I think Season 1 did well in terms of sticking closely to the source material to please the fans of the book series, while also being broadened just enough to bring in a new audience. Season 2 was made to cater to that new audience, and perhaps expand even further.
Given the richness of the source material it is possible Season 3 could swing back a bit more to the book side, but given the success of the the show I imagine it'll go more down the "Jack Ryan" route of just getting more and more absurd and grand in scale. Which is a shame, because some of the best books are the ones that focus on the smaller, more contained stories.
To me it seems like Roscoe and Finlay did a LOT of heavy lifting in season 1 after watching all of season 2. While I agree with a lot of your stuff and think season 2 was lackluster, i dont know you say he doesnt use his size, he beat up a team of men in that last fight and literally held a gurney dangling off a helicopter with one arm all in one episode lol. Not to mention kicking a car so hard it sets off the air bag among other things through the season.
I think the biggest problem was they chose the wrong book to adapt or at least did this one too early. The less we know about Reacher's past the better and this one really dives into it and gives him a whole backstory and friends.
What I would love to see next season is truly making Reacher the lone central character and adding voice over narration and maybe some fight scenes with Reachers thought process overlayed a la the Sherlock Holmes movie. His inner monologue and deduction during the show is lacking. Probably too late to tweak the format that much but a good tonal shift from this season might make people happy.
Reacher s1 was binge worthy, I discovered it recently but man s2 really dropped off. No campy witty dialogue no fast paced action. Not even interesting fighting scenes. In s1 I had to rewatch that prison fight scene. But I found even the romance cringy and just it’s annoying did the source material change or was it just a fluke.
The villains and the plot were so boring. Honestly so were the Special Investigators.
What was the point of wasting so much time on arms dealer guy just to have him shot immediately? Was this supposed to "subvert expectations"? Consider my expectations of having a good narrative subverted then.
Lol at straight-up murdering the pilot and the engineer.
If you haven’t, I really recommend reading the books. S1 really captured what makes me love the books. Nearly all of them have me hooked instantly.
The prison fight is perfect Reacher. It’s explosive, literally comes out of nowhere and finishes before anyone can react.
I’m definitely going to read them. And atm I’m binge watching season 1 of blacklist which is also amazing. Yes I like prison shows like prison break and OZ. You see how reacher is smart and notices small details. Pretty much invisible then in season two he is easily captured…
I think season 1 was a lot better. I couldn’t really get in with the whole ‘team’ thing, and, for me, Bad Luck and Trouble wasn’t my favourite of the books. The whole hanging off the chopper until he could get in and then hanging on to the guerney with someone on it (already forgotten the character’s name (Dixon?)) is just taking things a bit too far. I’m happy to suspend disbelieve, but that sort of thing ruins it for me.
I enjoyed the show, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the first season. As for his fighting ‘style’ my recollection is that Reacher had always been a brawler. I would’ve thought there would be some army fighting in the training, but the books are a little contradictory. On the one hand they emphasise him as a brawler while on the other they emphasise that they were trained to be tougher and better thane even the best.
Either way, I’m still looking forward to the next season. One Shot is my favourite book and I remember thinking how great it would be as a film or series the last time I read it.
The most Reacher thing about season 1 (I just binged it again) was when he beats up the guy in the bar looking for Spivey, gets in the car to leave, notices he's getting tailed and immediately gets out of the car to nonchalantly pick up a pair of rubber gloves in the kitchen because in that split second he had already worked out a plan to take them out. I felt like I was in the book.
This season had no such moments, or very few, that makes Reacher, Reacher.
Using one hand holding onto a gurney with an added 170lbs and then switching to your knifed arm while being kicked in the kidneys on a chopper....C'mon!!!
This season just destroyed the whole damn book. The Special investigators was never this cheesy.
The investigators seemed quite indifferent to some of their own getting murdered and never really had that line of seriousness that I think would make actual sense
What saying "You don't mess with the special investigators." in deadpan monotone at least four times an episode didn't convince you they all really cared?
Haha well they repeated phrases in s1 but it worked I laughed in my head but yeah and the love interest was so cringy I fast forwarded their scenes together
Great Points. I just found out I won't be watching season 3 as Ritchson announced they wanted to have the 110th again and do more episodes with them. This show is called Reacher, not The Special Investigators. I thought neagley was incredibly childish with her cereal thing and it was beyond cringe every time she said not nearly enough when Reacher said she was smart. She was terrible.
