ONE
A house exterior at night. Inside, Officer Stevenson prepares for bed with his wife. They discuss their distress and the difficulty he’s having with the case. Finlay won’t talk to him. The Hubbles (their cousins, right?) won’t answer the phone. She suggests they move away from Margrave, especially as they’ll need a babysitter soon. They’re happy and cuddly about her early pregnancy.
TWO
As they kiss, the camera cuts to a view looking out the window at a black car pulling up. Ominous music. White booted feet and hazmat-suited legs exit the vehicle. One of the four men carries a crowbar. Roll credits.
THREE
An establishing shot of the Atlanta airport runway. Cut to a slow pan of Reacher, starting at his boots and ending at his face above a “stupid” NYC tourist T-shirt. He frowns. (Of course, lol.) Someone wheeling a carry-on calls for a taxi, and Reacher focuses in on the luggage for some reason.
Ah, cut to a flashback. Young Reacher wrangles a bag as he and Joe leave the house. The family is moving to Germany, and the boys consider it a punishment. Mom, with her French accent, gives them a pep talk. Reacher, with the strength of three boys your age, what will you do, she asks. You’re going to do what’s right. The close-up of Young Reacher’s thoughtful face becomes present day Reacher. Finlay screeches up in the POS minivan.
FOUR
A joke about Reacher’s attire. He mentions his other clothes got blood on them, and asks for his knife and gun. (Lol, out comes the cannon from the console.) He brings Finlay up to speed about the paper that counterfeiters need. (Interesting, here is the recap of last episode, our reminder. Usually it’s at the beginning.) Joe thought he had shut down the only paper supplier, and they don’t know how that was compromised.
Reacher wants to be taken to pick up the Bentley. Sighing, Finlay says they’ll need to make a stop first. Reacher should stay in the car. Cut to Kliner’s burial service.
We see mourners and hear the minister’s remarks. Finlay gets a couple of dirty looks for attending. KJ, Dawson, and Teale file past the casket, then the bug cousin confronts Finlay and threatens him. From the parking lot Reacher watches. Finlay, calmly, tells Dawson to back off, and then leaves. At the van, Reacher can’t resist a little dig when Finlay returns.
Pulling up to the auto shop (wow, the place barely looks in business, with tall weeds in the pavement) the men mention Roscoe, bringing her back into the story. The mechanic is only half done tinting the windows, but Reacher wants it now. He pays full price with (counterfeit) cash. As the mechanic heads for the car, he calls to his assistant to get some kitty litter on that oil spill. (A planted clue if I ever heard one, lol.) While Finlay takes a call, Reacher walks closer to the litter. Power Scoop Kitty Litter! In case you missed it, here’s another insert, lol. Finlay, hanging up, slowly approaches. Reacher asks, “What’s going on?”
Cut to the exterior of the Stevenson house, neighbors gathered outside. The county coroner’s van is parked out front. Quick shots, with camera shutter noises, give us a brief look at the torture that happened inside. Husband and wife are tied in chairs, dead. Jasper takes the photos. Well, now we know Stevenson wasn’t dirty, Finlay says. (It’s gallows humor; he looks stunned.)
Reacher assesses the scene. (I’ll skip the gruesome details.) Finlay regrets he didn’t trust Stevenson. Reacher finds the ultrasound photo of the new pregnancy. Teale enters and calls them both outside.
Teale fires Finlay.
Now they have no more access to evidence. Finlay needs to visit Stevenson’s parents, though, before his job can be complete. While he’s gone Reacher should stick to the plan and investigate the Hubble’s house. Reacher agrees, but first he’s gonna ask the last cop in Margrave to lunch. (It’s the Dennis Hopper guy, taking statements from the neighbors.)
Officer Baker, that’s his name. He and Reacher eat at the pie diner. They discuss Stevenson. As the waitress offers to bag up Reacher’s meal (he has no appetite), Baker orders peach pie. Reacher asks for the same, and she says, Sorry. Baker just took the last piece. (The ongoing pie dilemma, lol.) As they finish up with coffee, Baker asks why Reacher’s talking to him. Whispering intensely, Reacher says he can trust Baker because everyone else was killed so dramatically in order to send a message. They went after Roscoe, too, everyone except Baker. “That means you’re not involved.” (The look on Baker’s face, heh.) Reacher juices the evidence to convince Baker to look harder at Finlay. He butters up Baker for being so smart. Then he tells him he’s breaking into Hubble’s house tonight until he finds the evidence.
