Neagley builds on the complexity of Reacher’s protégé

During our podcast on shared universes, Chris and I agree that the series, Reacher, is not complex. That we know what is going to happen each season. The eponymous character will have a non‑threatening partner, meaning someone less obviously masculine than himself. He will meet a woman who he will inevitably sleep with. And he will beat the crap out of a bunch of people. Don’t get us wrong; we like the show. Despite its predictability, each season is reliably entertaining. And to be fair, from watching The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, it appears that Alan Ritchson’s Reacher role in no way taps his acting potential. Still, though, Neagley, the Reacher spinoff, plays on a different level with respect to the development of the main character and the overall tone of the show.

The eight‑part series opens with a young man slowly walking on an El-train platform at dusk on what seems to be a cool, early fall day. The fact that no people are around hints that rush hour has passed. The man slowly strips off his clothes without missing a step. He then climbs off the platform onto the train tracks and walks toward bright lights up ahead as if he is hypnotized by the train’s beams. A camera shot in the driver’s compartment shows the engineer stand up, lean forward, and do a double take as if he can’t believe what he is seeing. He blows his horn in vain.

Set in Chicago and led by Maria Sten, Neagley (pronounced Nealey) is a series about Frances Neagley, Reacher’s reliable, ex‑army buddy and now capable private investigator determined to get to the bottom of the tragic death of her childhood friend, Tommy Crane (Jhaleil Swaby). She soon discovers that Tommy joined a farm community led by Lawrence Cole (Damon Herrimen), a self‑serving religious zealot whose motives are deeply sinister and driven by greed. Despite Neagley’s badass veneer, she is haunted, though not crippled, by disturbing memories of her childhood and struggles to make sense of them. She cares for her father (Tyrone Benskin), a retired police officer, but their relationship is strained because he refuses to offer her any clarity on this. As the show progresses, we observe how she compartmentalizes her lingering anguish and works through her case without being distracted by it. 

Tommy frequently appears in photographs and flashback scenes to give a sense of he and Neagley’s closeness throughout the years. Deeply saddened by his loss, Neagley rejects the coroner’s official cause of death as suicide. When she inquires about police and lab reports, she meets thirty‑something Hudson Riley played by Greyston Holt, a firm but mild‑mannered police detective who agrees to let her see the files as long as they work together with him as the lead investigator. When she tells him that she works alone, he reiterates his condition for access to the reports. She agrees after a short hesitation. 

Though mildly coerced, the quid pro quo reveals that while Neagley is tough and independent, she is also considered and, at times, flexible. In this instance, knowing what was in the police reports was crucial to informing her next steps in the case, so insisting on working alone would have meant moving forward blindly and delaying any progress unnecessarily. Given these prospects, compromise was the more expeditious route.

Despite Detective Riley’s stated contingency, Neagley still leads the investigation from early on. She quickly connects disparate pieces of information like the timing of witness observations, blood work oddities, and even unusual body art that call the claim of suicide into question. She makes decisions about next steps and the people they should talk to. And she does the lion’s share of questioning witnesses and suspects, even when they are brought to the police station. All of this ties Tommy’s death to Cole’s farm.

Neagley and Riley’s partnership brings to mind the theatrical release, By Any Means. Although assigned as lead investigator, FBI Agent Strider takes a back seat to FBI contractor, Greg Scarpa, who takes bold, aggressive measures to bring culprits to justice. He can do this, in part, because he is not bound by the bureaucratic protocols that constrain Agent Strider. Similarly, Neagley is free of such protocols relative to Detective Riley. Curiously, Riley imposes constraints on himself.

With a family history of crime and bad cops, Riley is determined to hold himself to a high standard. But his conscientiousness stifles his instincts and overall effectiveness as the solid, upstanding cop he aspires to be. This is clear as Neagley asserts herself as leader of the duo, and he frequently defers to her instincts, occasionally asking only that she not “order” him to do things. Mildly surprised by his insistence on this, she pauses to explain that in the army, they give orders when they want you to do something and that’s the training. Asking people to do things and cajoling them with a “pretty please” are not Neagley’s style. Her asks are in the form of directives, which Riley takes as rude or perhaps even insubordinate. Ultimately, Neagley adjusts nothing about the way she operates because it is the way she is trained and how she came to be so good at what she does. 

In one instance, Riley fails to have Neagley’s back when his superior asks about a legitimate shooting the two are involved in, yet she has his back when he initiates a brawl with several men in a warehouse. Her disappointment in him is palpable and shows on her face, revealing her unspoken expectations of those she considers partners and more generally, those she trusts. The reflection of her unwavering loyalty likely stems from her time in military service, where enlistees view each other as brothers- and sisters-in-arms. In addition to almost any military movie, we see this in Neagley’s appearances in Reacher, where her former army buddy calls her for help when he gets into especially harried situations. Thus, having a partner not show up for her is both hurtful and foreign to her.

Neagley contrasts sharply with Reacher in other respects, however. The character’s appearances on the origin show entail assisting in Reacher’s investigations and ultimately using her fighting skills to help him take down the enemy. In the spinoff, we also observe Neagley’s bold but measured arrogance through her empathy, as when she tells Detective Riley that the receptionist at her agency doesn’t like her because she wants to “be [her.]” She then proceeds to gradually involve Renee Birdwhistle (Adeline Rudolph) in her investigation to both help with the work and to teach her investigative skills along the way. Another example is when Detective Riley gets himself into trouble that could send him to jail. Hearing how scared and worried he is about that prospect, she immediately tells him “I won’t let that happen,” before brainstorming ways to fix the problem and then dictating the steps to do just that. 

I like this show because of Neagley’s complexity. She is tenacious, smart, and tough, yet empathetic and even fragile in some respects. She thinks strategically, weighing decisions rather than engaging in unproductive, emotionally‑driven, kneejerk actions. And she is skilled at weapons and hand-to-hand combat. The culmination of these qualities adds rich texture to Neagley’s character, making her an imperfect human heroine rather than a two‑dimensional caricature. She is also what Gen-Zs indicate they want in their cinema, diverse characters with powerful voices. In this case, the character has the added dimensions of substance and depth.