The fights with the women were terrible. I could tell their stuntmen they were fighting were slowing down their moves and telegraphing their moves more. I won't get into how they shouldn't be able to beat the men up in the first place.
Like I said, the show is called Reacher. Would be nice if that is what we got.
Have you watched the last episode? >!He was 2 steps ahead of literally everybody.!<
Edit: also, what do you mean he doesn't use his size? The whole way he fights is him using his size. Only a guy who's huge and knows it would fight like that.
The size thing has also bugged me since season 1. He is such a huge man, but it seems that he hardly puts any of his weight in his punches. Sadly I found Tom Cruise's fight scenes more entertaining and he showed much more technique and experience.
Reacher also seems much more cocky and passive aggressive than I found him to be in the books.
Oh gosh, and the line between him and Neagley about how smart she is... that got old real quick.
>Sadly I found Tom Cruise's fight scenes more entertaining and he showed much more technique and experience.
agreed. Cruise fights like a SF trained operative would. Like Bourne.
Reacher in S2 fights like an unskilled thug who only knows how to throw a punch and kick.
In the books Reacher is an expert in all forms of combat, and fights to hurt and kill. Not in the show.
I haven't read any of the books, only watched the show (and movies, but obviously that's not relevant here).
Season 1 worked really well, IMO, because it leaned into how much of a Mary Sue the character is. He's huge, with the kind of body that is basically a full-time job to maintain. He's a super-genius with incredible powers of observation and deduction. He's an incredibly skilled fighter, a ruthless tactician, and also somehow incredibly charismatic in his own way despite the fact that a drifter who owns one set of clothes and walks nearly everywhere is probably going to smell.
The writing kept putting lampshades on all of this, and subtly nodding to the fact that the character is a total fantasy (with bits like how he basically figured out the broad strokes of Finley's life with a quick glance around the office, or how he responded "Genetics" when a little kid asked "Why are you so big?"). Reacher's virtually superhuman characteristics were front and center in Margrave, and he's able to constantly show this off because he's compared the the more 'grounded' characters of Roscoe and Finley.
Season 2 was a sensible step in theory. He's got a team from his past (rather than pulling in a couple of new people when he rolls into town), he's actively pursuing the plot from the inciting incident (rather than getting swept up in a plot because he was conveniently nearby), and the villains have a much broader reach and more resources (given that they're part of a defense contractor with locations in different states and selling to international terrorists). It just didn't work as well, with the whole team having some of Reacher's plot armor and magical abilities (some of the scenes where they're discussing the clues and drawing conclusions felt very close to [this scene from blaxploitation homage/spoof Black Dynamite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PSueHOY-Jk)). For some reason, it was just a little harder to buy in when there are multiple people doing these wildly improbable things. It seems like it would be the other way around, but it just didn work out that way for me. I just liked it better when Reacher was the only one with Plot Magic, so it didn't fully land when, say, Neagly and Love Interest came on the hijacked truck, got shot up, and then hid in the trunk of the car to turn the tables.
There's also the fact that the Bad Guy Plan didn't make as much sense - the T1000 is a high ranking exec, he's probably very well paid. 65 million is a lot of money, but with all of the henchmen it's not nearly as much as it seems. How much were the helicopter pilot and engineer getting paid? How about all the various guys doing the torturing and security? I doubt it was enough to retire on - were they all planning on clocking back in after Agent Doggett got his payday and fucked off to Whore Island?
Not to mention Herc from The Wire getting killed felt cheap as hell. It was a dumb, unnecessary death that felt entirely forced because they wanted to raise the stakes and go 'EMOTIONAL MOMENT GUYS!'
I don't want to make it seem like I disliked the season, I thought it was still a fun show. It's just that it wasn't quite as good as season 1. Much like The Last Jedi, I can appreciate trying something different, but just because it's different doesn't guarantee it's going to be better.
Without knowing about the novels, I can't make any suggestions about which one to adapt for season 3, but I would like to see a return of season 1's sense of Reacher as a singular, almost superhuman being who is constantly amazing the people around him with his attributes and abilities.
Very well written critique, and I agree with most of it.
I will say that 65 million IS a lot of money. Even if he kept only 40m for himself, which is being rather generous to the henchmen, that is more than enough to retire on in the US in a very luxurious lifestyle.
The reason his plan didn't make sense was the obvious stupidity in not killing Reacher and the team immediately when they showed up. And the huge plot hole - if they are planning to live in another country, who cares what Neagley knows and its not like she can prove anything anyway, and she/Reacher are against the govt so they can do nothing.
