'Reacher's Best Character Still Deserves Their Own Spin-Off

Jeffrey is a freelance features writer at Collider. He is an MPA-accredited entertainment journalist and a Tomatometer-approved critic based in the LA area. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Radio, TV, & Film and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater.

Now that Reacher Season 4 has come to an action-packed conclusion, fans are looking ahead to Season 5, which will adapt the twentieth book in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, Make Me. But who says Reacher has to start and end with Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson)himself? Now that the books have become a live-action franchise, the powers that be should start thinking of expanding the Reacher universe with more spin-offs — and one needs to star a fan-favorite character who made a welcome return after being part of the original show’s main cast.

Malcolm Goodwin’s Detective Finlay Can Carry a ‘Reacher’ Spin-off

Although the original series is named after Reacher, co-star Malcolm Goodwin asserted himself remarkably well throughout the first season, shouldering a significant amount of the emotional weight even when Ritchson wasn’t onscreen. Season 1 establishes Detective Oscar Finlay as an intriguing, layered character; later episodes reveal that he enjoys classic rock, annoying Reacher with his taste in music. Finlay’s also capable of holding his own in the action sequences that require it, stripping off his tweed jacket and savoring one last cigarette in the Season 1 finale before going into battle in an epic, Die Hard-style moment.

Yet the best reveal for Finlay comes in Episode 6 of Season 1, “Papier.” While Finlay and Reacher are on a stakeout at the Kliner Foundation’s factory, Finlay reveals that he’s not divorced, which Reacher incorrectly infers in the series premiere. Instead, viewers discover that Finlay’s wife, Sharon, passed away from cancer. Blaming himself for his wife’s illness and inability to save her, he views his move to Margrave as a self-imposed exile and penance for her death. When Reacher asks why Finlay didn’t explain the mistake, Finlay explains that everyone assumes that a man like him is divorced, so he opts not to correct them because he doesn’t want anyone’s pity. Finlay has even continued paying his wife’s cellphone bill so he could still leave her voice messages and hear her voice. The episode’s reveal ultimately makes Finlay a much more interesting, sympathetic, and relatable character.

How Could an Oscar Finlay Spin-Off Differentiate Itself From ‘Reacher’?

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

• Image via Prime Video

In Season 2 of Reacher, Finlay makes a guest appearance in the fourth episode, “A Night at the Symphony,” assisting Reacher and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) in interrogating Daniel Boyd (Kyle Mac). While Reacher and Finlay have shared a prickly working relationship, Reacher demonstrates his deep respect for the detective by saying, “If he was in the Army, I’d have asked him to join the 110th,” referring to Reacher’s old unit in the Military Police. The episode establishes that Finlay has returned to his hometown and the Boston Police Department — and moved up in rank, earning the position of lieutenant. Finlay also confirms that he’s still taking care of Jack, the neglected dog he adopted at the end of the first season.

Not only does Finlay’s appearance in Season 2 continue the expansion of Reacher‘s cast, but it also creates the perfect backdoor for a spin-off. Now that Finlay is back home, a potential series could explore Finlay’s new role in the Boston PD while attempting to move on from his wife’s loss and living with Jack the dog as his roommate. Since Finlay is a working detective who very much likes to play by the rules, he’ll often have to be restricted in ways that Reacher isn’t. However, that doesn’t mean that some of Reacher’s more unconventional methods haven’t rubbed off on Finlay during their time together.

• The Wick films run on discipline: an underworld with actual etiquette, a hero who honors
  every rule of it, and a world that unravels the instant someone breaks one against him.
• You share that quality. You are extraordinarily reasonable right up to the line, and then
  completely immovable past it.
• Focus, commitment and sheer will. You’d be the one carrying grief through three sequels
  and turning it into technique rather than noise.
• People wouldn’t call you dangerous. They’d say your name quietly and let that do
  the work.

• This series went from street racing to orbit without ever changing its real subject, because
  loyalty scales and plot doesn’t have to.
• You have the same instinct. You build a family out of whoever turns up, and then you defend
  it past the point of reason.
• You’d thrive here because the franchise rewards exactly your strengths: warmth, nerve,
  an absolute refusal to leave anyone behind, and a relaxed relationship with physics.
• The mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.

• This is the franchise of the plan that collapses on schedule: the team, the mask, the
  rooftop, and the one person sprinting flat out because sprinting is all that’s left.
• You share that refusal to accept an outcome. Told the odds, you treat them as an
  administrative error.
• You’d thrive here because these films reward competence and loyalty in equal measure.
  The mission matters, but nobody on the team gets left on the wrong side of a door.
• Some people delegate the cliff. You have never once been that person.

• Die Hard invented the modern action hero by making him mortal: outnumbered, out-planned,
  battered, and extremely funny about it.
• You share that stubbornness. Adversity doesn’t make you noble, it makes you sarcastic,
  and then it makes you unstoppable.
• You’d thrive here because these films reward improvisation and nerve over preparation,
  and you’ve never had the luxury of preparing anyway.
• You didn’t want any of this. You just declined to be the person who let it happen.

Prime Video creating another Reacher spin-off for a supporting character wouldn’t be a huge stretch. The streamer previously greenlit two spin-offs for the Bosch franchise, as well as a prequel spin-off for The Terminal List. Why not capitalize on Neagley‘s success by building a Jack Reacher TV universe while they’re at it? Until Amazon Studios explores or greenlights a Finlay spin-off, fans can enjoy the first four seasons of Reacher, which are streaming now on Prime Video. Season 5 is currently in production and will be released on a date yet to be announced.