Posted in: Amazon Studios, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: Alan Ritchson, amazon, lee child, prime video, Reacher, season 3

Reacher Season 3 Star: Jack/(SPOILER) Smackdown Will Be "Marvel"-Like

Reacher Season 3 star Anthony Michael Hall teased an epic encounter between Alan Ritchson's Jack and someone with a serious size advantage...

For fans of Prime Video's Alan Ritchson-starring Reacher, May has been a pretty good month in terms of learning more about the upcoming third season. During Amazon's Upfronts last week, we learned that Season 3 would be hitting Prime Video screens sometime in 2025. Now, we're learning more about the season itself from season star Anthony Michael Hall – whose Zachary Beck ends up on Jack's radar – and not for anything good. Without giving too much away, we learned earlier this year that the third season would be tackling Lee Child's seventh novel, 2003's Persuader, with Reacher going undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past. During his exchanges with Hall's businessman, Jack finds himself face-to-face with a very formidable foe – and at this point, we're throwing on the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" sign and throwing down an image spoiler buffer – you've been warned!

That formidable foe comes in the form of Paulie – who will be portrayed by Olivier Richters (Black Widow, Borderlands). Standing at 7 feet, 2 inches tall, "The Dutch Giant" will give viewers a chance to see how Jack deals with someone who clearly has a physical advantage over him. As Child writes in the novel, here's how Jack describes his opponent: "This guy was at least six inches taller than me and probably ten inches wider across the shoulders. He probably outweighed me by two hundred pounds. Maybe by more." Speaking with CinemaBlend in support of his film Trigger Warning, Hall teased that the two "colliding" will result in "something Marvel" – with "two superhero-sized guys" slugging it out.

"He reminds me of Jaws from [the James Bond film] 'The Spy Who Loved Me.' He was a literal giant, like seven feet two. That character [Paulie] does live in the show, and they have an epic battle," Hall shared. "I don't want to give it away, but yeah, they definitely meet as they do in the book. You know, Reacher and Paulie colliding – it's something Marvel about that, right? They're like two superhero-sized guys, so it's kind of cool."

Reacher Season 3: What We Know So Far…

Back in January 2024, we learned that the third season would be tackling Lee Child's seventh novel, 2003's Persuader, with Reacher going undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past. In February, we learned that Anthony Michael Hall & Sonya Cassidy were joining Ritchson and the returning Maria Sten (Frances Neagley) during the currently-in-production season. Hall's Zachary Beck is a formidable & successful businessman  – and a widow and single father of a 20-year-old son, Richard – who owns a rug import company that Reacher believes is a cover for some shady dealings. Cassidy's Susan Duffy is an extremely intelligent and tough DEA agent from Boston with a sharp and sarcastic sense of humor.

In March 2024, we learned that Brian Tee had joined the cast in the series regular role of Quinn. A physically imposing and intimidating character, Quinn was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army whom Reacher (Ritchson) investigated a decade prior when he sold military secrets to hostile nations. In addition, Johnny Berchtold was cast in the series regular role of Richard Beck, a sensitive and artistic college student who lost his mother when he was young and is the only son of businessman Zachary Beck (Hall). Five years ago, he was the victim of a traumatic kidnapping that left him mutilated.

Roberto Montesinos' series regular Guillermo Villanueva is a DEA agent on the verge of retirement who has served as the mentor and father figure of Agent Susan Duffy (Cassidy). Paunchy with bad knees and a good-natured sense of humor, Villanueva loves and cares about Duffy – even though they bust each other's chops all the time. Daniel David Stewart's recurring Steven Elliot is a clean-cut rookie DEA agent – a lovable guy who's fresh-faced, new to the job, and still learning.

"Neagley [returning] was a strategic decision. The one thing you cannot do on screen that you can in a book is have the inside of somebody's head. Reacher thinks a lot, and there are pages and pages of Reacher puzzling things out. You can't write an eight-minute scene with Alan Ritchson sitting there, thinking. So we needed a secondary character to bolster the exposition," Child explained during an interview with Empire Magazine. As for the series jumping around when it comes to the novels that it's choosing for its season's inspiration, Child explains that it makes perfect sense – and fits with the story they're trying to tell on the small screen. "There was no reason to do them in order. We had massive discussions about it. The thinking went like this: 'Killing Floor' introduces Reacher as a person. So, which book shows his professional life and what he did while he was in the Army? The result was 'Bad Luck And Trouble,'" the author added.

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