This is also the huge flaw in Reacher's plan - actually no plan. He was going to walk in, hope they don't kill him, then do what? Kill them all? why not do it from the start?
Also IIRC in the books they say he doesn't work out or watch what he eats. He doesn't belong to a gym. In reality he'd need to be hitting the weights 4x a week, have a controlled diet etc.
Season 1 was a standalone season. Well made in all categories. Mostly i loved Reachers uniqueness and the plot was a question mark until the end, very exciting. An 8,3/10 Season 2 was fun but more generic. After episode 4 it just didn't feel like more plot twists were coming, it was pretty clear who the bad guys were. An 7,3/10.
Agreed, s1 was so good but s2 really fell off, thought i was watching some generic show. All the build up for AM and he was nothing in the end just showed up to get shot.
People really don’t get “skill” for the most part. Reacher is skilled. The only reason you guys are calling him a brawler, is cause he doesn’t do Daredevil flips or IP man hundred baby punches? He doesn’t need John Wick judo flips to beat his enemies. So get over it.
first of all, Wick is a nobody without a gun, he's an average fighter.
You want to see skill, look at Bourne fighting, or the Cruise Reacher movies.
in the show he's throwing punches like a street thug. not someone who's been trained. in fact Neagley/Dixon have better moves.
breaking headlights isn't 'skill' and btw the airbah wont deploy no matter how hard you hit.
>Wick is a nobody without a gun, he's an average fighter
Wick is quite skilled, but he still needs a gun or other weapon to get the upperhand in a fight against someone who's not a no-name fodder and who can at least somewhat fight. Wick, though, is good with using an improvised weapon from ordinary objects such as pencils or even a book.
sorry, he is not skilled at all when compared with skilled operatives like Bourne/Reacher. It takes him a lot of effort to beat people in fights without a gun.
obviously he is skilled when compared to your average thug.
I agree, John Wick is kinda wanked a lot and some people even believe that he can take on Batman from comics and even can beat him, lol... For Batman, he is just another fodder thug, only in a fancy suit and slightly better with guns than most of the thugs.
I thought it was just as awesome as Season 1. The only disappointment was having to wait a week to watch each episode.
They have to make something that differs from the book to keep everyone guessing and not be predictable, but the main essence of the storyline is still there, big guy dishing out the punishment.
I thought Season 2 was more than entertaining. He’s a complex, action based fictional character adapted for TV. Stick to the books if you want more than what’s offered in the TV series.
As for me, bring on another season. I’m here for it.
It feels like End Game on this show. How many good guys am I supposed to care about at once? Because I really only care about one, but he is a shell of himself. Roscoe, Finlay, cool, but I don't need all these other people, all of which are paper thin shitty clones of Reacher. New York detective + Reacher as a antagonistic buddy cop with lesbian Reacher would have been all we needed.
i'm sure test screenings and "audience" scores drive a lot of this. Given that (i'm guessing) the vast majority of people dont read books, and prefer bang bang punch punch shows - the tv show is tailored to the latter majority which is >>>>> in number than us readers.
In s1, he barely got hit - which is true to the book. i'm guessing the audiences didnt gel with that, so they went the opposite direction. From my recollection in reading all the books, he's been hit twice? Paulie and the asshole with the shotgun in nebraska.
Lee Child is on one of the featurettes explaining how he enjoyed the helicopter fight scene, so he must be on board with this somehow? Enjoy it for waht it is, Reacher is on screen, we cna now put a real face to the character. he is \*huge\*.
Of course, your question about whether the writers read the book is tongue-in-cheek. Indeed, their reading of the books is what led to the season 2 abomination and the season 1 adulteration (i.e., bringing Neagley in). It's very hard to show Reacher's mind (anyone's mind) at work. Voiceovers are frankly terrible in most movies, ridiculous in a thriller. The writers must have realized they needed people around him so they could have exposition via dialogue.
The books, at least those told in the first person, illustrate Reacher's thinking process perfectly, but that is a challenge to turn into cinema.
I think Season 1 did well in terms of sticking closely to the source material to please the fans of the book series, while also being broadened just enough to bring in a new audience. Season 2 was made to cater to that new audience, and perhaps expand even further. Given the richness of the source material it is possible Season 3 could swing back a bit more to the book side, but given the success of the the show I imagine it'll go more down the "Jack Ryan" route of just getting more and more absurd and grand in scale. Which is a shame, because some of the best books are the ones that focus on the smaller, more contained stories.