SWITCH
Reacher shops at the thrift store, or possibly a military surplus place. He needs a less obvious shirt, it seems, lol.
FIVE
At night the Bentley pulls up to the Hubble’s. Reacher enters the house wearing the same shirt, but he carries full plastic bags. He clicks on the living room TV and cranks the volume. Now he’s in the bathroom, applying eye black. No, he’s going full camo, face paint and jacket. He steps out the front door into a thunder storm and waits.
Cut to Tupelo, MI. Finlay drives up to a small house and steels himself. Reacher’s boss music is replaced with something more sorrowful as the Stevenson parents open the door.
The black truck pulls up to Hubble’s and the hazmat crew steps out. We see faces. Dawson leads three other men who look like they’re probably Venezuelan. A flash of lightning reveals to us Reacher invisible in the bushes. Dawson crowbars the front door and they enter, guns ready. The TV blares in the background. Insert Dawson’s crowbar as he leans it in the entryway.
Back outside, someone sits in the truck driver’s seat. Reacher pulls him out and snaps his neck with his boot.
The hazmat crew searches the house as the suspense builds. Shotgun Man sees the truck lights flash through the window and tells his companion in Spanish to go see what’s up. Outside, Companion finds the driver dead in his seat. From behind, Reacher attacks and cuts his throat. He tosses him in the truck bed.
Shotgun Man, searching inside, walks past a glass patio door. In comes Reacher to take him out. (Two bad guys remain, yes?) Bearded Man finds Shotgun and a trail of blood across the flooring. He follows the footprints. They lead to a closed closet door, which he carefully opens. Inside, the bloody boots rest by themselves. Reacher catches Bearded backing out the door. As he stabs him, Dawson shows up. Using Bearded as a shield, Reacher pushes forward until Dawson’s out of bullets.
There’s the crowbar. Dawson grabs it. He gets in some good hits as he and Reacher wrestle into the living room. Wow, the bug cousin is crafty. He unholsters Reacher’s hand cannon — knocked away — then smashes a decorative glass bowl over his head. Reacher barrels him out the porch door. Bam, there goes that crowbar beating the living crap out of Reacher. His gun goes into the pool, and a crowbar uppercut sends him falling in after. He settles, bleeding, on the bottom of the pool. Haha! Dawson coils himself and leaps in, crowbar lifted like a superhero’s weapon. Standing, he holds Reacher underwater with the hook end.
Boom, Reacher’s eyes open. Crowbar battle in the pool! Reacher, choking and held under, spots his gun and squirms for it. Aiming under his armpit, Reacher takes out Dawson, leaving him floating face down in the reddening water.
SIX
Back inside the house, Reacher picks up his gear. He takes all the weapons and leaves the bodies. He launders his clothes and showers away the camo make-up. As he dresses and replaces his pocket contents, he notices the slip of paper with Joe’s message. Most of the letters are illegible from the pool water. “Joblings’ Garage”, though, is still clear. Push in on Reacher’s face.
SEVEN
Establish a nighttime scene of Atlanta. Roscoe, in a nice living room, answers the phone. Reacher has figured it out. She’s touched to find out that, when he had his realization, he chose to call her first.
EIGHT
Singles — dollar bills — are shipped in from across the country, Reacher explains. Hubble would’ve shuffled this money around from small businesses. Kliner Chemical must’ve developed a bleach to remove the ink without damaging the paper. Run-off from this process destroyed the MI river they visited a few episodes ago.
And now here comes the animal feed. (Roscoe snorts, lol.) Insert again the kitty litter bag with a close-up of its ingredient list. It contains diatomaceous earth. So does animal feed, a product that looks completely unsuspicious. They use the DE to breakdown the harmful chemical waste. While Reacher talks, we see the workers at Kliner’s, drying the white bills and reprinting them as old style hundreds.
