Midweek Mention... Reacher
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RSS Feed This week on Bad Dads Film Review, Sidey, Dan and Reegs head to Margrave for the first episode of Prime Video’s Reacher, “Welcome to Margrave”, starring Alan Ritchson as Lee Child’s wandering ex-military policeman, blues enthusiast, pie-denied murder suspect and extremely large problem for corrupt small-town criminals.
The dads start with their own Reacher experience. Sidey has not read the books and is watching the series for the first time, Dan once started one but did not finish it, and Reegs is currently listening to Killing Floor, the first Jack Reacher novel, on audiobook. This naturally becomes a brief celebration of audiobook actors, a debate about whether Ritchson has borrowed from the narrator’s delivery, and the important possibility that Jack Reacher might be read by Alan Carr or Julian Clary in another, better universe.
The episode itself wastes no time establishing the essentials. Someone is murdered in the dark by a professional-looking killer, the body is beaten after the shooting, and then Reacher arrives in town as a pair of boots, shoulders and pure physical inconvenience. He spots a man being aggressive to his partner outside a diner, says almost nothing, and the man wisely decides that perhaps today is not the day to find out what happens if you square up to a human wall.
Reacher then enters the diner, orders the famous pie he has been told about, and is arrested before he can properly eat it. The police cannot get handcuffs around his wrists, so they use cable ties, which tells you most of what the show wants you to understand about Alan Ritchson’s version of the character. Detective Finlay, a Harvard-educated outsider in a tweed suit, interrogates him, only for Reacher to dismantle the murder theory, explain that there were multiple people involved, and profile Finlay’s life with the calm confidence of Sherlock Holmes after a very aggressive protein phase.
The dads follow the plot through Hubble, the terrified banker who confesses to a murder he clearly did not commit, the mysterious phone number hidden in a shoe, Chief Morrison’s suspiciously convenient evidence, and the decision to send Reacher and Hubble to prison for the weekend while the police chase bus-company footage. In prison, Hubble immediately becomes fresh meat and Reacher immediately becomes the one person you would want standing between you and everyone else. He gives Hubble practical advice, refuses a cavity search on legal grounds, and then demonstrates his conflict-resolution style: a tiny bit of verbal warning followed by broken noses, eye gouging and very efficient shower-room violence.
The appeal, as the dads see it, is not subtle but it is very effective. Reacher is huge, clever, calm, decorated, right about nearly everything and capable of doing horrible things to people who have earned them. Reegs describes him as a hulking serial killer crossed with Sherlock Holmes, while Dan lands on “Sherlock Schwarzenegger.” The show leans into that fantasy rather than apologising for it, especially once Finlay discovers Reacher’s military-police background, secret medals and experience leading the 110th Special Investigations Unit.
The first episode ends by making the case personal. After Reacher and Hubble are released, Reacher is allowed into the morgue, where he studies the body and realises before anyone says it out loud that the murdered man is his brother. It is a strong cliffhanger, and Dan admits it worked well enough that he and his wife carried on through the whole season together, partly because the show keeps dropping just enough cliffhanger bait to make the next episode very easy to press.
There is also the unavoidable comparison with Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher, though the dads try not to completely give away the film-review conversation. Alan Ritchson feels much closer to the book’s conception: enormous, intimidating and physically central to every scene. Reegs likes the way the character’s size informs his philosophy, especially the idea that Reacher hates seeing bigger people push smaller people around and exists to push back harder. That gives the violence a simple moral shape, even when the show is gleefully pulpy about it.
Verdicts land warmly. Dan thinks the series is predictable and guilty-pleasure television, but also very watchable and stronger than the film version they are about to discuss elsewhere. Sidey is a little weary of the mysterious stranger arriving in a small town as a one-man army, but thinks this is a good version of that setup, likes Ritchson, and may download more for a no-Wi-Fi trip. Reegs is firmly on board, praising Ritchson, the character and the way the later seasons apparently widen the idea of who Reacher is beyond medals, machine guns and being very difficult to handcuff.
So the Bad Dads verdict on Welcome to Margrave is a strong recommend: pulpy, chunky, well-shot Amazon action comfort food about a giant clever man arriving in a corrupt town, not getting his pie, and making that everyone else’s problem.
We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
Until next time, we remain...
Bad Dads
Sease one part one of Reacharound Week. It's could about be the last time the first and last time we did that. Yeah. Reference.