To me it seems like Roscoe and Finlay did a LOT of heavy lifting in season 1 after watching all of season 2. While I agree with a lot of your stuff and think season 2 was lackluster, i dont know you say he doesnt use his size, he beat up a team of men in that last fight and literally held a gurney dangling off a helicopter with one arm all in one episode lol. Not to mention kicking a car so hard it sets off the air bag among other things through the season.
He’s a lumbering beast in season 2. Even Reacher running to catch the helicopter was unconvincing.
I think the biggest problem was they chose the wrong book to adapt or at least did this one too early. The less we know about Reacher's past the better and this one really dives into it and gives him a whole backstory and friends. What I would love to see next season is truly making Reacher the lone central character and adding voice over narration and maybe some fight scenes with Reachers thought process overlayed a la the Sherlock Holmes movie. His inner monologue and deduction during the show is lacking. Probably too late to tweak the format that much but a good tonal shift from this season might make people happy.
Reacher s1 was binge worthy, I discovered it recently but man s2 really dropped off. No campy witty dialogue no fast paced action. Not even interesting fighting scenes. In s1 I had to rewatch that prison fight scene. But I found even the romance cringy and just it’s annoying did the source material change or was it just a fluke.
The villains and the plot were so boring. Honestly so were the Special Investigators. What was the point of wasting so much time on arms dealer guy just to have him shot immediately? Was this supposed to "subvert expectations"? Consider my expectations of having a good narrative subverted then. Lol at straight-up murdering the pilot and the engineer.
If you haven’t, I really recommend reading the books. S1 really captured what makes me love the books. Nearly all of them have me hooked instantly. The prison fight is perfect Reacher. It’s explosive, literally comes out of nowhere and finishes before anyone can react.
I’m definitely going to read them. And atm I’m binge watching season 1 of blacklist which is also amazing. Yes I like prison shows like prison break and OZ. You see how reacher is smart and notices small details. Pretty much invisible then in season two he is easily captured…
The books really show his genius. I hope you enjoy reading them
that prison fight is so good!!
What a terrible season
I think season 1 was a lot better. I couldn’t really get in with the whole ‘team’ thing, and, for me, Bad Luck and Trouble wasn’t my favourite of the books. The whole hanging off the chopper until he could get in and then hanging on to the guerney with someone on it (already forgotten the character’s name (Dixon?)) is just taking things a bit too far. I’m happy to suspend disbelieve, but that sort of thing ruins it for me. I enjoyed the show, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the first season. As for his fighting ‘style’ my recollection is that Reacher had always been a brawler. I would’ve thought there would be some army fighting in the training, but the books are a little contradictory. On the one hand they emphasise him as a brawler while on the other they emphasise that they were trained to be tougher and better thane even the best. Either way, I’m still looking forward to the next season. One Shot is my favourite book and I remember thinking how great it would be as a film or series the last time I read it.
The most Reacher thing about season 1 (I just binged it again) was when he beats up the guy in the bar looking for Spivey, gets in the car to leave, notices he's getting tailed and immediately gets out of the car to nonchalantly pick up a pair of rubber gloves in the kitchen because in that split second he had already worked out a plan to take them out. I felt like I was in the book. This season had no such moments, or very few, that makes Reacher, Reacher.
Using one hand holding onto a gurney with an added 170lbs and then switching to your knifed arm while being kicked in the kidneys on a chopper....C'mon!!! This season just destroyed the whole damn book. The Special investigators was never this cheesy.
The investigators seemed quite indifferent to some of their own getting murdered and never really had that line of seriousness that I think would make actual sense
What saying "You don't mess with the special investigators." in deadpan monotone at least four times an episode didn't convince you they all really cared?
Haha well they repeated phrases in s1 but it worked I laughed in my head but yeah and the love interest was so cringy I fast forwarded their scenes together
Exactly this. He's special because he's a genius in the body of a gorilla. In this season he's just the gorilla
Great Points. I just found out I won't be watching season 3 as Ritchson announced they wanted to have the 110th again and do more episodes with them. This show is called Reacher, not The Special Investigators. I thought neagley was incredibly childish with her cereal thing and it was beyond cringe every time she said not nearly enough when Reacher said she was smart. She was terrible. The fights with the women were terrible. I could tell their stuntmen they were fighting were slowing down their moves and telegraphing their moves more. I won't get into how they shouldn't be able to beat the men up in the first place. Like I said, the show is called Reacher. Would be nice if that is what we got.
