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Reacher Season 3: Release Date, Trailer, Neagley Spinoff, and More

Reacher's best pal Neagley is getting a show of her own

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Tim Surette
Alan Ritchson, Reacher

Alan Ritchson, Reacher

Brooke Palmer/Prime Video

The first two seasons of Reacher on Amazon Prime Video have been massive hits — not quite as massive as the hits Reacher unloads on some dude's face, though — so it was entirely predictable that the streamer would beg one of its biggest TV shows to come back for Season 3 (and Season 4!). Reacher's newest violent adventure is finally underway on Prime Video, and it's already obvious that Reacher may actually be punching outside his weight class for once.

The action drama — based on Lee Child's books and starring Alan Ritchson as the gargantuan, vagabond detective who roams from town to town with nothing but the clothes on his back — is a fan favorite, thanks to its free-range spirit, hasty delivery of knuckle sandwiches, Ritchson's pitch-perfect punching performance, and an abundance of humor, and we expect we'll be seeing Reacher solving mysteries for a long time. 

Reacher Season 3 release date

Reacher

Reacher

Amazon MGM Studios

Reacher Season 3 premiered on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, with three episodes, with the five remaining episodes dropping weekly.

Reacher Season 4 renewal

Good news: Reacher was renewed for Season 4 shortly after the release of the second season. Production on Season 4 will begin in 2025. 

Reacher Season 3 trailer 

In early January, Prime Video released the first full trailer for Season 3, and if your hope for Season 3 was to see Reacher smashing fools' faces, then you are in luck. The new footage gives those of us who didn't read the book our first idea of what Season 3 will be about — Reacher goes undercover — as well as a good look at the new cast members.

Usually when Reacher is told to pick on someone his own size, it's because he's the bigger one. But in the first teaser trailer for Season 3, which was released on Dec. 7, he's face-to-chest with a new foe who makes Reacher look like a toddler. Readers will recognize Paulie, the seven-foot juggernaut from Child's book Persuader, as he brushes off Reacher's blows and swats him away. As Neagley says, "Last time I saw a guy twice your size was on Mt. Rushmore."

Which book is Reacher Season 3 following, and what is it about?

On Jan. 24, 2024, Prime Video announced that Reacher Season 3 will be based on Persuader, the seventh book in the Reacher book series. The logline is "Reacher must go undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past." Prime Video's series is working on its own timeline and isn't following the order that Child's books were released. Season 1 was based on Killing Floor, the first book in the series, but Season 2 was based on Bad Luck and Trouble, the eleventh book in the series. 

The official logline for the season, per Prime Video, is "Reacher hurtles into the dark heart of a vast criminal enterprise when trying to rescue an undercover DEA informant whose time is running out. There he finds a world of secrecy and violence — and confronts some unfinished business from his own past."

Season 3 will put Reacher back on a lone wolf adventure instead of working with the 110th, his old military police team, like he did in Season 2. Parts of Persuader are set in Boston and Maine, and the season is filming in Toronto.

"We've picked [the book] up, it's chosen," Child told The Messenger's (and TV Guide writer) Liam Mathews before the Persuader announcement was made. "It's a good choice, I gotta say. I think we've been very creative about how we've sequenced the type of story." He continued, "We felt we needed a book that was more Reacher alone for the third season. And so it was a question of which story would work best for that, and which one would have a great opening scene and all of that, and we found one that we loved."

Back in December 2023, before Season 2 premiered, Ritchson told Collider, "There's no combining books, that I can tell you. There's enough meat on the bone in a book for a season of TV without needing to do that, generally speaking. But it's one of the favorites. I'll just say that. People are gonna like this book and it's gonna be one of the best seasons yet."

Who stars in Reacher Season 3?

Alan Ritchson will be back as Reacher. As for everyone else, the only other confirmed returning character is Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), who has been a big part of both seasons so far, but the level of her participation is not yet known. 

As Deadline reported in February 2024, Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club) and Sonya Cassidy (Lodge 49) were the first two major casting announcements of the season. Hall will play Zachary Beck, the owner of a rug import company whom Reacher suspects is using his business as a front for something highly illegal. Cassidy will suit up as DEA agent Sarah Duffy, who is said to be extremely smart and sarcastic.

In March 2024, Deadline reported that Brian Tee would jump from one Prime Video show to another. Tee, who played Nicole Kidman's husband in Expats, will play Quinn, the season's villain, a tough lieutenant colonel in the Army who was previously investigated by Reacher for selling secrets to enemies of the United States. Johnny Berchtold (The Passenger) will play Richard Beck, the son of Hall's Zachary Beck, and Roberto Montesinos will play retiring DEA agent Guillermo Villanueva, the mentor to Cassidy's character. Additionally, Daniel David Stewart will recur as rookie DEA agent Steven Elliot.

Given that Season 3 will go back to basics and send Reacher out on his own solo mission, it's no guarantee that we'll see Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan) or David O'Connell (Shaun Sipos), Reacher's pals from the 110th. (For his part, Ritchson has said that he wants to see more of the 110th.) We'd also suspect that Neagley will be used more sparingly, like she was in Season 1.

Fans of the show are clamoring for Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) to return, but that's just not how Reacher and Reacher operate. The guy can't even keep the same set of clothes for a season; how's he supposed to maintain any sort of extended romantic relationship? On the flip side, Season 1 character Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) made a brief appearance in Season 2, so familiar faces returning is not entirely out of the question.

Reacher Season 2 review

In his review for TV Guide, Kyle Fowle says Reacher Season 2 is bigger and better than Season 1, because it's "allowed to be as gratuitous, goofy, and bloody as it needs to be." Read the review here.

Reacher Season 1 review

We were impressed with the adaptation of Reacher for the small screen in Season 1, and especially loved the casting of Ritchson as Reacher. Though there was room for improvement, we breezed through the episodes. It should also be noted that we felt the series got better as the season went along right up to the finale, but were only able to watch the first five episodes for review. Here's our review.

Reacher spin-off series Neagley

Deadline reported in October 2024 that a spin-off focused on Reacher's buddy Frances Neagley (the "g" is silent) had been given a series order — and yes, Ritchson is expected to make a guest-starring appearance. The show's official description teases, "When [Neagley] learns that a beloved friend from her past has been killed in a suspicious accident, she becomes hell bent on justice." It's possible that the currently-airing Season 3 of Reacher could set up the Neagley spin-off.

In the vein of the series that spawned it, the spinoff will simply be called Neagley, and it began production in February. And, just like a Jack Reacher story, Neagley will see the title character learn that somebody they cared about was killed, sparking a quest for revenge. And that's all we know for the moment, since this story does not appear to be based on a book.

In addition to Maria Sten as Neagley, the spinoff has several cast members lined up: Justified's Damon HerrimanRiverdale's Greyston HoltTeen Wolf's Matthew Del NegroThe Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's Adeline Rudolph, and newcomer Jasper Jones.

More shows like Reacher

If you're looking for more shows to watch that are like Reacher, we've put together a list. The shows included all share some DNA with Reacher, whether they feature a wise-cracking detective who does things their own way, shared cast members, or a big muscly dude who likes to punch people. Here are more shows like Reacher.

Where can I watch Reacher?

Reacher Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Prime Video.