I’m not familiar with the books, but I am familiar with the rule of the superfluous character. Col. Hortense has to be a secret bad guy, right?
I’ve watched the first 3 episodes, but I’m just going to wait until the end of January when they’re all released to watch the rest.
I thought the same thing, except that perhaps it was beneficial to the uninformed viewer to know that Reacher was performing calculations. Those of us who know Reacher well are very aware of his abilities.
I’ve thought about that in many of the books. In Worth Dying For (the book about the trio of bad brothers and one son in Nebraska), all the bad guys expire either in a massive fire or in a cornfield. Reacher tells the good guys to hire a bulldozer and bury everything, including the bodies. I know it was an isolated county, but surely somebody had questions?
“Diner reservation for (x bodies.” Charlie will show up with a crew.
The only thing that really pulled me out of the show into reality, was Reacher, a size XXXXXL finding clothes his size in a convenience store. 
Great line “I am a first person shooter”.
Doc, what would be unbelievable is if they had a size S. The convenience store demographic is going to start at XL.
While the second part is true, that stuff is just about always made in China, and they like to ship a lot of size small. A dozen shirts would be 2 S, 4M, 3L 2XL 1XXL. And of course the larger sizes do sell out first.
And now for your friendly neighborhood hijack:
I was setting up members to serve on a committee and spoke with people by phone before meeting them. One item to cover was that all members would get a free t-shirt. In speaking with one gentleman, I asked him what size t-shirt to order for him, he replied by saying a four. I was confused and asked him to clarify and he said 4XL. I didn’t know that was a thing but relayed the order and when we met, he was a very large man -nice as all get out- who did indeed require an XXXXL size shirt.
Not the fact that a guy that size probably needs about 6000 - 8000 calories a day to maintain it… He’d need to be eating and working out constantly.
Yeah - in an earlier ep, he pushed away a barely touched burger. I thought, "No way!)
TV and Film meme- tough guys dont eat or sleep.
Tom Cruise is not one of my favorite people, but I think his acting is a better fit for Reacher. Physically, he is all wrong of course. The writing probably helps as well. The TV dialog is wooden
Quite frankly, the dialog is not a major feature of the novels.* The action, obviously, is a large part of the story line, but a lot of the plot is carried by Reacher’s thoughts and internal reasoning. Hard to put that into a TV episode.
*I’m always struck by this line, which shows up repeatedly in the Reacher books:
“Reacher said nothing.”
It’s fun having a proper-sized actor in the role, even though he has a gym bod, which really isn’t Reacher.
Right. But in the books, Reacher always says to eat and sleep when you can.
The final shot in episode 6 left me with misgivings. I thought “Are we going so spend an hour watching a 6’4” 250lb man beat up a guy twice his age and half his size?”
I’ve mostly been enjoying this season, for the reasons mentioned in this thread.
A few questions/comments (NO BOOK SPOILERS PLEASE):
(1) In the flashbacks, there is (at least?) one member of their team who seems unaccounted for in the present day… the older black guy. Has he been mentioned? Did I just miss it?
(2) I’m having serious misgivings about this latest development (Reacher surrendering himself). My recollection of season 1 is that it really went of the rails at the end, starting with the bad guys having captured Reacher, knowing full well how ludicrously lethal he is, and then NOT immediately killing him. That pattern seems to be repeating itself.
(3) I also agree with another commenter that all the talk of Hortense’s name being Hortense has to come back somehow… right? I was kind of expecting him to be dirty with respect to the drug investigation. Maybe he was and that’s why he was trying to steer the team away, and now he’s somehow behind the whole Little Wing deal? But so far it seems like Robert Patrick is the man in charge? Guess we’ll find out…
I’m enjoying the season, but I have a few criticisms. The big one is the action - Say what you want about Tom Cruise, but his action scenes were stellar. They were stellar because instead of smash-cuts to hide the fact that the actors really don’t know how to fight, Tom Cruise spent the time to learn how to look like a fighter, then they spent lots of time to choreograph long fight sequences so the audiences could really see the action.
Reacher, like a lot of lesser action shows, solves the ‘actors can’t fight’ problem with fast cuts, zoom ins and dark rooms so you can’t see what’s actually happening, etc. It just make fights lok chaotic and lacking in any kind of strategy or nuance.
My memory of last season is that the action scenes were done better. But maybe I’m misremembering.
My other criticism is that there are to many other action tropes that make writing easier. Bad guys who announce their plans when captured, gunfights where a million rounds get fired at the good guys, by supposedly well trained bad guys, with no one getting so much as a scratch. But the god guys can hit a running bad guy at 50 yards with a handgun. Group fights where the bad guys take turns instead of all rushing the good guy at once. That sort of stuff. I can take a little bit of it, but too much takes me out of the show.
You’re not - season 1 had some excellent, well lit, fght scenes - the jail (twice), the alley, etc.
This season seems ‘bloated’ and not as well paced. Reacher from season 1 just got things done - while he gave folks a countdown before obliterating them, he didn’t quip with “anyone tell you you’re going to die tonite”, etc.
and I am not entirely happy with his robbing random drug dealers, taking money from the bad cop, etc.
And yeah - seriously - walking up to the bad guys camp and the bad guys don’t immediately put one thru his head?
And Cruise - yeah - he delivered it - “I mean to drink your blood from a boot” - “And that should scare you, because I’ll be in your blindspot” - You knew you were in trouble.
He died years before in a car accident. It’s mentioned in the discussion when the unit is catching Reacher up on the old squad.