Reacher's spinoff Neagley opened at 89% — the lowest score in the franchise, and the reason isn't the cast

Wednesday ended one Reacher story and started another the same morning, which is not how Amazon usually stages these things. Episode 32 of the mothership, "Cut," closed out season four. Eight episodes of a show with a different name went up beside it. Nine episodes of one universe in a single day.

The eight new ones are Neagley. Frances Neagley, Reacher's old sergeant from the 110th, now a private investigator in Chicago, gets a call about a friend who died in an accident that does not look like one. Maria Sten has played her since 2022. Prime Video dropped the whole season at once, from "L Train" to a finale titled "Touched."

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By Wednesday evening the Tomatometer had settled at 89% on 19 reviews. That is a good score. It is also the worst this franchise has ever had.

Reacher opened at 92% in 2022, went to 98% for season two, held 98% for season three and came in at 94% last month. Four seasons, average 95%. The spinoff arrived three points under the weakest of them.

The first Reacher story with nothing to adapt

There is a tidy explanation in the credits, and it has nothing to do with the woman on the poster. Every season of Reacher has had a novel underneath it:

• Season 1 (2022) — Killing Floor, Lee Child's first Jack Reacher book. 92%.
• Season 2 (2023) — Bad Luck and Trouble, the one that brings the old unit back together. 98%.
• Season 3 (2025) — Persuader. 98%.
• Season 4 (2026) — Gone Tomorrow, the subway novel, finished Wednesday. 94%.

Neagley has a character and no book. Amazon announced it on 4 September 2024, ordered it a month later, shot it in Toronto in 2025, and asked co-showrunners Nick Santora and Nicholas Wootton to build both a case and a past for a woman Child only wrote in support.

Alan Sepinwall put it in one line: the writers "have to invent both a plot for the season and a backstory for Neagley out of whole cloth. The plot is flimsy, and the backstory is downright aggravating."

Nobody is blaming Maria Sten

Read the 19 reviews and the split is comically consistent: the actress is fine, the material around her is the argument. Pat Stacey at the Irish Independent gave it 3.5 out of 5 and said it serves fans what they want "with a little more subtlety and sensitivity than its bulldozing parent series."

Variety's Alison Herman, one of the two critics on the rotten side, made it a star problem rather than a performance one: with Reacher, "the show's namesake has become a reason to watch in and of himself. That's simply not the case here."

Alan Ritchson turns up as Reacher in a guest role, which tells you where the safety net is. One number, though, is still missing, and it is the interesting one. The audience score does not exist yet — fewer than 50 ratings by Wednesday night, because people are still on episode three. Season five of Reacher was greenlit in May, so the franchise is not waiting on this verdict. Nineteen critics have voted. The eight-episode crowd has not.

Previously we wrote: Brie Larson meets her dead mother in One Italian Summer: Paramount release date, cast and first look