SPEAKER_01How many Reach Rounds have you had this week? Just on None.
SPEAKER_00Given? Loads. We're talking about the season one, episode one of Reacher, currently on Prime.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Will be released on the same day as the finale of season four comes out. You excited?
SPEAKER_00I am quite excited, yeah. Okay. This is my first time. Yeah. Seeing them we're also going to talk about the movie because we did that for the upcoming main episode. But this is my first time watching the series. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Read any of the books?
SPEAKER_00No. I have not.
SPEAKER_02No, do you, Diane? You were most likely to in my mind.
SPEAKER_01I started one of the books before, but I didn't finish it. Um because you didn't like it? No, I I think it was a time where I had two or three other books going, and it it's a very easy read kind of you know, page turning.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm listening to the audiobook of The Killing Floor, the first one at the moment. Right. So about halfway. He's good. He's really good. And actually, I think Alan Richardson has borrowed a couple of the intonations of things that he uses or who reads it? Alan Carr? Oh no, it's not Alan Carr. Julian Clary. I don't know who it is, actually. Somebody. Generic, like Butch voice dude. It's probably somebody really good because they usually choose great actors.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're fantastic, the people that read the audiobooks. They can often do like all the characters and you know, even the the women's voices and the men's voices depended on on who they are doing and just take you into a you forget about you know what they're doing. The the actors I listened to Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, and I don't know whoever that guy was who did it, but it was just like absolutely blew me away.
SPEAKER_00They bring it to life in a different way. Yeah, this is titled Welcome to Margrave this episode. And it's what happens.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00It turns up in this Marlowe.
SPEAKER_02It is an adaptation of the first novel, the one I'm listening to, The Kidding Floor, the debut of Jack Reacher. And just to sort of set the scene, he is basically an enormous man who's right about everything and beats the shit out of people who deserve it in really horrible ways.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's very stoic, certainly when he turns up at first.
SPEAKER_02You don't we at first I think you get the you g get the shot of the murder at night.
SPEAKER_00You do, yeah. Something and it looks like a cornfield or something, and someone with a silencer takes someone out and then fucking beats the shit out of them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he bends down to collect the bullets and he's wearing protective stuff, so you can see this like a proper assassin, nothing. So it gives him the thrashing as well. Yeah, but then bit beats the body to a pulp really horribly afterwards, after he shot it in this professional way. Just one guy at the beginning, and then he just sort of hides it under like really badly underneath some cardboard boxes. Yeah. A bit strange. And then after that, we just see Reacher, but you don't see him at first. First, you just see his boots, then you see over his shoulders. He's fucking enormous a guy. The actor is six foot two, Adam Richardson, the character is six foot five, and they play it closer to the character's sort of size.
SPEAKER_01Is he only six two? Yeah. He even looks taller than that, actually, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00He he sort of rocks up, doesn't he, when we see him in his full size. Outside of Dinah? Yeah. As the guy comes out, he's having a Barney with his missus and being real pushy with her and accusing her of I can't do this when you're being and he just turns his head to look at them, and the guy sort of stupidly tries to square up to him.
SPEAKER_02Like, what are you looking at? And the the way they shoot him is so big, you actually can't see the guy as he's mouthing off. You just see his shoulders.
SPEAKER_00And you're like, honestly, you if you were a fella mouthing off, you would just take one look at this guy and immediately shut up, you'd be like, Turn around and go, What are you looking at, asshole?
SPEAKER_02Well, that is, I mean, that is in fact what happens, right? After all this mouthiness, suddenly the guy kind of sizes up. Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00It would take me less time than it took this guy. I'd be like, oh shit.
SPEAKER_02And he starts back down, he's like, Oh, maybe I'm just having a bad day and moves off, and then Reacher goes off into the I don't think he's even said anything.
SPEAKER_00No, he says nothing for ages. He he's obviously says something, but we don't hear it. He orders some pie. Yeah. And he's given a a speech about how this amazing this pie is, and it's just has I think he gets someone his fork. I don't even know if he gets to eat it. No, it's a recurring thing across Ritcher of the City. The police cops turn up shouting and pointing rifles at him and shotguns and arresting him. Nothing seems to face him.
