REACHER S3 Ep1

I started watching episode 1 of REACHER season 3 yesterday because I watched season 1 and quite liked it. In that, I thought the relationship between Reacher and Roscoe was well created, and I think Alan Ritchson is quality (as is Willa Fitzgerald). Like many other viewers, I then gave up on REACHER season 2 as I found it much less engaging.

Big kid that I am, I like the Jack Reacher character, however (the classic outsider-loner vigilante), and hugely admire Lee Child; so thought I'd take a look at REACHER season 3.

Episode 1 of REACHER season 3 begins with Jack Reacher witnessing an abduction attempt involving vehicles outside the shop he's in. He gets involved, saves the abductee, and shoots a cop in the process. What’s wrong with this opening scenario from a screenwriter’s POV?

Everything is wrong with this opening scenario from a screenwriter’s POV.

In terms of plausibility, it’s a huge stretch that a crime takes place just when Reacher turns up. Worse, it isn’t a crime that has anything to do with him, either; so he isn’t following trouble around (as, say, James Bond, Indianna Jones, and Jason Bourne follow trouble around as they travel towards the reality of the fiction they are in); trouble follows Jack Reacher around. Why? Because that’s what, ya know, Reacher is all about. Trouble.

This doesn’t work, because even if you forget about the unlikelihood of a major crime just happening to take place just when Reacher shows up, the crime is not causally (and urgently, with much at stake) connected to anything that has gone before involving Jack Reacher. This is like James Bond having a cuppa in a café minding his own business, and Blofeld and his goons shoot up the local bank outside by chance.

It’s absurd.

Bond will resort to violence to stop Blofeld doing bad things in a way that is causally related once he learns that he has to for the greater good and his own (or vis-versa). As such, the story will be coherent as a narrative (plot). It won’t ask the audience to accept ludicrous coincidences in the name of the spirit of the show. Instead, it will take them on a journey.

So Jack Reacher just happens to be there when this crime happens, and then …

And then he shoots a cop. In most people’s books, cop killing is the activity of criminals, who we are then at liberty to detest. But Jack Reacher shoots this cop by mistake, thus prompting the audience to see him as a bad guy. But he’s supposed to be a good guy (even though he’s a mass murderer, sociopath, and apparent psychopath).

Within five minutes, then, Reacher season 3 episode 1 makes what seems to me to be two serious mistakes that alienate the audience, and which treats the viewer like a child.

It is soon revealed that the opening scene is a flashback, and so isn't actually the beginning of the story. Reacher isn't there by chance; it's all part of a complex plot, and is a ploy to get under the criminals' skin. This renders my criticism void, but I think it is worth bearing in mind. It also questions the use of flashbacks and non-linear narratives generally.

If the 1st episode of REACHER season 3 had been told in a linear way, the viewer would know that Reacher witnesses the crime in scene one for a reason, thus binding the audience to the opening scenaro in a more surefire way. I will say at this point ...

Avoid flashbacks if you can. There are usually just confusing.

It doesn’t matter if you are a new screenwriter or if you have been hired to write a new season of a well-known streaming serial or the next Marvel, erm, marvel - know that...

As a screenwriter, your audience will rumble the things you can’t, of you don’t.

The crime Jack Reacher gets involved in at the beginning of episode 1 of REACHER season 3 was actually a consequence of prior events involving him within this story. My initial impression of the story was incorrect. And the rest of the story and episodes 2 and 3?

Pretty good. Standard REACHER stuff. Bread and butter. But good.

As a professional screenwriter and screenwriting mentor, I can help you to write a script that will be appealing because is dramatically innovative but coherent. The screenplay I will help you write or write for you will feature interesting but relatable characters you can like or hate easily. The screenplay characters will do things in your screenplay that make sense intuitively, or don’t make sense initially (and which are exciting) that are explained later.

To find out how to nail your next film or episodic screenplay, hire me to write your film screenplay for you or fix one you’ve written, get in touch.

Happy screenwriting.