‘Reacher’ Season 3 Episode 7 Recap: «L.A. Story»

Reacher the guy’s affection for cheap motels is a boon for TV production budgets, because Reacher the show can travel to “Los Angeles” while its characters barely leave a drab gas–food-lodging backdrop that could really be anywhere. That’s what happens here in Episode 7, the second-to-last installment of season 3, as Reacher and Duffy take LA in pursuit of something actionable on Quinn’s operation. They hook up with Darien Prado (Greg Bryk), the California-based drug dealer whose large firepower purchases first put Quinn on DEA radar. And while their pressure on Prado succeeds in his calling Zachary Beck to set up a “meet” – more on that in a second – the real hook-up is between Reacher and Duffy back at their tacky motel. Ain’t no Villanueva on this trip. It’s rug burn-making time.   

Reacher and Duffy’s mutual attraction is driven by their mutual affection for how they get shit done. Reacher likes Duffy’s selflessness and integrity on the job, and sees her commitment to saving Teresa Daniel as analogous to his avenging Dominique Kohl. Still, as she initiates, he briefly withdraws. Remember “What the shit?” They said they weren’t gonna do this anymore. But the big lug revealing a sliver of emotional vigor has Duffy wanting to consummate their de facto office romance.

The point of using Prado was to regain vetted access to Beck after Reacher’s cover was blown. And once Reacher and Duffy are suddenly back in Maine – no scenes of Reacher offering his passport to TSA, or pedantically explaining his lack of luggage – they’re joined by a new member of the team. Oh shit. Now Neagley’s officially in this fight? Quinn and his lackeys hate to see her coming.

It’s Neagley who meets with Zachary Beck. And as they watch from a distance, Reacher and Duffy note Beck’s new ear bandage. It’s an indicator both of Quinn punishing him, and probably his intention to exterminate Zachary and Richard entirely. “Reacher is your last hope,” Neagley explains to Beck. If he works with them to determine the location of Quinn’s latest arms deal, they’ll work to prevent Zachary and Richard from getting snuffed by the sadistic underworld operator who holds people hostage inside their own lives.

Zachary agrees. How could he not? Becoming Quinn’s pawn destroyed his relationship with his son, something he always knew – “I was a bastard,” he tells Richard – but finally sees with real clarity in light of recent events. It’s a nice scene between Anthony Michael Hall and Johnny Berchtold, a father-son heart-to-heart that also galvanizes them against Quinn, a guy who deserves every single ounce of pain that’s nearly certain to come his way. When Quinn isn’t humiliating the Becks for his own entertainment, he’s telling Teresa Daniel – who is already his prisoner, and who is already under the forcible influence of his drugs – how he would personally harm her, if she wasn’t about to be sold into sex slavery as the sick bonus on top of a black market weapons deal. This guy’s the worst!

The entirety of Quinn’s awfulness has also inspired Duffy and Villanueva to re-emerge as actual federal agents. The Reacher-Duffy alliance was giddily throwing blows on henchmen and operating entirely outside of official channels, but now it’s receiving pushback from an ATF higher-up. And Duffy called them. Somehow they didn’t know their own undercover agent was murdered? There is a strange friction whenever Reacher runs its usual extralegality up against regulatory oversight, and it’s no different here. During a meeting at the ATF offices, Reacher fills a corner awkwardly while Duffy takes responsibility for the chaos and death her unsanctioned investigation caused. The ATF guy says his people will take point from here on out. (“Clean up the rest of your mess.”) But that gives Reacher the kind of opening that only the warped reality of Reacher can make sound plausible. 

“The man behind this? Xavier Quinn? He was mine before he was yours. Or theirs.” Could a guy with no affiliation or jurisdiction beyond “former military investigator” really hold this much sway in a meeting between two federal law enforcement agencies? He can just show up in his unwashed T-shirt and jeans, and inform the government that their suspect is his to kill? It’s as awkward as Reacher looks, standing in the corner of that ATF conference room. But it’s even more awkward once they’re out of there, because Reacher has gone pouty now that he can’t whale on Quinn with impunity.

The shared compassion that laced their Los Angeles dalliance is on pause as Duffy defends her decision to bring in official reinforcements. Quinn has access to trained killers and military-grade weaponry. They need support beyond Neagley, and Duffy’s determined to not let Teresa meet the same fate as Dominique Kohl. What, she wonders, as Reacher lays on the bed and frowns. His intention to kill Quinn is actually the most important? Did he ever fully care about Teresa? In her anger is also an acknowledgement/dismissal of his usual go-to, the one-sided justification. “Don’t pull Reacher semantics bullshit with me!” 

But Reacher’s vengeance piece remains stronger than the government’s justice play. When Zachary Beck comes through with the location of the arms deal, Reacher bails on Duffy and Villanueva to set up on the convoy with a sniper rifle he…acquired. (When did he have time to go to a “pawn shop”? How did he pay for the gun? It’s convenient, just like a barely-seen trip to LA.) He plans to fire on his nemesis the second he appears, despite Duffy’s protests and the ATF tactical team on the scene. But neither vengeance nor justice is gonna happen just yet. The meeting is a trap, false info fed through Beck to draw out the heat. Reacher, Duffy, and now featuring Neagley and the ATF: Quinn played them all again.     

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.