When GamesRadar+ arrives on the set of Reacher season 4, star Alan Ritchson is kicking a gun out of the hand of an oncoming thug in the doorframe of a dilapidated hallway. He does this about seven or eight times, and we watch each time as they yell cut, replace broken glass, sweep away kicked-up dust, and unruffle everyone’s shirts. Director Sam Hill tells us that they’ve been filming this particular fight scene for a few weeks now, and that it’ll last for all of 12 seconds on screen.
“We’re right up against those final moments,” Hill tells us, explaining that the fight scene takes place towards the end of the season. “Everybody’s gonna get what they deserve. It’s like the event. The closer to the end of the season you get… now things are on fire.” Hill laughs before being pulled back into the madness, where they run the entire scene over again a few more times.
Reacher season 3 ended with Jack killing his nemesis Xavier Quinn with one swift stab to the chest before riding off into the sunset on his trusty motorbike… and we can’t help but wonder how the journey took him to a rundown, asbestos-filled apartment building. The new season takes place in New York City, but we’re standing on a studio lot in Toronto, Canada. Production designer Nazgol Goshtasbpour takes us up some rickety stairs and right into the three-floor apartment that serves as one of the central set pieces.
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It took a minute for me, an avid reader of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book series, to realize where we were, but a computer system setup and a few empty cots tipped me off. Season 4 adapts the novel Gone Tomorrow, which sees Reacher witness a suicide attempt on a subway that sends him into a whirlwind of terrorists, corrupt politicians, and the 1980 Soviet-Afghan war. We’re standing in one of the decrepit buildings that Reacher discovers in the South Side of Philadelphia (though it’s located on 58th Street in Manhattan in the novel), belonging to main antagonists Lila and Amisha Hoth (played by Agnez Mo and Anggun, respectively).
It’s an almost-reproduction of an abandoned building that they shot on location in Philly, right down to the working 1920s-era elevator they built for scenes that take place between floors. Goshtasbpour goes into the meticulousness of each detail, right down to carefully placing each piece of debris and using hot glue to make light-catching cobwebs. Lila and her criminal crew even have their own little kitchen and fireplace, though the toilet is broken and both the wiring and plumbing are exposed.
“And a lot of times with Reacher… I make this joke on set. I say, ‘We’re not making a feature. We’re making Reacher.’ Because I think it’s just much more complicated,” she says. “Our sets are more elaborate than a feature film.” We’re inclined to agree: a wall of photos offers a glimpse of another fully built (and now-destroyed) set, including a custom-built bridge with a fake road underneath. Elsewhere in Canada, they turned a piece of land into an Indonesian village, complete with an army base. Everything is practical, except for the taller palm trees and helicopters, which will be added in post. Careful not to spoil anything, Goshtasbpour explains that this is for a flashback sequence (likely for Lila and Amisha).
Fight or Flight
When we meet back up with director Sam Hill, filming is done for the day. It’s mid-November, and they’re still months away from being fully wrapped, as ADR and post-production tend to take a while. He takes a seat in front of the wall of set photos, one of which features the decaying hideout we just toured, prompting the group to ask about the level of danger Reacher faces from Lila and Amisha Hoth.
“What’s new and exciting about every season isn’t necessarily like, ‘Oh, this person’s a bigger, badder person to fight,’ or, ‘This is a bigger, harder challenge.’ It’s this whole new group of people reacting to a Reacher perspective on the world,” Hill says. “Certainly for me, that’s one of the most attractive things about this project in general, is the Reacher figure himself doesn’t really arc over any given novel or over any given season, but it’s all the people around him in that orbit who do.”
“In the first three weeks we shot more fights than all the other seasons combined”
Alan Ritchson, Jack Reacher
Hill goes on to praise showrunner Nick Santora for his ability to “take this character that Lee Child created” and “weigh him against all these new people and environments.” It’s a non-spoilery way of saying that Reacher is definitely in over his head this season, as the Hoths are nothing like season 1’s KJ Kliner or Beck and Quinn of season 3.
Without giving too much away, the Hoths are criminals with unimaginably violent pasts, and they’re so skilled in the art of manipulation that even Reacher falls victim to it for a second (at least in the novel). Mo and Anggun, who play mother-and-daughter duo Amisha and Lila, are Indonesian superstars known primarily for their music. Both actors tell us during a brief chat later that day that they play strong women who have lived through a lot of atrocities and are in America with the intention of finding Lila’s birth father… though that’s not all they’re there for.
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Image credit: Amazon
When asked about the decision to change the book’s New York City setting to Philadelphia, Hill explains that it’s really just because season 2 already took place in New York and its surrounding areas. As for the Philadelphia landmarks that show up during the new season: “I’m pretty certain that Reacher as a character would not be interested in the Rocky statue at all.”
For the final question, someone points out that many of the novels are from the first-person perspective of Jack Reacher, while the show itself is absent of monologues and inner dialogue. “And yet the show still communicates the interiority of Reacher. How?”
“The first is you cast a guy named Alan Ritchson as Reacher. That is step number one,” Hill replies. “Step number two is put a camera as close to him as you can and let him do his thing.”
Reach for the stars
“This is the worst day for you guys to be here. I’m so embarrassed,” Alan Ritchson says when he sits down for our long-awaited group interview. We’d all excitedly told him that we watched him kick a gun upwards of 20 times. He immediately wished we would’ve come by on a more exciting shoot day. “That is mortifying. Of all the days. The most mundane, difficult. It’s like a Price Is Right game.”
But there’s plenty more gun-kicking where that came from: “I think in the first three weeks we shot more fights than all the other seasons combined.” Ritchson thinks the fight count for the entire season is around 30, and mentions that they’re always running out of fake blood. As far as book-accuracy goes, this tracks: Reacher takes on multiple baddies from all angles in Gone Tomorrow. Of course, this all leads up to him fighting Lila and Amisha in a three-against-one.
“We’re not in Margrave,” he says, referring to the show’s first season, which feels rather tame in comparison. “And it’s fun. It’s always funny, sorta seeing Reacher in these new situations with these new women and how he handles it… I’m always wondering what he’s gonna do in these moments. I’m also waiting to see what feels right in the moment.
“And I think [Lila’s] secrets and her presence and her pursuit really turned it into something really interesting,” he continues. “Because he doesn’t see it coming at all, and it does put him on his heels in a way that we haven’t really seen, where he’s like, ‘What do I do with this?'”
He tells us about a set piece that we didn’t get to see: a bowling alley where an all-out brawl takes place. “It’s kind of a hilarious set piece for something like this, for something gory to take place, but it is probably one of the most epic fights I have ever shot in my career. We even have these great angles where it’s like the old Indiana Jones moments.” This is not in the book, so color me intrigued.
Ritchson has a flight to catch, but wants to make sure we don’t have a doubt in our minds about Reacher season 4: “I would bet my life that this is going to be, by whatever metric you [you use], better than anything we’ve done.”
Reacher season 4 releases on Prime Video on August 12, with the first three episodes. For more, check out our list of the best new TV shows coming in 2026 and beyond.