern buyer to pay off the Russians. However, bad weather in the Red Sea is throwing a wrench in everything. If he messes things up any further, the Russians are not going to waste a second before killing off Quinn. Jack doesn’t think out loud, but it seems like he has started cooking up a plan to create some more obstacles for Quinn’s arms sale, thereby prompting the Russians to kill him. Meanwhile, in an attempt to learn where Quinn is keeping Teresa, Duffy and Guillermo go to the tailor who designed the dress that’s meant for Teresa. They don’t get an address or a name, but they get a number, which is probably for a burner phone. Later on, Duffy meets up with Jack in the town, who has arrived there with Richard under the pretext of getting epoxy for the toy gun that Richard wants to give to his dad on his birthday.
After getting her badge back from him, they essentially exchange all the information they’ve gathered so far about the dress and the Russians. And when Jack says that even though he is determined to kill Quinn, he won’t do anything to risk Teresa’s life, Duffy cuts through all the sexual tension that has been building up between her and Jack all this while and kisses him. That said, she immediately regrets doing that, and hilariously reprimands Jack and herself for making this the 2nd time she has gotten “involved” with a coworker. Things get serious though, as Guillermo enters the picture and Richard comes face-to-face with the cop who had “died” when he was almost “kidnapped” in the first episode of this season. Jack had assumed that this could happen, and that’s why he had told Duffy to come alone. Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, Jack has to explain everything he has done so far, especially the part about saving Teresa and killing Quinn. Since Richard is interested in the 2nd part of Jack’s plan, because it’ll free him and his dad from Quinn’s clutches, he chooses not to blow Jack’s cover.
Neagley and Jack Go Berserk on Quinn’s Men
In Rock Creek, Virginia, Quinn’s men track down an officer of the 110th, Powell, because he is the one who had looked into the number plate on Quinn’s car on Jack’s orders. In Chicago, some more of Quinn’s men attack Neagley in her office because she has been looking into Paulie, Angel Doll, and Duke again on Jack’s orders. While Powell is overpowered and tortured by those 2 men, the duo who tries to kill Neagley are no match for her superior combat and firearms skills. When Neagley informs Jack about this, he immediately gets in touch with someone from the 110th and tells her to check in on Powell before he is killed (I’ll spare you the details of how Quinn wants his men to kill Powell). Quinn storms into Beck’s house, accusing him of angering someone in the army, which is why there are so many people from the 110th looking into their operation. As soon as Beck says that Jack used to work for the 110th, Quinn connects the dots (no, he still doesn’t remember that Jack put a bullet in his head), and Jack’s cover is finally blown to smithereens.
Thankfully, Jack doesn’t stick around to check on the aftermath of this revelation and makes a run for it into the woods. After informing Duffy that his jig is up, Jack goes into Rambo mode and kills all the men that Quinn had sent after him in the most jaw-droppingly brutal way. The use of the retractable cable on the quad bike is particularly diabolical, and he lets that guy suffer to inject some fear into Paulie’s heart, who arrives at the scene only to witness everything that Jack is capable of. By the way, all this murder and mayhem is followed by the most adorable interaction in the show as Jack takes refuge in a laundromat run by an elderly Asian couple. Just the sight of this giant sipping coffee with his two cute oldies really warmed my heart. And it’s thanks to them that Paulie fails to track Jack down and kill him. Sadly, Beck and Richard pay the price for all this as Quinn terrorizes them and then asks for Beck’s ear if he doesn’t want to see Richard lose his other ear. Yeah, just in case you were still skeptical about how monstrous Quinn is, I think this scene will convince you why this guy needs to die as soon as possible.
Jack and Duffy Kill Harley
At the end of Reacher Season 3 episode 6, Jack reunites with Duffy and Guillermo in their new safehouse because the last one was turned into a crime scene. Guillermo says that given how Quinn is on high alert and the Russian mafia is involved, the three of them should back off until backup arrives and let them take it from there because he wants to retire alive, not dead. Jack and Duffy point out that, since Quinn knows that people are aware of his operation, he is going to change things up in such a manner that even if the entire DEA and ATF hit all his warehouses, they’re going to get nothing. And when the DEA and ATF get nothing, they’ll blame Guillermo, Duffy, and Jack for sending them on a wild-goose chase. In addition to that, Jack thinks that, in all this mess, Teresa is probably going to bite the dust, thereby making everything that they’ve done so far seem pointless. While Jack and Duffy are going back and forth about this, Guillermo gets a hit on the location of the burner phone number that they got from the tailor; it’s a place called Port Rome. Jack realizes that the number belongs to Harley, and he is holding Teresa captive on a ferry called the Sweet Marie. By the time Jack and Duffy get to the boat, Teresa’s gone, but there are telltale signs that she was being held there.
When Harley walks in on the two snooping around the ferry, he tries his best to kill them, but, of course, he gets the bejeezus beaten out of him by Jack and Duffy. They try to question him regarding Teresa’s whereabouts and where the mega sale between Quinn and his buyers is going to happen; however, a minion like Harley isn’t privy to such information. He just states the obvious. Therefore, Jack and Duffy let him go up in flames along with his Sweet Marie. With their last lead gone and no way to infiltrate Beck’s operation, Jack announces that they need to go to Los Angeles to save Teresa and put an end to Quinn. Yeah, I guess he is talking about Darien Prado, the drug dealer that Duffy and her team were tracking back in the day. Prado has ties with Beck and regularly buys guns, not drugs, from him. So, I suppose that Jack intends to put Prado in a corner and maybe get him to cough up some information on where the aforementioned gun sale is going to happen. Well, we’ll have to wait till next week to see if Jack’s new plan pans out the way he thinks it will.
