‘Reacher’ season 3 ending explained: Did Reacher get revenge?

Amazon Prime’s Reacher, based on Lee Child’s popular book series about an ex-military giant who travels the U.S. in search of criminal organizations and conspiracies, just wrapped its explosive third season.

Season 3 follows Reacher (Alan Ritchson) as he squares off against an old rival and works with the DEA to infiltrate a gun-smuggling operation.

Along with Ritchson and Reacher regular Maria Sten, who plays P.I. Frances Neagley, the Reacher season 3 cast includes Anthony Michael Hall, Sonya Cassidy, Johnny Berchtold, Brian Tee, and Olivier “the Dutch Giant” Richters.

The season 3 finale wove several narrative threads together throughout its eight episodes. Read on as we break down the Reacher season 3 ending — including the fights, deaths, reconciliations, and romances.

What is Reacher season 3 about?

Set in New England, Reacher season 3 finds our hero infiltrating a rug-importing business that’s a front for an arms-trafficking operation overseen by Xavier Quinn (Tee). Quinn, it turns out, is Reacher’s old nemesis, a former military man who, years before, went rogue and killed one of Reacher’s colleagues.

Reacher works with DEA agents Susan Duffy (Cassidy) and Guillermo Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos) to go undercover in the rug-importing front, which is led by businessman Zachary Beck (Hall). The DEA tasks Reacher with rescuing a kidnapped informant, Teresa (Storm Steenson), who’s become embroiled in the affair.

As Reacher worms his way deeper into the operation, he uncovers a plot involving Russian gangsters, Middle Eastern terrorists, and a hulking lug named Paulie (Richters), who’s somehow even bigger than our titular hero.

What book is Reacher season 3 based on?

Reacher season 3 is based on the 2003 novel Persuader, Child’s seventh Jack Reacher book.

Who wins the fight between Reacher and Paulie?

Reacher wins the fight with Paulie, but just barely.

Like the famous brawl between Roddy Piper and Keith David in John Carpenter’s They Live, Reacher and Paulie’s highly-anticipated fight kept going and going and going, with Paulie seemingly rising from the dead after an underwater scuffle.

Reacher was only able to defeat Paulie after retreating to the guardhouse, where they fought for control of a massive machine gun hanging from the ceiling. Paulie eventually wrestles control of it, but not before Reacher can plug the barrel with a bullet.

“You shouldn’t have f—ed with me. I’m bigger than you. I’m stronger than you,” Paulie says right before pulling the trigger and having the gun explode in his face.

“You might be bigger and stronger,” Reacher says to his dying combatant, “but I’m smarter.”

Ritchson spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the intensity of the climactic fight, which he said took three weeks to film. It was clearly worth the effort, but Ritchson didn’t come out unscathed. His insistence that he do his own stunts resulted in him getting knocked unconscious.

“The whole point is you just watch Reacher get ragdolled for five minutes straight,” he told EW. “And I was like, ‘This is fun. I like that this is the idea for everybody right now.’ And I get the bright idea to shoot a stunt in a way, because I was like, ‘I want the audience to know that I’m doing this for us. I’m taking one for Reacher and we’re all in this together,’ and so I wanted the camera to come up and just stay on my face the whole time while I get smashed through a table on the barn floor.”

He continued, “Everybody was like, ‘You’re going to get killed and we’re not going to do that because it’s going to hurt you too bad. And so we’re going to do it with a stuntman and a camera on the floor.’ And I was like, ‘No.'”

Ritchson eventually got his way. “I got picked up and we worked out the camera thing a few times and he slammed me through the table so hard, I went through it into the seventh circle of hell,” he said. “And I woke up a day and a half later. When I came to, I had to tell my kids that I felt great, because they were on set, and I didn’t want them to think that like, dad died and was going to not be okay. It was the worst few minutes of my life.”

Does Reacher get revenge on Xavier Quinn?

Of course, but not without strife. Reacher, after all, isn’t the only person who wants Quinn dead. It turns out the arms dealer owes a great deal of money to the Russian mafia, who are on his tail.

After Reacher, Neagley, Duffy, and a bloodied Villanueva disrupt Quinn’s arms sale at Beck’s 50th birthday party, Quinn finds himself torn between a shotgun-toting Reacher and a whole gaggle of Russian mobsters. They tell Reacher to back off, but Neagley saves the day with the bag of money meant for Quinn’s guns, asking the mobsters to exchange Quinn for the cash. They agree, but only after she threatens to destroy the cash with a grenade. (That the grenade is just a prop is beside the point.)

Quinn is eventually left alone with Reacher, but he still doesn’t remember him due to the retrograde amnesia he suffers. After Reacher says the name of his fallen colleague, though, the briefest flicker of recognition lights up Quinn’s face. That’s enough for Reacher, who fires off a shotgun at him.

Later, Duffy tells Reacher that he’s off the hook for Quinn’s murder. “Far as [the DEA] is concerned, the Russians did it.”

Did Richard reconcile with his dad?

One of season 3’s most impactful characters is Richard Beck (Berchtold). Previously, Richard was kidnapped, and his father, Zachary, only paid the ransom after the kidnappers cut off his ear. (Their relationship is understandably strained.)

As the season unfolds, Zachary realizes how deep he’s gotten into the criminal underworld after losing an ear of his own, and thus vows to protect his son. He attempts to fulfill that promise in the finale after Quinn takes Richard hostage, pulling a gun on his boss to save him.

Quinn kills Zachary, but not before Richard can escape. “I told you I wouldn’t let them hurt you again,” he says before dying, holding Richard’s hand.

Later, Richard tells Reacher that he “got to see the good in him before he died. I just wish I got to see more of it when he was still alive.”

The last we see of Richard, he’s leaving his father’s house behind with a bag full of cash by his side.

Do Reacher and Duffy end up together?

If the two previous seasons have taught us anything, it’s that Reacher isn’t one for commitment. He and Duffy had a fun tryst, but nobody would call them star-crossed lovers.

“I like not having to check in with people. I’m better at doing my own thing,” she tells him. “Which sucks, because out of anyone I’ve ever spent time with, you might be my favorite.”

“You stole the speech I normally say,” Reacher cracks.

How does Reacher season 3 end?

In the final moments of Reacher season 3, Reacher nicks a motorcycle from Beck’s estate and rides off into the great wide open of coastal Maine. Where is he off to? Well, that depends on what book the producers decide to adapt next.

Before he goes, Neagley drops a little wisdom on him. “I figured it out. Why you do what you do,” she says. “It’s not because you need to put things right. And it’s not because you love the little guy. It’s because you hate the big guy. You hate the big, powerful, smug sons of bitches who think they can just get away with things. So you make sure they don’t.”

Yep. That sounds right.

Where can I watch Reacher?

The first three seasons of Reacher are streaming on Amazon Prime.