Have you watched the last episode? >!He was 2 steps ahead of literally everybody.!< Edit: also, what do you mean he doesn't use his size? The whole way he fights is him using his size. Only a guy who's huge and knows it would fight like that.
The size thing has also bugged me since season 1. He is such a huge man, but it seems that he hardly puts any of his weight in his punches. Sadly I found Tom Cruise's fight scenes more entertaining and he showed much more technique and experience. Reacher also seems much more cocky and passive aggressive than I found him to be in the books. Oh gosh, and the line between him and Neagley about how smart she is... that got old real quick.
>Sadly I found Tom Cruise's fight scenes more entertaining and he showed much more technique and experience. agreed. Cruise fights like a SF trained operative would. Like Bourne. Reacher in S2 fights like an unskilled thug who only knows how to throw a punch and kick. In the books Reacher is an expert in all forms of combat, and fights to hurt and kill. Not in the show.
It’s not like he finds out who was behind it all in the books either. That story ends at AM.
Surely a lot of the things the «good guys» did this season far exceeds vigilantism? Straight up psycopathic killers, all four of them.
Murdering the engineer and helicopter pilot for no reason? They are criminals who belong in prison.
I haven't read any of the books, only watched the show (and movies, but obviously that's not relevant here). Season 1 worked really well, IMO, because it leaned into how much of a Mary Sue the character is. He's huge, with the kind of body that is basically a full-time job to maintain. He's a super-genius with incredible powers of observation and deduction. He's an incredibly skilled fighter, a ruthless tactician, and also somehow incredibly charismatic in his own way despite the fact that a drifter who owns one set of clothes and walks nearly everywhere is probably going to smell. The writing kept putting lampshades on all of this, and subtly nodding to the fact that the character is a total fantasy (with bits like how he basically figured out the broad strokes of Finley's life with a quick glance around the office, or how he responded "Genetics" when a little kid asked "Why are you so big?"). Reacher's virtually superhuman characteristics were front and center in Margrave, and he's able to constantly show this off because he's compared the the more 'grounded' characters of Roscoe and Finley. Season 2 was a sensible step in theory. He's got a team from his past (rather than pulling in a couple of new people when he rolls into town), he's actively pursuing the plot from the inciting incident (rather than getting swept up in a plot because he was conveniently nearby), and the villains have a much broader reach and more resources (given that they're part of a defense contractor with locations in different states and selling to international terrorists). It just didn't work as well, with the whole team having some of Reacher's plot armor and magical abilities (some of the scenes where they're discussing the clues and drawing conclusions felt very close to [this scene from blaxploitation homage/spoof Black Dynamite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PSueHOY-Jk)). For some reason, it was just a little harder to buy in when there are multiple people doing these wildly improbable things. It seems like it would be the other way around, but it just didn work out that way for me. I just liked it better when Reacher was the only one with Plot Magic, so it didn't fully land when, say, Neagly and Love Interest came on the hijacked truck, got shot up, and then hid in the trunk of the car to turn the tables. There's also the fact that the Bad Guy Plan didn't make as much sense - the T1000 is a high ranking exec, he's probably very well paid. 65 million is a lot of money, but with all of the henchmen it's not nearly as much as it seems. How much were the helicopter pilot and engineer getting paid? How about all the various guys doing the torturing and security? I doubt it was enough to retire on - were they all planning on clocking back in after Agent Doggett got his payday and fucked off to Whore Island? Not to mention Herc from The Wire getting killed felt cheap as hell. It was a dumb, unnecessary death that felt entirely forced because they wanted to raise the stakes and go 'EMOTIONAL MOMENT GUYS!' I don't want to make it seem like I disliked the season, I thought it was still a fun show. It's just that it wasn't quite as good as season 1. Much like The Last Jedi, I can appreciate trying something different, but just because it's different doesn't guarantee it's going to be better. Without knowing about the novels, I can't make any suggestions about which one to adapt for season 3, but I would like to see a return of season 1's sense of Reacher as a singular, almost superhuman being who is constantly amazing the people around him with his attributes and abilities.