This is all good, Roscoe says, but we need evidence. Reacher focuses on Joblings’ Garage. The man must’ve had a stash that Joe found. Reacher and Finlay will go back and tear the place apart.
Reacher asks how Roscoe and the Hubbles are doing. They’re okay now. They’re at Picard’s place. Before hanging up she mentions that Picard is due to spell her on watch duty.
After saying goodbye, Roscoe looks up as Picard enters. She tells him Reacher has solved the case.
Cut to Finlay’s motel. Reacher calls, telling him to meet at Joblings’ house. Lights in the parking lot flash, though, and tires squeal. Peeking out the window, Finlay sees “three hitters” exit a car and head for the motel office. As he pulls on his slacks, Finlay wonders how they found him. Reacher suggests it was Teale, who would’ve known Finlay would do the right thing and visit Stevenson’s parents. As Finlay prepares, checking on a back-up piece, Reacher talks him through how to survive.
Turn up the TV. Grab the closet bar and break through your neighbor’s wall. (Meanwhile, the hitters are picking his door lock.) Finlay busts through to the next motel room and goes out the window. When the hitters go in his room, he dashes for his car. Driving past their sedan, he shoots out the tires. As he gets away, totally freaked out, he finishes his conversation with Reacher who’s still on the line. Meet at Joblings’.
Ah. The fire department is all over a burned-out house. It’s Joblings’. Reacher stands in the street and looks at the wreckage. The bad guys are spooked, he tells Finlay, after what happened last night at Hubble’s. Lol, great moment when Finlay asks what happened.
Going back and forth, they realize that this wasn’t the house Joe meant. It’s Jobling’s parents. (Apostrophe placement is the tricky clue here, all my fellow grammar nerds.) Cut to their garage as the mother leads them in. They start combing through the clutter. When they find a Kliner air conditioner box, they cut it open and dump out hundreds of hundreds.
Call Picard and tell him to meet us, Reacher says. We got them.
NINE
Reacher drives toward Margrave. He’s ten miles out when Neagley calls. As Reacher arrives at the safe house, Neagley details what she’s found out about the dead E.P.A. agent case. The suspense is strong, and the way the camera moves tells us something is about to drop. She’s ready to give him the name of the FBI partner in the case. Reacher cuts her off. It’s — Picard. Reverse angle from Reacher’s face. Picard, KJ, and Teale all hold guns on him and a captured Finlay. Roll credits.
CRITICAL NOTES
I’m gonna go with that very long Eight. It feels like everything in it is necessary for the beat. The most action in the episode, the most consequential, is Reacher’s fight with Dawson by the pool. That’s Five stuff, though. Most shows would put that excitement at the end. Reacher tends to mix it up. The Picard reveal is what counts, storywise, and the Eight is that set-up. If the viewer is clever enough (I honestly don’t think I was on the first viewing) they’ll see the clues. It’s artfully done, showing how Picard is in the loop on every decision that goes south. Because Reacher doesn’t suspect, I don’t suspect.
The Three/Six are Reacher and Joe moments. I can’t say it’s my favorite deployment, but it ticks the box. Why, though, do I need to see Reacher’s mom say these things to him at the Three? Ah, I guess she explains that he’s a doer and Joe’s the talker. “Reacher Said Nothing” probably refers to his style of communication, which involves hitting until the other person’s dead, lol. The whole sequence may be too precious for me. All the misdirection about Picard at the Eight is good detective storytelling. Being cutesy on the Three/Six is a mistake, though. Go visual. Wow me with your best framing and use of graphics, but don’t complicate the message. I shouldn’t need to use my conscious brain at the Three/Six. This is the Eisenstein juxtaposition moment that makes film a unique art form. The subconscious does the work.
Good Switch. The momentum of the Four pauses and shifts in a scene that stands alone.
Great Seven. The sweetness of Reacher choosing Roscoe when he wants to tell thrilling news is subverted at the Nine. He reveals everything about the crime to a person who’s in the same room (unwittingly) with the villain. It has all the consequence I could want in a Seven decision, and it’s layered with tender emotion. Seven beats don’t always get this beautiful level of complexity.
Alrighty. One more episode to go!