Reacher – Season 1 Episode 3 “Spoonful” Recap & Review

Spoonful

Episode 3 of Reacher picks up right where we left off, with Roscoe angry and determined to get revenge. After someone broke into her house, she’s not taking any horsesh*t (her words) anymore. She hands over her family’s pistol to Reacher. Roscoe wants it back though, given it’s precious to her, but for now they leave together. Finlay and Jasper have IDed the second victim.

The victim’s name is Pete Jobling and he happens to be a trucker for South freight Shipping. His record is clean too, minus a traffic violation. However, that charge then turned into disorderly conduct but he was let off after being defended by Zacarias Perez LLP. It’s a pretty fancy firm and it doesn’t look like they usually go for truck drivers.

Someone from secret service called Molly Beth soon rings and wants to speak to Joe. Only, that’s obviously not going to happen. When she finds out about Joe’s death, she’s beside herself and begins sobbing.

Eventually Molly composes herself long enough to tell Jack what’s happening. It would appear that Joe was actually the director of the Office of Investigations. Specifically, he was in charge of a big anti-counterfeiting department. He was chasing something international, potentially from South America.

Joe’s assignment saw him on a covert mission to Margrave and he even assigned the mission to himself. No one else knew about this, minus Molly though who was “close” with him. She agrees to keep everything confidential while collecting up the documents needed to find out what’s really going on.

For now, the gang decide to keep up pretenses with Roscoe at the station. When she arrives, Teale is there waiting. He hands over a list of potential men to check out. Of course, all of this is just a front but she plays her part.

While this is going on, Finlay manages to track down Spivey’s home address and shows up to talk. After breaking in, it seems no one is there. The place is a mess though, mostly through Spivey’s own devices, but he notices the man’s phone on the bedside table, with numerous calls to Kliner. However, cops soon break in and beat him down, believing Finlay to be a robber.

Meanwhile, Reacher heads off to visit Zacarias Perez at his office. It doesn’t take long for him to ask for Jobling’s file. After threatening the lawyer with a phone cord, Perez hastily prints out the details needed and hands them over.

The trio eventually reconvene at a little restaurant called Jolene’s. As they sit and eat together, Reacher confirms that the shipping company were contracted to Kliner Industries. Kliner even paid the trucker’s legal fees. This, combined with Spivey’s numbers reading Kliner, appears to hint that Kliner is the one responsible. So naturally, Reacher is going to “kick the hornet’s nest.”

With Finlay by his side, the pair head off and visit Kliner Sr. Strangely, there’s not a single security camera outside. That’s certainly odd and as they’re shown inside, Reacher notices plenty of deer heads up on the wall, noting that these must be the work of skilled marksmen.

In Kliner’s office, Kliner explains that he got a decent lawyer involved with Jobling because he wanted to keep his drivers on the road. He claims he has no knowledge on what’s going on and takes offence to their questioning.

In fact, Kliner gets under Finlay’s skin and suggests this evidence trail is a dead-end and he should leave it. Finlay though, refuses to do so and throws a threat of his own, claiming he needs to stop impeding the investigation. Reacher can hardly hold his smirks in.

When they head back into town, Reacher urges Finlay to pack his things and leave. After all, they’re not sure who to trust and if Kliner is behind this, those earlier threats aren’t going to go down well. Roscoe’s place was busted into and there’s no telling if they’ll do the same with Finlay. So naturally, he’s moved to a motel just outside town.

While this is going on, Reacher remains intent on finding Spivey. He deduces that he’s the key to all of this. In his absence, KJ shows up and sees Roscoe at the gas station, ruffling her feathers and calling out Reacher for being a murderer. Apparently he killed a bunch of civilians in Baghdad. Roscoe refuses to listen though and drives off, although KJ claims he’s just trying to “look out for her.” Yeah right.

Reacher learns that Spivey has skipped town with a couple of Spanish men but, realizing he’s being followed, takes the opportunity to get the jump on them first.

As the two Spaniards check the empty car that he jumps out out of just prior to this, Reacher sneaks up behind them and shoots the pair dead. Grabbing the gloves he picked up at the bar, he finds a wad of cash in their pocket. Unfortunately he also finds Spivey in the trunk with a bullet between his eyes.

The Episode Review

The third episode of Reacher sees all roads lead to Kliner but is this one big red herring? It seems like it could be Kliner but potentially KJ instead, who’s the real shady character here. It’s tough to know who to trust in this but there’s a really good mystery growing with every episode.

This chapter really helps solidify Reacher as a competent player in this game and there’s a great use of humour interweaving around the more serious crime drama elements of this show. This works alongside some solid action and a lot of mystery that makes for an enthralling watch.

Reacher has been really enjoyable so far and the ending hints that things are about to get a whole lot more dangerous from here on out.