REVIEW: Reacher – Season 3, Episode 6, “Smoke on the Water”

Television Reviews

This is a rough one. “Smoke on the Water” has some great moments, including a few satisfying kills, and it certainly advances the season’s plot. But it also has some of the dumbest moments of the entire series, more evidence that these writers are good at action, mystery, and thriller plots but have no idea how to craft an undercover cop narrative. Smart characters act stupid, an obnoxious character continues to be obnoxious, and season 3 continues to be the worst Reacher season yet.

Reacher finally comes face to face with Quinn, but the results aren’t what he expected. Beck finds himself on Quinn’s bad side. Reacher must put his trust in someone close to Beck. Teresa Daniels’ fate is revealed.

The big cliffhanger at the end of “Smackdown” turns out not to have been much of a cliffhanger at all because “Smoke on the Water” quickly reveals that there was no incoming twist, and Quinn was the mysterious Julius McCabe all along. I get it, but it still feels weak; why go through all the false name stuff if it’s just going to end up being who everyone assumed from the beginning? They could have just had Beck show Reacher a picture of McCabe or have Reacher see them talking or something. And that isn’t even the worst part of the opening scene: Quinn doesn’t recognize Reacher because he has retrograde amnesia! But although he doesn’t remember Reacher, he seems to remember how to be a gun-running criminal mastermind with overseas connections. Talk about lucky! Moreover, while Quinn is sick and tired of Beck’s constant screw-ups – the most recent being hiring a maid who turned out to be an undercover ATF agent – he likes Reacher, the guy who killed all those fake traitors inside Beck’s crew. In fact, he likes Reacher so much that he can’t stop talking, volunteering information about Teresa Daniels and why he needs her alive. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter that Reacher is so bad at undercover work because he’s infiltrated a criminal organization run by idiots.

***SPOILERS***

The opening scene of “Smoke on the Water” does reveal some important pieces of the season’s puzzle, though. First, Reacher learns that Teresa is still alive because she’s a redhead, and Quinn’s buyer likes redheads, so she’s being offered to him as a free gift with purchase. That doesn’t seem logical to me; if Quinn knows she’s an undercover operative, why would he risk keeping her alive just to sweeten a deal that’s already been made? Certainly, anyone rich enough to buy the kind of weapons Quinn is selling can afford his own redhead, and any benefit from handing her to the buyer would be offset by the trouble she could cause if she escaped. It feels like they couldn’t think of a reason why Quinn would keep Teresa alive and went with the most far-fetched excuse they could come up with. Then, Quinn brings Reacher as backup when he meets his financier, a bigwig in the Russian Mafia whom Quinn needs to pay back. The Russians want their money, which they were supposed to have by now, and they’ll carve Quinn up like a pumpkin in the fall if he doesn’t give it to them soon.

The Russian element is a boon to the season because it helps explain why Quinn is so angry and prone to violence. He’s got the Sword of Damocles hanging over him, and he has to rely on people who aren’t all that bright (not that Quinn looks like a criminal genius right now, either) to complete his business, so he’s always one mistake away from death. This is why he keeps such a close eye on Beck, and it’s why he goes to such extremes to secure his cooperation, like slicing his son’s ear off. It’s also why he’s so sadistic; sure, it’s partly because he’s a demented psycho in general, but it’s also because the Russians have him wound so tight, and he’s in fear for his life. In this way, he’s a good mirror to Reacher, who is under pressure from being found out as an insider and is under threat from a similar overwhelming force: Paulie, Quinn’s gargantuan henchman, who is Reacher’s physical superior. Last week, Reacher acted out over his fears by punching Harley in the stomach so hard he puked; in “Smoke on the Water,” Quinn does the same by forcing Beck’s son, Richard, to play Russian roulette for his amusement. (The fact that the game has “Russian” in the title is not an accident; Quinn is doing the same thing with actual Russians.) It’s frustrating that Reacher can be so good in scenes and plotlines like this yet so bad when it comes to the undercover story. Nevertheless, Quinn is a well-drawn baddie, which is impressive because he’s only really had this episode to come into his own.

This puts another big plot point in both a good and bad light. “Smoke on the Water” is the episode where Reacher is finally outed as a spy in Beck and Quinn’s outfit. It’s good because it finally ends the shoddily written undercover part of the story, but it’s bad because it means the dichotomy between Reacher and Quinn is over as soon as it’s established. They should have brought Quinn in earlier to flesh this out some more. This happens when Quinn discovers that Reacher’s friends have been investigating him and sends assassins to take out Powell, the MP who helped get Reacher some information, and Neagley. Powell is a goner, but Neagley, unsurprisingly, takes down the hit men sent after her with help from a coffee cup and the quietest keyboard in the world. I wondered when Neagley would be drawn further into the story, and it turns out it happened because Quinn made the mistake of trying to kill her. (She also has a great line when interrogating one of her would-be killers.) But the connective tissue between Neagley and Reacher tells Beck that he’s in league with her, and suddenly, Reacher is on the run.

This is a good thing because it puts Reacher – and the writers – in more comfortable territory, and from here on, “Smoke on the Water” is lots of fun. Reacher heads into the woods outside Beck’s estate with Quinn’s men chasing him, so he goes full Rambo, blending into the forest with mud and taking out his pursuers one by one. And they’re great kills, too, aside from the couple he shoots at the outset; the showiest one is the guy he strangles with help from an all-terrain vehicle, but I’m a bit partial to the guy he stabs. Reacher doesn’t use multiple attacks to finish him off, preferring to watch him bleed to death slowly. It’s pure Reacher, giving bad guys what they deserve, and it’s as fun as it’s always been. He visits similar justice on Harley, whom he and Duffy trail to a boat where Teresa is being held… or, at least, she was, until Quinn had her moved. Duffy knocks Harely around, but it’s Reacher who gets the information out of him by jamming a hook into his foot; and when he’s got nothing left to give, they leave him to blow up on the boat. It’ll be a couple of episodes before we see Reacher get the guys we really want him to kill – Quinn and Paulie, plus those two guys who kill Powell – but the evildoers are starting to get paid back, and it’s very cool.

Some odds and ends in “Smoke on the Water” move the plot along, albeit clumsily. Reacher discovers that Beck was an arms dealer before Quinn got his hooks into him; in fact, that was why Quinn chose him among the many importers skirting customs. He learns this by asking Beck directly, and while I have an easier time buying that Beck would be so forthcoming than Quinn – Beck is angry and scared, and Reacher is prodding him to let some things off his chest – it’s still lazy and seems like a really stupid move. I’m a little disappointed; I liked the idea of Beck basically being a good guy who was forced into this by Quinn. Instead, he’s just a criminal who got outflanked by a more dangerous one. Later, Richard learns that his kidnapping was staged and Reacher is undercover, and this happens in another dopey scene where Villanueva, who acted as the cop Reacher was supposed to have killed in the kidnapping, stumbles into a meeting Reacher is having with Duffy just as Richard walks by. I’m starting to understand why these people botched their earlier attempt to get into Quinn’s organization. It puts Richard in a position where he has to choose whether to cover for Reacher and give him up, which is good, except – again – the undercover part of the story is over this week, so not much comes of it. And, to put a cherry on everything, Duffy kisses Reacher, then gets angry and blames Reacher for it, just in case anyone found her even slightly tolerable. “Smoke on the Water” is disappointing in its ineptness, but at least it means the next two episodes should be really good.

Let us know what you thought of “Smoke on the Water” in the comments!

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