Reacher travels back in time for Season 3 Episode 4, as the series returns to the flashback format that popped up in Season 2. Our guy will trade his ‘I [Lobster] Maine’ T-shirt in the present for Major Reacher’s fatigues in the past as he relates an ultimately tragic story to Agents Duffy and Villanueva, a story brought about by the DEA verifying that Xavier Quinn – aka “McCabe” – is the actual boss of Zachary Beck’s criminal enterprise, and wondering how it is that Quinn got so far underneath Reacher’s skin. 

Here’s what that sounds like in an approximation of the, uh, wavering New England accent Sonya Cassidy is doing in Reacher as Duffy: “Oh-pen your gawd-damn mouth and tell me whut you been keepin’ to yourself, be-cawse Oy have a right to knoow exactly whoo werr dealin’ with.” 

Who are they dealing with? Only a slick former military intelligence officer who got on Reacher’s radar back in the army when he was selling blueprints for experimental weaponry to the highest black market bidder. A guy whose penchant for murderous coercion the military didn’t notice until it was too late. When Duffy notes Quinn is the same guy Reacher thought was dead, he corrects her. “The guy I thought I killed.”

Back then, when Sergeant First Class Dominique Kohl (Mariah Robinson) reported for duty with Reacher’s criminal investigations team, he immediately sensed her sharp investigative mind, dedicated work ethic, and eye for detail. With the two of them on the Xavier Quinn case file, they quickly nailed down the scope of his criming, leaned on a few of his buyers for information, and started bringing in his army accomplices for questioning. But even with all this, even with their discovery that Quinn had kidnapped an analyst’s daughter for leverage – sound familiar? – 

Reacher didn’t sense what Quinn was truly capable of.

In the present, Reacher is reflective while speaking with Duffy and Villanueva at the cabin where the DEA team is holed up. “She was gonna be great,” he says of Dominique Kohl. She had all the skills to move steadily up the ranks, and Reacher was careful to draw a bright line between his sergeant and her commanding officer, in order to nix any talk of gender bias and emphasize her professional agency. Thanks to her, their case against Quinn was solid, with strong evidence and all the key players secured.   

Reacher told Kohl to make the arrest. “You don’t put the final stamp on this, everyone will think you were just along for the ride with a senior officer. Put the cuffs on Quinn, Sergeant. You earned your moment.” 

Hours later, he discovered her body. Xavier Quinn had tortured Dominique Kohl to death.

After he caught up with Quinn, Reacher didn’t use his Army-issued service weapon to execute him. Those ballistics could come back on him, even if he did have the tacit approval of CID boss General Garber (Andreas Apergis) to do the deed. Reacher tells Duffy about how he used Quinn’s own small-caliber pistol, which proved to be another mistake when the .22 didn’t kill him all the way. “I assumed he was dead and gone,” Reacher says. Even now, he grits his teeth. “In an investigation, assumptions kill” – it’s one of Reacher’s oft-repeated axioms. And not following his own rule in the past has fueled all of the trouble Quinn/McCabe is causing in the present.

But Duffy shares in Reacher’s lasting guilt over sending Sergeant Kohl to her death. From her perspective, she did exactly the same thing. She inserted an informant like Teresa Daniel into the Bizarre Bazaar operation without authorization or any solid intel. Worse, she did it through coercion, too, hanging potential drug charges around Teresa’s neck. It was one thing when Duffy just had an informant gone missing. But now, as Reacher’s story suggests, a guy like Quinn might have tortured and murdered Teresa just to get his psychopathic kicks. “I fucked up, and now I gotta make it right,” Duffy says. And Reacher agrees they have that in common. 

Back at the estate, Reacher builds on his quiet connection with Annette (Caitlin McNerny), Zachary Beck’s housekeeper, who he impresses with his ability to speak French. (That his mother was French is a fast fact that surfaces throughout the Reacher book series.) As he thanks Annette for providing him with a set of fresh clothes – “Beck can’t have his no. 2 looking like number two – I mean I look like merde” – Reacher also takes back up with his Richard Beck reclamation project, offering the kid a few pointers on how to fight after their scrape with the bullies in town. But that sweet moment is cut short by Zachary Beck, who orders his new security chief back into the field. “Go help kill whoever has that laptop.” 

What laptop? Angel Doll’s laptop. Before Reacher used office supplies to kill him, the henchman was tracking all of Bizarre Bazaar’s supply routes and shipping manifests, data Quinn/McCabe has ordered Beck, his coerced flunkie prisoner, to retrieve. So Reacher heads out again. Beck knows where the computer is, thanks to a GPS tag, and has sent a new set of goons to rendezvous there with Reacher. But Reacher knows something more dangerous. It’s Duffy and Villanueva who have the laptop, and if he doesn’t get to their location quickly, there will only be more guilt on his conscience.

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.