The extra-legality of what’s going on in Reacher Season 3 is laughably obvious, but at least Susan Duffy knows this. “A rookie, an old fart, and a gigantic vagrant we barely know” – and it is she, a seasoned federal agent for the DEA, who is “the idiot that put them all together.” So we’re not going to criticize how Eliot, the rookie, is left to monitor a bad guy these agents have manacled to a chair in their motel room, where he overhears their every move. We’ll let it slide that Villanueva, the old fart, is somehow willing to risk his pension on a totally unauthorized operation. And we’ll go along with Duffy deciding to utilize Reacher, an unknown entity with no federal jurisdiction, to try and re-calibrate a case her team’s warrant-based negligence already banned them from officially working.

We’re cool with all of this, because in Reacher, the justification for why something happens matters much, much less than whatever beatdowns are distributed by its titular destroy boy.

In Season 3 Episode 2 of Reacher, a henchman with the unlikely name of Angel Doll (Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz) is first up in this department. Angel discovered how Duffy and Reacher faked the kidnapping of Richard Beck – this would have been easy for anyone to figure out, but like we said, justification matters little – so Reacher bounced his head off a desktop Post-It spike before snapping his femurs by hand and stuffing the guy’s body under a desk. Or, exactly the kind of creative brutality a show founded on the ridiculous premise of a wandering giant who is his own judge, jury, and executioner should always be doing more of. 

Angel Doll did offer Reacher a few tidbits of intel in the minutes before his life ended. “Who gives a fuck what Zachary Beck thinks?” he laughed, which set up Reacher’s leading question: “Who exactly do we work for?” If Beck isn’t the boss of Bizarre Bazaar, the rug importing business he ostensibly runs, then who is? And what else is being imported? Is it drugs, like the feds suspect? People? These questions move him closer to determining how Beck is linked to Francis Xavier Quinn, Reacher’s old army nemesis who has recently and mysteriously resurfaced.

Neagley’s back! Well, almost. She’s only on the line, as Reacher uses his tiny shoe phone to call his friend and former master sergeant in the 110th Special Investigators for background on Angel Doll, Paulie the XXL gate guard, and Chapman Duke (Donald Sales), Beck’s chief of security. Neagley can hear the notes of warning in his tone. “What are you up against, Reacher?” But he ends the call. 

Our prediction? That tone will be all the justification Neagley requires to involve herself in Reacher’s latest scrap. She has never known him to worry about anything, let alone be fearful. But for now she’s still in Chicago, while in the meantime Reacher is developing a solid working rapport with Agent Duffy. Zachary Beck has him driving a Bizarre Bazaar straight truck from Maine to Connecticut, so Duffy and Villanueva meet Reacher at a highway rest stop, where they inspect the truck’s payload. Just rugs, no drugs. And no Teresa Daniel, either, Duffy’s missing informant. In the cab, Duffy says Reacher seems to know from experience what a guy like Quinn might do to a woman like Teresa. But when she presses, he says nothing, and his eyes grow distant. “OK,” Duffy says. Like Neagley, she recognizes the change that comes over him. “I get it.”

At the Beck mansion, Reacher isn’t making any friends amongst the security staff. So he does what he always does, which is to deflate tough talk with sarcasm and make pointed observations to get under their skin. Duke almost catches him snooping around on the grounds, but Reacher climbs through his room’s window just in time to make it look like he was showering. And in the downstairs exercise room, when Paulie makes a big show of bench pressing max weight, Reacher unnerves him by casually dismissing the display as proof of nothing. “Bavarian arm wrestling,” now, there’s a challenge that will determine who is the stronger, huger guy. But it’s a bit. As they both strain their biceps, Reacher suddenly lets go, causing Paulie to punch his own face. Played for laughs, the scene is also a prelude to the deadly fight these two are bound to get into, whatever its shape.

While the kid’s botched abduction was only a ruse to gain access, now that he’s in the Becks’ orbit, Reacher does find himself growing sympathetic toward Richard. The young man is an art student, but is confined to painting only what he can see from the sunroom of the estate. Is he also some kind of prisoner? Richard’s relationship with his father is also stunted, like it stopped growing after his mom died when he was six and Zachary Beck’s business became his singular focus. With the insight he has gained from just a few hours on the inside, Reacher is starting to wonder who’s really in control around here – as well as who or what is being controlled – while continuing to compile his mental list of who will need a beatdown. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.