‘Reacher’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: “What Happens In Atlantic City”

At least two of Reacher, Neagley, and O’Donnell’s former colleagues in the US Army’s 110th Special Investigations MP unit are confirmed dead, and they’re still having trouble raising the others on comms. Reacher knows the deaths are suspicious – it’s pretty hard to characterize Franz’s body being thrown from a helicopter as anything other than foul play – but they otherwise have very little intel on who’s targeting them and why. Which gives him cause to make an opening. To Neagley, he highlights a black sedan that’s been on their tails for the last 24 hours, and then we cut to inside that vehicle. “This fuckin’ beaut. What does he think he’s gonna do?” But Reacher’s already doing it. This is what it looks like when you kick a car in the face. 

Tumbling out of the sedan with a broken nose is Domenick Lombardozzi, who after receiving a head butt from Reacher followed by the old one-two is reduced to an unconscious heap. But it wasn’t a gun this guy was reaching for. It was his badge and identification. Gaitano “Guy” Russo is NYPD, and Neagley recognizes his name from the file on Franz’s murder investigation. “Raging Man Beast Wanted In Police Detective Beatdown” is a glaring enough headline for the group to leave town for awhile, so a drive to Atlantic City is in order, which is where ex-110’ers and currently missing pals Sanchez and Orozco operated a casino security service. Better rent a vehicle with third-row seating, though, because Reacher’s group has expanded again.

“How was the undercover job? Considering the circumstances, you would’ve come right away. But you didn’t, which can only mean you didn’t get our messages until recently.” And that’s how Reacher greets Karla Dixon (Serinda Swan), also formerly of the 110th, who’s now a successful forensic accountant, often on deep cover corporate embezzlement jobs. “Same old Reacher,” Dixon says with a grin. But that fades once she hears about the increasing body count. “So, we take care of business. You do not mess with the special investigators.” And with the latest utterance of the team’s old motto, they light out for New Jersey.

Neagley mentioned it in Season 2 Episode 1 (“ATM”), the clear vibing energy Reacher shared with Dixon back in the day. And in another flashback to their army investigation days, we see that in action. But Reacher always stuck to his credo. He was her boss; he ran the team. A romantic relationship would have been inappropriate. How that credo fares here in their civilian lives already feels like a different story.

In Atlantic City, there’s no sign of Orozco and Sanchez, and a visit to a local tavern in search of Sanchez’s ex-squeeze results in little more than Reacher and Neagley busting out the fists and kicks on a couple of pushy bouncers. It’s common knowledge that Neagley does not like to be touched, and the guy who tries to grab her from behind gets the update when she delivers a vicious arm bar to his dome. This fight sequence has little relevance to Reacher’s plot – which doesn’t mean it’s not highly important that we get at least one of these entertaining scraps per episode – but the tavern visit does establish that the number sequences in Franz’s flash drive concerned Sanchez and Orozco, too. 650 at 100K. Was it a scam to count casino chips? Something else? Developing.

Robert Patrick is screaming down the phone again. Unphased by his henchman’s report that Reacher kicks cars to death – whoever Patrick’s character is, he’s unaffiliated with Russo and the NYPD – he’s ordered that Reacher’s group be eliminated. Which predictably goes bad for the henchman and his subcontracted goons when they jump Dixon and Reacher, who were out strolling and having a heart to heart about their feelings for one another. Dixon dispatches her guy with a length of rebar, Reacher shatters a cinder block on his assailant’s skull, and then they decide to give the bossman a call back. “You’re fucking with the wrong guy, Reacher,” Patrick’s character seethes. “You should know that this doesn’t end well for you.” 

Even if they were no match for the special investigators, the goons were pros – burner phones, untraceable pistols, scratched off VIN#s. They also left a big clue behind – a parking pass for something called “New Age Technologies.” And heartened by this break in the mystery of who’s killing them off, Reacher and Dixon repair to the team’s shared Atlantic City hotel suite to unwind. When you’ve just submerged the bodies of your attackers in wet cement, there’s only one thing to do, and that’s consummate the mutual crush you’ve always had on your former colleague. “You don’t have to be lonely tonight,” Dixon tells Reacher, and he acknowledges that sharing a bed with Karla is a much better prospect than the divey motels, flatbed trucks, and random hammocks his wanderer’s life usually affords. Reacher will always be a vagabond. Sleeping with Dixon does not change his life’s plan, which is to have no plan. But for now, they’re an item, and the next morning, Neagley and O’Donnell bust their chops about being too loud.

At a meet in a secluded stretch of Colorado pines, the man we know only as “A.M.” is informed that “all 650 will be in the truck.” (There’s that number again.) “The weapons?” his contact asks. “They’ll be used overseas?” Of course, A.M. assures him, offering a slithery and totally unconvincing smile. And back in Atlantic City, while still processing the New Age Technologies tidbit and the previous night’s assault, Reacher and the team get bad news about Sanchez and Orozco. It’s as they feared, their former comrades found dead, their bodies thrown from a chopper. “Bodies were found in New York, the car that followed us was from New York. New York ghost tags, New York parking pass” – Dixon says it out loud – “this has always been a New York case.” And with a final look at the grisly postmortem photos of two more fallen friends, Reacher makes a declaration of his own.

“We’re gonna need more guns.”

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.