Reacher Season 3: Release Date, Trailer, What Book It's Based on, and More

Both seasons of Reacher on Amazon Prime Video have been massive hits — not quite as massive as the hits Reacher unloads on some dude's face, though — and so it's entirely predictable that the streamer would beg one of its biggest TV shows to come back for a Season 3 (and Season 4!). Reacher's next violent adventure has a release date of early 2025, and if the new trailer is any indication, he's finally tangling with someone who will give him a decent fight.

The action drama — based on Lee Child's books and starring Alan Ritchson as the gargantuan, vagabond detective who roams from town to town with nothing but the clothes on his back — is a fan favorite, thanks to its free-range spirit, hasty delivery of knuckle sandwiches, Ritchson's pitch-perfect punching performance, and an abundance of humor, and we expect we'll be seeing Reacher solving mysteries for a long time. 

But when will we get to see Season 3? What book will Reacher Season 3 be based on? And which actors will be in it? We have lots of questions, and we'll answer as many of them as we can. 

Reacher Season 3 latest news 

After keeping fans in the dark for some time, Prime Video delivered a heck of a one-two punch of Reacher Season 3 news during Brazil's Comic-Con Experience 2024. The streamer announced the Season 3 premiere date — Feb. 20 — and released the first teaser trailer on Dec. 7. You can watch the trailer below.

Reacher Season 3 release date

Reacher Season 3 will premiere Thursday, Feb. 20 with three episodes, followed by new episodes weekly through the finale on March 27. (That's eight episodes total, just like the first two seasons.) The premiere date news was announced on Dec. 7 at Brazil's CCXP. 

Reacher Season 3 trailer 

Usually when Reacher is told to pick on someone his own size, it's because he's the bigger one. But in the first trailer for Season 3, which was released on Dec. 7, he's face-to-chest with a new foe who makes Reacher look like a toddler. Readers will recognize Paulie, the seven-foot juggernaut from Childs' book Persuader, as he brushes off Reacher's blows and swats him away. As Neagy says, "Last time I saw a guy twice your size was on Mt. Rushmore."

Which book will Reacher Season 3 follow, and what will it be about?

On Jan. 24, 2024, Prime Video announced that Reacher Season 3 will be based on Persuader, the seventh book in the Reacher book series. The logline is "Reacher must go undercover to rescue an informant held by a haunting foe from his past." Prime Video's series is working on its own timeline and isn't following the order that Child's books were released. Season 1 was based on Killing Floor, the first book in the series, but Season 2 was based on Bad Luck and Trouble, the eleventh book in the series. 

The official logline for the season, per Prime Video, is "Reacher hurtles into the dark heart of a vast criminal enterprise when trying to rescue an undercover DEA informant whose time is running out. There he finds a world of secrecy and violence—and confronts some unfinished business from his own past."

Season 3 will put Reacher back on a lone wolf adventure instead of working with the 110th, his old military police team, like he did in Season 2. Parts of Persuader are set in Boston and Maine, and the season is filming in Toronto.

"We've picked [the book] up, it's chosen," Child told The Messenger's (and TV Guide writer) Liam Mathews before the Persuader announcement was made. "It's a good choice, I gotta say. I think we've been very creative about how we've sequenced the type of story." He continued, "We felt we needed a book that was more Reacher alone for the third season. And so it was a question of which story would work best for that, and which one would have a great opening scene and all of that, and we found one that we loved."

Back in December 2023, before Season 2 premiered, Ritchson told Collider, "There's no combining books, that I can tell you. There's enough meat on the bone in a book for a season of TV without needing to do that, generally speaking. But it's one of the favorites. I'll just say that. People are gonna like this book and it's gonna be one of the best seasons yet."

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Reacher Season 3 renewal 

On Dec. 2, 2023, Prime Video announced the Season 3 renewal from Brazil's CCXP Expo. Alan Ritchson shared the news in a video, as he is wont to do, along with an extended clip of Season 2, which you can see below.

Who will star in Reacher Season 3?

Alan Ritchson will be back as Reacher, or we riot. As for everyone else, the only other confirmed returning character is Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), who has been a big part of both seasons so far, but the level of her participation is not yet known. 

As Deadline reported on Feb. 8, Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club) and Sonya Cassidy (Lodge 49) were the first two major casting announcements of the season. Hall will play Zachary Beck, the owner of a rug import company whom Reacher suspects is using his business as a front for something highly illegal. Cassidy will suit up as DEA agent Sarah Duffy, who is said to be extremely smart and sarcastic.

On March 6, Deadline said Brian Tee will jump from one Prime Video show to another. Tee, who played Nicole Kidman's husband in Expats, will play Quinn, the season's villain who is a tough Lieutenant Army Colonel previously investigated by Reacher for selling secrets to enemies of the United States. Johnny Berchtold (The Passenger) will play Richard Beck, the son of Hall's Zachary Beck, and Roberto Montesinos will play retiring DEA agent Guillermo Villanueva, the mentor to Cassidy's character. Additionally, Daniel David Stewart will recur as rookie DEA agent Steven Elliot.

Given that Season 3 will go back to basics and send Reacher out on his own solo mission, it's no guarantee that we'll see Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan) or David O'Connell (Shaun Sipos), Reacher's pals from the 110th. (For his part, Ritchson has said that he wants to see more of the 110th.) We'd also suspect that Neagley will be used more sparingly, like she was in Season 1.

Fans of the show are clamoring for Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) to return, but that's just not how Reacher and Reacher operate. The guy can't even keep the same set of clothes for a season; how's he supposed to maintain any sort of extended romantic relationship? On the flip side, Season 1 character Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) made a brief appearance in Season 2, so familiar faces returning is not entirely out of the question.

Reacher Season 4 renewal

Good news: Reacher was renewed for Season 4 shortly after the release of the second season. Production on Season 4 will begin in 2025. 

Reacher spinoff series Neagley

Deadline reports that a spinoff focused on Reacher's buddy Frances Neagley is close to getting the greenlight, but there aren't any further details about what kind of story it would tell aside from likely being some kind of mystery that requires her unique skills to figure out. But since Lee Child didn't write any Neagley-focused spinoffs himself, it'll probably be an original story. And since the word is popping up now, before we even have a premiere date for Season 3 of Reacher, it could be that the upcoming season will set up the Neagley spinoff.

Reacher Season 2 review

In his review for TV Guide, Kyle Fowle says Reacher Season 2 is bigger and better than Season 1, because it's "allowed to be as gratuitous, goofy, and bloody as it needs to be." Read the review here.

Reacher Season 1 review

We were impressed with the adaptation of Reacher for the small screen in Season 1, and especially loved the casting of Ritchson as Reacher. Though there was room for improvement, we breezed through the episodes. It should also be noted that we felt the series got better as the season went along right up to the finale, but were only able to watch the first five episodes for review. Here's our review.

More shows like Reacher

If you're looking for more shows to watch that are like Reacher, we've put together a list. The shows included all share some DNA with Reacher, whether they feature a wise-cracking detective who does things their own way, shared cast members, or a big muscly dude who likes to punch people. Here are more shows like Reacher.

Where can I watch Reacher?

Reacher Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Prime Video.