#125: Killing Floor by Lee Child

Reacher season 1; Source Material, Vol. 18

This was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the TV series discussed here wouldn’t exist.

Greetings readers!

Lee Child’s creation Jack Reacher¹ is the overdog who always wins. And I’m fine with that. I’ve read three Reacher novels and each one was entertaining. I never worried about Jack, he’s like the gray man. The question is never “will he get out of this?” The question is “how will he do it and how many bad guys will he take down with him?”

These books know exactly what they are, and they aren’t trying to be anything else.

Last year, Prime Video released an adaptation of Killing Floor, Lee Child’s first book that started it all. They called it Reacher and it’s the physical manifestation of the spirit of the book.

But before we talk about that series, I have to briefly discuss the two Tom Cruise movies that came before it.

The Cruise Era - One Shot & Never Go Back

I’ve only been a fan of Jack Reacher since 2016 when I was podcasting about book to screen adaptations. One of our episodes covered the novel One Shot (book 9) and its adaptation, the 2012 film Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, and directed by Christopher McQuarrie². The book had a great mystery, an action-packed finale, and the character of Reacher checked every male fantasy box.

The movie was also really fun. Cruise brings his signature confidence and intensity to the role. Cruise is larger than life, at least to me, so I never once thought about him being too short for the role or not the right fit. Many book fans disagreed, but not being on Reddit and Twitter left me blissfully ignorant to their complaints.

I also read Never Go Back (book 18) and enjoyed it. It was a page turner and introduced some new ideas and challenges for Reacher. But the 2016 movie was abysmal. So abysmal that the Tom Cruise-led Reacherverse was now over. No more movies. I was bummed about that but went on with my life, as we all do after being heartbroken by a lousy book adaptation. I read a bunch of books (none by Lee Child), watched a bunch of movies and TV, and didn’t think about Jack Reacher.

Jump ahead to 2022. Along comes Prime Video with a new series that has a killer title and a guy named Alan Ritchson.

Ritchson as Reacher

Calling the series Reacher is stroke of genius number one. Simple, clean, no messing around.

Casting Alan Ritchson is stroke of genius number two. This guy is the man and yes, I’m going to talk about his size and make a quick joke about that, BUT I have other reasons why he’s the man.

Ok let’s talk about his size. He’s a big dude. A solid 7 inches on Cruise, yet still 3 inches short of the 6’ 5” book version of Reacher.

When I see this:

It’s impossible for me not to think of this:

6’7” Aaron Judge next to 5’6” Jose Altuve. Bob Levey/Getty Images

Ritchson is not only tall, but he’s also built like an ox. He spent 8 months bulking up for the role and got to show it off by being shirtless roughly once per episode for 8 episodes. That is good for business.

I hope I can look like this at 39. Source

Ok, so maybe having a huge guy play Reacher is a good thing. Let’s move on from his size. If that’s all he had going for him, this show may have flopped. But Ritchson is a fantastic Reacher. He did his homework on the character by reading all 20+ books in the series (I love that), but he also made it his own and was good at taking direction. He can be stoic and intimidating and he can show vulnerability when needed. He can deliver a deadpan line or a complicated monologue. He can do the action and performed many of his own stunts. I’m all in and I hope he gets to do many more seasons of the show.

Why Killing Floor rules

The book had a solid antagonist with a great master plan. Sometimes you’re reading along and enjoying the mystery and how things unravel and you get to the big bad guy reveal and it takes the wind out of your sails. “That’s it? That’s the master plan?” In the case of Killing Floor, the master plan was cool and smart and it made the entire reading experience solid.

Why Reacher rules

This show knows what it is - it’s an adaptation of a Jack Reacher book! It’s not trying to be Succession or Game of Thrones or prestige TV. It wants to appeal to book fans and a general audience with action, an intriguing mystery, and great characters.

This show has action and violence in abundance. Some shots linger a little too long on mutilated bodies for my taste. The antagonists are brutal and Reacher hits hard right back.

The mystery is the same as the book, so that worked. It slowly unravels across the 8 episodes and I thought it was perfectly paced.

What works best in the show are the character dynamics. Reacher has solid chemistry with the other two leads, Finlay played by Malcolm Goodwin and Roscoe played by Willa Fitzgerald. Both are book characters that are refreshed and reimagined for the show. Finlay and Reacher have an entertaining “frenemy” dynamic where Reacher teases Finlay for not swearing and Finlay is always stupefied that Reacher can eat whatever he wants. It’s fun.

Finally, the writing was good! We need to pay our writers! One of the best lines is Finlay to Reacher: “Your punch to syllable ratio is 1:1.” I also enjoyed this line: “I can ruin your life with one phone call.” To which Reacher replies: “And I’ll end your life with one phone.” I ate it up.

Have you read this book or seen the series? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading,

Kyle

1. My copy of Killing Floor had an intro by Child with how he came up with the name Reacher: “In the supermarket—and this is a common experience for tall men—a little old lady approached me and said, ‘You’re a nice tall gentleman, so would you reach that can for me?’ My wife said to me, ‘If this writing thing doesn’t work out, you can always be a reacher in a supermarket.’ I thought, great name! And I used it.”

2. Question: Would we have Mission: Impossible 5, 6, 7 without Jack Reacher? Maybe not. I shudder at the thought.