SPEAKER_02Well, in the book, of course, you've got the background to this, and he's completely he's seen them as they're coming. He's already assessed the situation inside the restaurant, he realizes they're there for him as he looks around. He's like, There's a kid, there's a local, there's the owner. So he and you know, he knows that they're on the situation. Well, that's it, because he's a combination of like a s like a huge series. And Sherlock Holmes at the same time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So they do come in and Sherlock. They like scream at him and say, You're coming with us and don't move, you know, move slowly, let me see your hands. And then he turns up at the police station and the the clerk behind the desk looks and says, you know, cable ties, and they're like, Well, the the the handcuffs wouldn't fit around his wrist. Yeah. And I was watching a game, well, I'm pretty sure he could just and he does let him when he'll flex his and he's just picked up.
SPEAKER_02He asks them if he can take them off, and they say he can, so he just they can't find the cutters, so he just breaks them with his hands. But yeah, so he's arrested and processed and talked to by Finley, who's a kind of black guy in his forties, Harvard educated, wearing a tweed suit. But he looks like a fit. He's always known by his last name. That's me and Reacher have got that in common. Just one or two things me and Reacher have got in common.
SPEAKER_01Well, as I watched more of these. He felt he was more like me. I I I couldn't tell the difference in the end. No, even his mum called him Reacher.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Would you think that's her surname as well? Because his name's Jack. But why would you go like Yeah, Reek. Does your mum call you Reeks? No.
SPEAKER_02Good. But I can imagine a family where that did happen.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, I suppose there you go. Seems strange to me.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, he's Finley, the detective, is giving him the big rundown about you were spotted at midnight, where this body was, and uh you're connected, you've been seen, and that's when he points out, actually, your theory's completely wrong, there were three guys there, not one, and all this sort of stuff. So he does all the Sherlock Holmes type thing. And then he profiles Finlay himself about being divorced and all that stuff, so we get to see his mind in action, don't we? And basically, Finley sort of believes it, but it's complicated by the fact that his police chief has sort of corroborated the story of him being there at midnight or seeing a guy fitting his description. Because he's gonna do things by the book, he's like, Well, you've got to go to jail for the weekend.
SPEAKER_01Because we've got to get the cameras from the bus company who are notoriously precious about giving up their footage. Well, you think you'd need a subpoena or something, wouldn't you? So you're gonna have to stay there until we verify that you're gonna be able to do that. He's very he's very cooperative.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, because he knows like he knows, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01He plays the game.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So meanwhile, Finley has also got a phone number from the is I can't remember if this is just in the book or in the show as well. In the shoe. In the shoe, yeah, is the name of someone and a phone number and he rings it up to find out who it is. No, is that not the series?
SPEAKER_01No, that's right. He he's he's found a phone number in the bottom of the shoe, but I'm not sure at this stage he he's called the number.
SPEAKER_02They go out to see the guy anyway, Hubble, who immediately confesses to the killing, even though he gives several details that are completely inaccurate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Basically, and he's looking at furtively out the window because there are sinister people in black cars. Just driving by. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That only he can see when he looks out the window, it seems.
SPEAKER_02But it transpires through a lot of shenanigans that basically Reacher and this guy Hubble end up going off to prison together. Yeah. He's confessed, Hubble. Yeah, Hubble has confessed that he's terrified of the spend the weekend until his ab alibi's cleared up. Yeah. And Hubble's like already on the bus there looking for his protection, and Reacher's completely blanked him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But when they get there, there's that weird cop, Spivvy, who tells him he's got to give him a cavity search, which Reacher refuses. But on a on grounds of pure legal precedent.
SPEAKER_01And and Reacher has already helped Hubble in the sense that he said, look, leave your ring and your watch here, because that's the first things they're gonna have off here. Yeah. And he's just taught him a couple of things about prison life before they get there. And they're gonna be not in the general population, they're gonna be in a separate wing in kind of protective custody almost of the police area, but that gets fucked up. Some c police cop guard has obviously been misinformed and well as part of a bigger conspiracy. We know that a little bit da later down the line, yeah, but has put them in with general population and they take a a liking to Hubble straight away. They're thinking this guy is fresh mate. Fresh mate.
SPEAKER_02They come in and take his glasses and crush him on the floor, and then he's basically straight to suck me off before Reacher sorts out the situation. And you get to see him, all the good parts of his fighting, like he does attempt to sort of verbally de-escalate the situation by imposing himself, but then he's sort of like, Oh, I'm gonna give you to the count of three, and then on two, he starts breaking people's noses and like gouging people's eyes with his thumb, and like he's just trying to end the fight as quickly as possible.
