Lee Child himself has been heavily involved in all Jack Reacher’s on-screen exploits. He was executive producer on the two Tom Cruise-led films from 2012 and 2016, and he was right there to shepherd his ex-military police officer character into the streaming age after fans decided Cruise’s relatively small stature just wasn’t cutting it. Child once again serves as an executive producer on “Reacher,” and as such has been on-hand to help steer this small-screen iteration of the work he created. That means he was not only present for much of the decision-making regarding season 2, but he was involved in the discussions themselves. Speaking to Empire magazine, the author revealed that he and the production team had “massive discussions” about which book to adapt for the second season, concluding that “there was no reason to do them in order.” He continued
“The thinking went like this: ‘Killing Floor’ introduces Reacher as a person. So, which book shows his professional life, and what he did while he was in the Army? The result was ‘Bad Luck And Trouble.’ That’s the thing with Hollywood people; they talk a lot, but they make sense in the end.”
You can’t really argue with the logic here, either. Adapting “Bad Luck and Trouble” allowed the writers to delve into Reacher’s military past much more thoroughly than in season 1, literally showing (via flashback) what he did day-to-day as the leader of the Special Investigators. Now that season 2 has wrapped up with an explosive finale, I think it’s fair to say fans of this streaming iteration of Reacher have a much more well-rounded understanding of Alan Ritchson’s hulking protagonist.