This article contains spoilers for Reacher season 2 episode 3, "Picture Says a Thousand Words."
Reacher season 2 began with an explosive three-episode premiere that set up this season's compelling mystery. Whilst Reacher season 1 saw our drifter tackling a conspiracy in Margrave, the second season has upped the ante: now, he's linked up with some of the other Special Investigators to track down whoever is killing their ex-comrades.
Episode 3 saw the group confirming that New Age had a part to play in the death of their friends (and almost set them up for an ambush!). Plus, Reacher found a new ally in Gaitano "Guy" Russo, and he and the rest of the 110th began to unravel some of Franz's data. Here's a full breakdown of everything that happened in Reacher season 2 episode 3...
An uneasy alliance
The third episode of Reacher season 2 opened by revealing Calvin Franz's fate ten days before the investigation. Shane Langston had his goons torturing him for info. Since Franz steadfastly refused to give anything up about the 110th, he was dumped out of the back of the helicopter.
In the present, Reacher shops for some weapons for himself, O'Donnell, Neagley and Dixon. Whilst en route to a motel, they end up being pulled over. Reacher is placed under arrest by detective Gaitano "Guy" Russo (the same detective who is soon revealed to have been following them, since he was investigating Franz's death). Whilst being placed in custody, Reacher he tells Neagley and Dixon to look into New Age and drafts in O'Donnell to serve as his lawyer.
Neagley and Dixon meet with New Age's Director of Operations, Marlo Burns and talk Burns into looking up who the parking pass (the one from Saporian's car) belonged to. Burns returns with the name Trevor Saporian, a man who ran an office maintenance company, and hands over the address that was listed on his resume.
Meanwhile, Reacher and O'Donnell are led into a side room at the station; Guy wants to talk to them about the case and tells them the pair have so far actively interfered in his investigation. The three men get off on the wrong foot (Guy accuses them of being involved in the case, and Reacher insinuates Guy could be a corrupt cop, which Guyvehemently denies), but reluctantly agree to cooperate on the case.
Guy eventually reveals the police have a suspect. After extracting the memory card from Franz's printer, they found an unfinished job in the queue, which mentioned Azhari Mahmoud, a man known to Interpol as a weapons broker. Since this alias matches the list of initials Franz already had, they suspect Franz, Sanchez, and Orozco were onto a way bigger case than they first thought, something Reacher said was 'known to happen' in their line of work.
Slipping the net
We then flashback to a previous case from the Special Investigators, which looked to be a simple bar fight gone wrong (leading to the death of a soldier, Private Simms), but the Special Investigators collectively worked out this case connected back to the aviation fuel incident Dixon had spotted that was mentioned in an episode 2 flashback.
Back in the present, after a chat about Dixon and Reacher hooking up, Dixon susses out that the list of numbers from Franz's hard drive was a list of dates. Elsewhere, Guy tells O'Donnell and Reacher that a name on the list of aliases, Alexander Markopolous, was pinged in the system. They had just purchased a flight from Denver to JFK, so the police set up a sting operation to intercept him at the airport.
We then see how that investigation plays out, but "Mr A.M" realizes what's going on. He calls Shane Langston to say he's going to be delayed (much to Langston's annoyance) but assures Langston that their deal is still on. A.M. doesn't think the authorities know much about whatever deal he and Langston have going, but Langston is anxious to close the deal as soon as possible. Their conversation ends with A.M. thinking up a plan to make it into New York with no ID; he spots a bus bench ad for cosmetic surgery, with a surgeon who looks remarkably like he does.
Later, Reacher and O'Donnell return to the motel. After sharing her breakthrough with Reacher, the group plans an assault on Trevor Saporian's address. When they arrive, Neagley picks the lock, and then Reacher chucks a homemade nail bomb through the open door, taking out several armed thugs hiding inside.
The assault
The four 110th members sweep the building; Reacher takes out a couple guys with ease in the kitchen, but O'Donnell and Dixon get into a brutal battle with two more goons upstairs. Dixon runs out of bullets and looks to have met her end during the fight, but O'Donnell kills the man fighting him just in time to take out her attacker and save her life.
Downstairs, the three of them regroup and are shortly joined by Neagley, who had cleaned up upstairs. Out on the street, Reacher spots someone waiting in a van; when the driver speeds off down the road, Reacher gives chase on foot. Neagley sprints up to the roof to offer him directions, and Reacher manages to throw a barbecue at the windscreen, which forces the driver to veer off the road and crash into another vehicle.
Reacher wrestles the guy out of his van and demands to know who he works for, but the guy (Brian Collins, a name Reacher gets from his wallet) has a heart attack and dies. Reacher tries to save him, but he's too late. He returns to the rest of the gang and they leave the scene as a neighbor calls the police — they took Brian's car last minute, in case they need to make use of a new vehicle later down the line.
Guy drops by the motel room demanding to know what the hell they're planning. Reacher explains they collectively assumed they were being set up: the hitmen who tried to kill them in Atlantic City had a parking pass for New Age, and then there was an ambush crew waiting at the address for the person who was issued that pass.
Guy tells them that A.M. never showed up at the airport, and had planted some fake info in the neighbor's statement so the cops shouldn't be coming after Reacher. After making it clear he wants the 110th to hang fire until he says anything new, Guy leaves with a New Age badge (and a phone number for Reacher's burner phone) to support a warrant to investigate the company.
Unfortunately, Reacher plans to do, in his words, 'a whole lot of cowboy shit'. The four of them break into New Age's HQ to gather whatever info they can before the police arrive on the scene. Inside, the gang grabbed hard drives, data banks, and documents and rallied at the car.
Dixon, O'Donnell, and Neagley arrive at the car and prepare to make their escape, but Reacher shows up just in the nick of time. In a parking lot, Reacher shows them what had distracted him inside the building. He unrolls a New Age staff photo on the bonnet of their SUV, and points to Swan (another member of the 110th) hidden in the middle of the crowd, right next to Shane Langston.
Reacher season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video. New episodes arrive on Fridays.