SPEAKER_01But in the moment, kind of small space, he beats up this guy, and the other guys get the picture and carry him out, but then it's gonna come in the yard again, reaches sizing out who's gonna be the bad ass who's gonna rule the roost. Yeah, and sure enough, they come through him in the showers. They do and there's a massive beatdown session as well.
SPEAKER_02Another one he just beats the fuck out of him, but it's clear like somebody's targeted them.
SPEAKER_01It's not just Yeah, and he's this nerdy little guy who's just stuck next to Reacher the whole time. I mean, if Reacher goes down, he's going down because he won't survive a second. But Reach is too tough to go down.
SPEAKER_02He does get hurt a bit, but yeah, ultimately he beats the shit out of people. Meanwhile, we're getting that bit of his backstory. So while this is happening, Finley's finding out that he's actually a military, former military policeman, a cop inside the military trained to date to take down trained killers. He ran the 110th Special Investigators Unit, and he's like a major decorated beyond all beliefs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's got medals they've never even heard of because they're so secret and impressive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. One of those great, like just how brilliant is this guy speeches.
SPEAKER_00Um and Well Hubble Hubble's they know he well, Beach knows he's confessed but hasn't done it. But he's protecting something. There's some reason it has to be a reason why he's confessed to a murder he didn't do, and that's because there's this bigger conspiracy that people will come after his family or whatever, you know, because so that that's why he's done that.
SPEAKER_01But at the moment, at that time they don't know whether he's involved or not, and they're just trying to get a bit more information. And it as it comes out after the big fight in the bathroom, another cop police uniform guard comes and says, What are you doing here? You should be in this other unit, and that's where they should have been, and they get put back there, so they're relatively safe then.
SPEAKER_02Well, then they're released after that because Reacher's story is corroborated. There's video footage of him on the bus getting off and walking off. And Hubble's story is also corroborated by a policeman who took him home or something, one of the other guys, right? So he couldn't have done it. And then this in a real breach, I think, of police protocol, Reacher is allowed to go to the morgue where the body is. That originally kicked off the whole thing. Yeah. And they start talking about his dental work and you can see his mind going and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00I suppose because they know he's a investigator himself, kind of sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, it does seem a bit like a bit of a breach of protocol, really. But and then he works out before we get the big reveal that the dead body is his brother who'd sent him on. The reason he kept insisting the reason he was in town was on the advice of his brother who told him to come and find this musician Blind Blake. That's the whole reason he was in town. So and that's the end of the series, seasons, episode even. Yeah, it's the beginning of the season.
SPEAKER_01It's the beginning of the season. The the the season. I actually got the text from the missus who watched this separately to me, and I said, Oh look, I've been watching this and 20 minutes in. Do you want to watch it? Oh, yeah, I'll watch it. We'll watch it together. So she went and then watched the the whole first episode and said, Oh, bloody hell, this is good. Yeah, you know. And because he gets his shirt off and he's got absolutely huge guns. He's fucking jacked. And we ended up watching the entire first season through this week.
SPEAKER_02So it's a big well, then you know that it goes on to be it's about counterfeiting the first one counterfeit money. It's all about counterfeiting and and Finley and Richie go on to have a really good relationship. Yeah, you see a bit of boob. Oh, you do see a bit of boob. No, I was thinking of the the copper is also.
SPEAKER_00Whose boob is it? The blonde chick from the front there.
SPEAKER_02And and the blonde chick. Yeah, Roscoe. Yeah. Yeah. They have a bit of a romance. And his sidekick Neely turns up to save the day at the end of the Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I think what made me it's like a guilty pleasure, right? You know, it's like you know, is I I I don't think I've ever guessed the next line of dialogue in a movie or a or a show so much as I did this one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's pulpy and very aware of his tropes. It's that predictable and and he isn't gonna lose, and you know what's gonna happen all the way through, you're just waiting for it to happen. Yeah. So clever it's not. Reacher is like you know, he's a super clever actor and not actor, super clever character. And actually, when we talk about Reacher, is the actual actor here is much more what I'd expect to see in the books than when we go and have a look at Tom Cruise's Reacher.
SPEAKER_02And they certainly nail the fact that a crucial aspect of the character is just how fucking big he is. Like that is a real and he uses his size to influence situations. And as the seasons go on, they start to it's part of his philosophy as well. He actually doesn't like like he'll explicitly state he doesn't like it when people who are bigger than someone else can push people around and he's there to push back. And then Lee Child himself was he describes being a kid and being a big kid, a kid who was much bigger than other kids and had to be a bit careful with his power as a kid, and as you can see that in the character.
