Why would Reacher & co throw away the drug dealers gun? Make no sense.
Childs and movie/TV writers do this a lot- you need guns, but you dont pick them up when available.
They already had a bunch of pistols - they didn’t need another one.
And picking up and carrying a firearm that may have been used in the commission of a previous crime leaves you open to the possibility of a mistaken association with prior criminal activity. I don’t even like buying used firearms from a legitimate gun store much less picking up some random gun of the ground from a known criminal who has likely used it in some previous murder. Do I look to you like I have brain damage?
Stranger
Of course, they had no problem with taking the white powder from the dealer’s pocket.
Yeah - THAT is the ONE thing I didn’t believe about the show! 
Didn’t that get tossed down a sewer grate?
No, the gun got tossed down the grate. The drugs were used to entrap the legislative aide, Daniel Boyd.
Oh right, that was the first time Reacher robbed the drug dealers.
Note that was exactly how, in the first epi, Reacher got his first gun this season.
I really like Reacher and enjoyed reading this thread. 
Some thoughts:
- I’m pleased they got a large actor. Tom Cruise is jolly good at action films, but for Reacher specifically he’d be best producing or directing
- in the commentaries Alan Ritchson states that he felt uncomfortable doing so little ‘acting’ … but the Director kept saying “Great job!”, so he stuck with it
- I’ve read 31 of the novels (I recommend them all ) and am happy both with the casting and the level of violence
- as a chap with Asperger’s Syndrome, I don’t see Reacher as a fellow autistic. Rather I think his upbringing on military bases, constantly travelling and coping with new local teenagers shaped his character. I think he likes numbers and sees patterns in them
- I was delighted when a character from the first season turned up unexpectedly
If I am not mistaken, robbing drug dealers is more or less routine for Reacher when he arrives in a new town and quickly needs cash and/or a gun. And it is established that he does have brain damage 
My read on him is that he’s a deeply asocial person - he likes other people, but he doesn’t need them around. I also thing that he’s the kind of guy whose work was his entire life (which makes sense, as he literally grew up in the military), and he doesn’t really know how to relate with people outside the context of work.
I think Reacher’s deal is simply that he wants to be completely free. No commitments, nothing to keep him from walking away when he feels the urge, no one depending on him, no oved ones to worry about protecting or getting hurt by collateral damage, etc. When he gets tied down, bad guys use the people around him to get to him. If he cares for something, it’s a weakness.
I don’t buy that. He definitely cares for his team - and no dye-in-the-wool military guy like him would consider that a weakness.
Reacher - Pipe Bomb and extended firefight with about 8 dead in a residential Queens neighborhood.
NYPD Cop who Reacher beat up in Ep.1- I’ll cover for you this time, but you have to stop with this cowboy stuff.
Followed by Reacher telling his crew, “Let’s go do some comboy stuff!”
But sometimes you need an unregistered throw-down gun [I only killed this guy who threw my friend out of the helicopter after he drew a gun on me.]
I hate this one episode at a time bullshit!! I WANT THE WHOLE THING!!!
Loving each episode. I cry ‘NO’ when credits roll.
I think his acting is terrible. I get that Reacher is a bit weird, but Ritchson just has no variety or spark in his delivery. No question he looks the part perfectly, but he’s boring to watch, which is a shame. He’s not at all helped by the dialogue writing, which is almost as bad as his acting.
That said, the show - like the books - does not really rely on good acting or dialogue to work (his fellow actors are nothing special, either). It’s all about a propulsive plot that, like Reacher himself, moves relentlessly forward. I think they’ve done a good job capturing that momentum. It’s a fun watch if you turn your brain off.
Some weird small things they’ve gotten wrong in the show:
- Reacher can do (and enjoys doing) complex calculations in his head. It’s part of the pattern recognition that makes him a good investigator. In the books he comes across as a bit of a savant in this area. But in this show they have him writing out basic calculations on a piece of paper, for no good reason that I could see.
- The “not good at driving” thing already mentioned, that they’ve subverted for again no good reason that I could see.
Despite all this, I am enjoying it for what it is.
Very well put. Every ep, I find myself thinking, “This is pretty crappy - but it IS fun to watch!”
The body count seems more excessive on screen than I recall from the books. I’m sure as many folk died. But reading about it seemed somewhat less excessive than seeing it and thinking, “So exactly who cleans up all of those bodies, and how do they explain it?”