Sometimes, The Greatest Fantasy is When Bad Guys Get Exactly What’s Coming to Them – ‘Neagley’ Review

I have not read Lee Child’s original novel that serves as the foundation for Reacher, a series that is best described as “what if a big man did great deals of violence to deeply evil people.” In 2022, we were introduced to Alan Ritchson playing a book-accurate Jack Reacher as he deals a series of corrupt cops in a rural town in Georgia. Come season 2 in 2023, we get a little more back story about his time as a military police officer. Season 3 in 2024 was the infiltration of an arms trafficking ring. And just this year, season 4 we saw Reacher in the city of Brotherly Love inadvertently stumbling onto evil machinations. Let’s not make any mistakes here: Reacher is copanganda. Reacher is a former military police by the time these stories take place, but Reacher’s ethos is “I am the one good guy who knows how to use violence for good, and I will use incredible violence for good.” This is peak copanganda. However, copanganda is one of my favorite types of escapist fantasy largely because it portrays a world where bad guys are actually punished for committing unspeakable acts of evil. It’s hard not to root for a man who will not capitulate, will not compromise, and will not give up. Especially when he manages to gather a group of equally good people willing to put their lives on the line for a just cause.

Which brings us to one of the mainstays of Reacher’s supporting cast: Neagley. Neagley is also a character defined by their …