Reacher Season 3 Episode 5 Recap

It’s already been established that Reacher Season 3 is much different than its predecessors. It is darker, grittier, and shows Jack Reacher tackling one of his most dangerous missions. By the end of episode 4, it is clear why this assignment is important to him and why meeting Julius McCabe, aka Frances Xavier Quinn, means so much to him. For the uninitiated, Quinn and Reacher went face-to-face with each other when Quinn killed one of his peers, First Class Sergeant Dominique Kohl. Viewers saw Reacher avenge Kohl’s demise by shooting Quinn and causing him to fall off a cliff. However, it appears that Quinn survived. Although doctors saved him, he lost his memory. Now, Quinn has returned as McCabe and is running an illegal arms business.

Reacher knows that things are getting more and more dangerous with each passing moment. Solving the case is difficult because he not only needs to kill McCabe but also save Teresa Daniels’ life. He wouldn’t want Daniels to die like Kohl and Susan Duffy is making sure that Daniels remains the focus of the entire operation. On the other hand, Zachary Beck’s condition is getting worse because McCabe is not happy with the deaths that are happening. He is making pressure on Beck to resolve this issue because he doesn’t want to lose any of his men and would do anything to end this mayhem so that he could do his business peacefully. But Reacher is right behind him and will do anything to close this assignment as soon as possible. While Episode 4 of Reacher Season 3 took viewers back in time to let everyone know why Reacher hated Quinn so much, the fifth episode sees the titular character facing some serious situations that could make things worse for him.

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Reacher Saves Duffy From McCabe’s Men

Episode 5, titled Smackdown, picks up where the previous episode left off. Reacher tried calling Duffe and one of her colleagues, that some of Quinn’s men were coming to the commercial facility that they are in right now. Why? They want to find Angel Doll’s laptop as well. However, he is unable to reach them. As a result, he calls Steven at the lodge and tells him that he should call the facility to let Duffy know that people are coming for them. Steven calls the landline phone of the facility and even though Duffy didn’t want to answer the phone initially, she eventually picks the call and finds out that some of McCabe’s men are reaching there. Unfortunately, they have already entered the facility and Duffy gets to know about their admission when they start shooting at them. Thankfully, Reacher reaches there on time and takes out one of McCabe’s men immediately. On the other hand, Duffy kills the second man. During the shooting, Duffy lost her FBI badge, but thankfully, Reacher saw the badge and took it with him. With one guy remaining, Duffy was very close to killing the last person, but Reacher confronts her and tells her that killing all of McCabe’s men will pose a doubt in his and Beck’s heads. As a result, he tells her and her colleague to go out of the facility from the back door. Moreover, Reacher tells her to throw the laptop from the movie vehicle.

Meanwhile, Reacher encounters the sole surviving member of McCabe’s team that entered the facility and follows Duffy’s car. He doesn’t follow the car for long and deliberately drives it into the mud, getting the tires stuck. As a result, they return to Beck’s house and find out that two of McCabe’s men have arrived there to make the security team stronger. One of the men tries talking dirty with one of the maids and Reacher smacks his head on the coffee table to make them understand who’s the boss here. Reacher goes back to his room and hides Duffy’s FBI badge.

Duffy and Reacher Suffer Another Tragic Loss

Back at the lodge, Quinn’s bodyguard, who was captured by Duffy and his team, has been bothering Steven. He keeps on asking Steven for a cigarette and Steven keeps on denying him. The bodyguard has been using a sharp object to free himself and wants to strike back when the time is right. A few moments later, Steven gets irritated from his non-stop bickering and gives him a cigarette. However, the bodyguard takes advantage of that situation and frees himself before killing the federal agent. When Duffy reaches the lodge, she sees Steven’s body and tells Reacher about the situation. Reacher knew that the bodyguard would make his way directly to Beck’s house and tell him everything. So, Reacher makes a plan with Guillermo, a member of Duffy’s team, to stop the bodyguard from entering Beck’s house.

In this plan, Duffy would cut the electricity of the entire city, which would help him in executing the plan. Then, Reacher meets Guillermo at the narrowest section of the road leading to Beck’s house and tells him that they are going to flip Guillermo’s car to stop the bodyguard. On the other hand, McCabe called Beck and told him to search the entire house for clues, and see if anyone was betraying them. As a result, McCabe’s men searched every room and every person living inside the house. Elsewhere, Reacher helps Guillermo with flipping the DEA Agent’s car and tells him to get inside it. So, the plan was to stop the bodyguard and as soon as he gets outside the car, Reacher would confront him. However, when the bodyguard gets out of the car and sees Guillermo inside the damaged vehicle, he kills him on the spot.

Reacher Is Finally Meeting His Old Nemesis

After executing the plan meticulously, Reacher returns to Beck’s house and finds him talking with Paulie and one of McCabe’s men. Beck tells Reacher that someone in their house has been giving out details about their business to the authorities. Reacher believes that they have found out about his real identity. However, it turns out one of the maids was actually working for the ATF and in the search, McCabe’s men found her phone through which she was giving all the information to her team. Reacher wanted to interrogate her and get all the information. In reality, he wanted to save her. Unfortunately, Paulie killed her with one tight slap. Reacher was angry with Paulie because he could have received useful information about the case through her. Paulie wasn’t amused and asked if Reacher was going to do anything about it. Reacher punched Paulie in his stomach, but he didn’t even flinch. However, Reacher felt everything when Paulie slapped him and made him fall to the ground. Well, the score is 1-1 now between these two giants.

In the final moments of the episode, Reacher calls Duffy and informs her about the ATF agent who just died, leading him to realize that Quinn and Beck are not selling drugs, but weapons. Duffy realizes that Daniels’ life is in danger and they need to do something really quick. On the contrary, Reacher believes that Daniels is dead after seeing what happened to the ATF agent. The episode ends with Beck and Reacher going to meet McCable, who has called them for a very important meeting. Reacher tells Duffy that he is going there to meet him and if everything works out well, he will take Quinn out. Duffy tries telling him that he shouldn’t do anything stupid to sabotage the mission and also, his life. But Reacher is not ready to listen and goes with Beck. They are finally getting ready to meet the boss, while Duffy and Guillermo have reached relatively close to the meeting venue, and would jump in if anything bad happens.

Once again, a meticulously done episode with the right amount of thrills, action, and good storytelling. It would be fascinating to see if McCabe, aka Quinn, remembers who Reacher was and their initial meeting. Let’s see how Reacher reacts when he finally comes face-to-face with his old nemesis.

The fifth episode of Reacher Season 3 is available for streaming on Prime Video.

Reacher

Release Date

February 3, 2022

Network

Prime Video

Showrunner

Nick Santora

Directors

Omar Madha, Carol Banker, Julian Holmes, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett, Norberto Barba, Stephen Surjik, Thomas Vincent

Writers

Cait Duffy

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  Alan Ritchson

  Jack Reacher

• 

  Maria Sten

  Frances Neagley