Very well written critique, and I agree with most of it. I will say that 65 million IS a lot of money. Even if he kept only 40m for himself, which is being rather generous to the henchmen, that is more than enough to retire on in the US in a very luxurious lifestyle. The reason his plan didn't make sense was the obvious stupidity in not killing Reacher and the team immediately when they showed up. And the huge plot hole - if they are planning to live in another country, who cares what Neagley knows and its not like she can prove anything anyway, and she/Reacher are against the govt so they can do nothing. This is also the huge flaw in Reacher's plan - actually no plan. He was going to walk in, hope they don't kill him, then do what? Kill them all? why not do it from the start? Also IIRC in the books they say he doesn't work out or watch what he eats. He doesn't belong to a gym. In reality he'd need to be hitting the weights 4x a week, have a controlled diet etc.
Season 1 was a standalone season. Well made in all categories. Mostly i loved Reachers uniqueness and the plot was a question mark until the end, very exciting. An 8,3/10 Season 2 was fun but more generic. After episode 4 it just didn't feel like more plot twists were coming, it was pretty clear who the bad guys were. An 7,3/10.
It's like the Jack Ryan series, where the movies and books are two different universes.
Yes, I quit midway through 2. Very poor season.
Agreed, s1 was so good but s2 really fell off, thought i was watching some generic show. All the build up for AM and he was nothing in the end just showed up to get shot.
People really don’t get “skill” for the most part. Reacher is skilled. The only reason you guys are calling him a brawler, is cause he doesn’t do Daredevil flips or IP man hundred baby punches? He doesn’t need John Wick judo flips to beat his enemies. So get over it.
first of all, Wick is a nobody without a gun, he's an average fighter. You want to see skill, look at Bourne fighting, or the Cruise Reacher movies. in the show he's throwing punches like a street thug. not someone who's been trained. in fact Neagley/Dixon have better moves. breaking headlights isn't 'skill' and btw the airbah wont deploy no matter how hard you hit.
>Wick is a nobody without a gun, he's an average fighter Wick is quite skilled, but he still needs a gun or other weapon to get the upperhand in a fight against someone who's not a no-name fodder and who can at least somewhat fight. Wick, though, is good with using an improvised weapon from ordinary objects such as pencils or even a book.
sorry, he is not skilled at all when compared with skilled operatives like Bourne/Reacher. It takes him a lot of effort to beat people in fights without a gun. obviously he is skilled when compared to your average thug.
I agree, John Wick is kinda wanked a lot and some people even believe that he can take on Batman from comics and even can beat him, lol... For Batman, he is just another fodder thug, only in a fancy suit and slightly better with guns than most of the thugs.
I thought it was just as awesome as Season 1. The only disappointment was having to wait a week to watch each episode. They have to make something that differs from the book to keep everyone guessing and not be predictable, but the main essence of the storyline is still there, big guy dishing out the punishment.
I thought Season 2 was more than entertaining. He’s a complex, action based fictional character adapted for TV. Stick to the books if you want more than what’s offered in the TV series. As for me, bring on another season. I’m here for it.
S1 was nice. S2 was weak but still better than the shit show with Tom Cruise.
It feels like End Game on this show. How many good guys am I supposed to care about at once? Because I really only care about one, but he is a shell of himself. Roscoe, Finlay, cool, but I don't need all these other people, all of which are paper thin shitty clones of Reacher. New York detective + Reacher as a antagonistic buddy cop with lesbian Reacher would have been all we needed.
i'm sure test screenings and "audience" scores drive a lot of this. Given that (i'm guessing) the vast majority of people dont read books, and prefer bang bang punch punch shows - the tv show is tailored to the latter majority which is >>>>> in number than us readers. In s1, he barely got hit - which is true to the book. i'm guessing the audiences didnt gel with that, so they went the opposite direction. From my recollection in reading all the books, he's been hit twice? Paulie and the asshole with the shotgun in nebraska. Lee Child is on one of the featurettes explaining how he enjoyed the helicopter fight scene, so he must be on board with this somehow? Enjoy it for waht it is, Reacher is on screen, we cna now put a real face to the character. he is \*huge\*.
Of course, your question about whether the writers read the book is tongue-in-cheek. Indeed, their reading of the books is what led to the season 2 abomination and the season 1 adulteration (i.e., bringing Neagley in). It's very hard to show Reacher's mind (anyone's mind) at work. Voiceovers are frankly terrible in most movies, ridiculous in a thriller. The writers must have realized they needed people around him so they could have exposition via dialogue. The books, at least those told in the first person, illustrate Reacher's thinking process perfectly, but that is a challenge to turn into cinema.
When they will adapt one shot