Prime Video's 'Reacher' is just mediocre TV, except when Willa Fitzgerald is on screen

Reacher, the character, is lumbering and uncouth but his heart is in the right place.

The same can be said for “Reacher,” the Prime Video series that streams on Feb. 4. It spends eight episodes paving the way not to hell with its good intentions, but to mediocre television. It checks all the right boxes — murder mystery, action, sex, violence, more violence — and then blows ’em up real good.

Which is not to say that it isn’t fun, because sometimes it is. Those are some volatile ingredients, after all.

But good? Eh.

Although whenever Willa Fitzgerald shows up, it gets a lot better. Her inspired performance as a no-nonsense police officer is the best thing about the series.

The series is based on the popular Lee Child novels. Alan Ritchson plays Jack Reacher, a retired Army investigator who roams the country at his leisure, traveling light. But as his mother says in a flashback, trouble seems to find Reacher.

It could hardly miss him. A massive lunk of a fellow — yes, this is a different portrayal than Tom Cruise’s in the movies — other characters comment constantly about his size. As opposed to his conversational skills, of which he has few. The strong, silent type, you might say. Very strong, very silent.

Reacher blows into the town of Margrave, Georgia, one day and as he is about to taste the best peach pie in the state, local law enforcement swarms his booth at the diner and takes him in. He’s the suspect in a murder, and since he’s a drifter with no particular reason to be there — he wants to learn more about a blues singer, Reacher says — he’s the prime suspect.

The cops are not exactly top-level investigators. But the chief detective, Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), is an exception. Harvard, then Boston police, but now he’s in Margrave. Reacher figures out why in a kind of low-rent version of the mental gymnastics Benedict Cumberbatch performed so often and so well in “Sherlock.”

Neither man trusts the other, but if you have ever watched a TV show or seen a movie, and maybe if you haven’t, you know that their uneasy truce will strengthen. Spoiler alert? More like cliche alert.

Roscoe (Fitzgerald) is also a crack investigator and a good cop, two things sorely lacking in the obviously crooked Margrave police department. Her family helped found Margrave way back when, so she is dismayed at the turn it’s taken since rich businessman Kliner (Currie Graham) moved to town and started throwing money around like peanuts at the circus, buying favor and a grudging, ugly form of respect.

We learn more than most about Reacher’s past through flashbacks. In the present, he develops a personal interest in the case as bodies continue to mount. The who of it all isn’t as intriguing as the why and how, but the most satisfying moments are the ones where Reacher is single-handedly wiping out a small army of bad guys in ultra-violent ways.

That and Fitzgerald. Ritchson is necessarily stoic as Reacher. Wooden, even. But as Roscoe, Fitzgerald gets to let go more often. Her performance is smart and knowing — and fun. She steals a lot of scenes not by being showy, but just by being interesting. No explosions or bone crunching needed (not that she’s above that sort of thing).

Graham has fun as the oily businessman. Bruce McGill has a little too much fun as the mayor who appoints himself police chief. McGill is usually great, but here, with his walking stick and his accent, he sounds like Boss Hogg doing a Foghorn Leghorn impression.

Which fits right in. Believability isn’t what “Reacher” is selling. At least I hope not. Because after watching the entire season, that’s not what I’m buying.

'Reacher'

Streaming on Prime Video Feb. 4.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Reacher,' Prime Video's series based on Lee Child's novels, lumbers