SPEAKER_01Who who makes a couple of cameos in both this and this. Yeah, he was Who's he in the movie? In in the movie, he's the police cop that gives it Cruz back his his stuff. As as he gets out of police at one jail at one point, and in this, right at the very last, there was just a very random kind of Hi, how are you doing? Oh, excuse me, moment when he walks into a cafe to the biggest part, and I was like, that's gotta be him, and I waited for the Oh I didn't I didn't see that. So I must say I struggled. I thought it was a bit meh. Like, even though I watched the whole thing and it was kind of oh, I'm gonna watch it because it always leaves on a cliffhanger, and it's like, oh, it's my brother, and it's this and it and you're in there, and I imagine it's quite like the book. I've not finished the book, it might have been this one, it's quite true to how the story went, and I think that's what kind of put me off the books that I just knew what was coming before I turned the page, and I'm just waiting to read those words with a few changes. But he's tapped into something where people really enjoy it and people really like it, and this one I I thought was a lot stronger than what we're getting. So I'll just talk about this without giving away what we're thinking about. Without giving away a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02If you like season one, maybe the season two and season three are a bit more in-depth about who he is as a person and probably step away a little bit from the he's got purple hearts and running around with a machine gun. Like season three, for example, has a long-arching thing about a guy who's way bigger than him and how he's gonna take him down and it's hanging over him the whole season. And sees it, you know, they they explore his relationship with women and his men, his proteges and that's because he he struggles with relationships and he struggles with getting to know people anyway.
SPEAKER_01I don't think he struggles with it. I think he's completely in control, he just doesn't want it, really. I wasn't sure. I I thought yeah, at one stage he's just like you can't even see what he's he's just like not normal and he's a bit of a dick. Like buttons he is yeah, he's he's he's so big and and strong that it's hard not to be in be impressed by his just physicality and his size and and everything that he does. And and his brain is obviously very quick and it's like the A-team for I was thinking A-Team is sort of stuff, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00An A-Team of one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But it's it's easy watch stuff, you know, it is not gonna take too many twists and turns. I mean, the thing about his brother, it it leaves the best bits to the last bit, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you you you want to see what happens. It's from Nick Sandy. Toro was the guy who brought it to the small screen who did the Sopranos or wrote for the Sopranos and for Prison Break, and that you can sort of see both of those things in bit.
SPEAKER_01And it was actually quite well shot. You know, it was it was nice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it does. Well Amazon throw money at stuff, don't they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. One more season and then he's out, I think.
SPEAKER_00Oh really?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I like him, Alan Richard. Yeah, I like him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, hard to say exactly what I think without commenting about the movie. Yeah. I preferred this. Okay. It did take me a few goes to get through it because I kept falling asleep, not because of the program and it was fucking knackered. But he's good. I am a little bit fatigued with the mysterious stranger turning up and it's a little bit more than a little bit. Well mad. Yeah. But this is a good ver version of that.
SPEAKER_02I think this one is the other seasons are different, and that's so they don't they are quite different. So that's you know, good seeing that character.
SPEAKER_00Once I get through with Barry, which I am on C three, halfway through season three, I might go back to this. Yeah. In fact, um we're away oh my god, my missus and I are away in a no Wi-Fi zone. Oh my god. So I might download a load of this to watch wh while we're in the basically in prison. Yeah. Yeah, so I'll do that. It could be a good she can lust over him. Yeah, so can I you can lust over him.
SPEAKER_01But so we we me and the missus both watched it together, and we don't watch an awful lot together. So it hit a sweet spot where we probably were both just about enjoying it uh enough. Like it wouldn't have been her number one show, and it wouldn't have been my number one show to watch. Oh one that you can meet in the middle is we can meet in the middle, exactly. And and so it had enough.
SPEAKER_02Something for everyone like that. Yeah. Something for everybody. They're doing a spin-off show. Oh, are they? Neely, the character Neely, she's got her own spin-off show.
SPEAKER_00This is the trouble with Amazon, they get once they this is what worries me about boys. No, Q, the Q miniseries young Q. Yeah. Oh man.
SPEAKER_01Young Money Penny.
SPEAKER_00See, I'd watch that one I'd be okay with, but yeah, there's just there's a lot of mileage there for them to tap into. But this strong recommend. Definitely. Do it.