Reacher, Neagley and the Apparently Optional Nature of the Law

I really like Reacher.

I also really enjoyed Neagley.

But after four seasons of Reacher and now an entire Neagley spin-off, I have come to the conclusion that these shows take place in a slightly different version of the United States where certain laws become optional if you’re really good at investigating things.

This has obviously always been part of Reacher. Jack Reacher is essentially a wandering 6’5” argument against due process.

He arrives in a town. Something seems suspicious. Somebody tells him to stop investigating it. He does not stop investigating it. Approximately seventeen felonies later, the conspiracy has been uncovered, an industrial facility has exploded and the local police department concludes that, actually, everything worked out pretty well.

Then Reacher gets on a bus.

And I accept this because that’s Reacher.

What I hadn’t quite appreciated until Neagley is that Frances Neagley is every bit as bad.

Apparently the Police Are Fine With This

There is a moment in Neagley where she chloroforms somebody.

That sentence on its own isn’t particularly remarkable in this universe.

Neagley chloroforming somebody? Sure. Fine. Seems like something Neagley would do.

The problem is that she does it in front of a police detective.

Riley is right fucking there.

This isn’t Reacher quietly breaking into someone’s house while the local detective carefully looks in the opposite direction. There isn’t even really plausible deniability.

A private citizen has just drugged somebody in front of a serving police officer.

And we just carry on with the investigation.

At some point I stopped wondering whether Neagley was going to get arrested and started wondering what she’d actually have to do before Riley finally said, “Frances, I’m going to have to insist you stop committing crimes in front of me.”

Kidnapping?

Breaking and entering?

Assault?

Drugging somebody?

Apparently none of the above.

Maybe parking on double yellows. That might finally do it.

Reacher Has Been Doing This for Years

Of course, Reacher is worse.

The difference is that Reacher has spent four seasons gradually conditioning me not to notice anymore.

Reacher routinely assaults people, threatens people, breaks into places, destroys property and occasionally kills an astonishing number of people over the course of what is ostensibly an investigation.

Sometimes this is self-defence. Sometimes he’s dealing with people who are actively trying to murder him.

And sometimes Jack Reacher has simply reached the conclusion that this bloke needs hitting now.

The wonderful thing is how frequently he does this while working alongside actual law-enforcement officers.

There’s usually a point in a season where the local cop has gone from:

“You can’t do that.”

to:

“I don’t want to know.”

to:

“Right, I’ll drive.”

It’s basically the five stages of being assigned to a Reacher investigation.

Eventually everybody accepts that normal investigative procedure has failed and the enormous homeless military policeman is going to start throwing people through furniture.

Neagley Somehow Makes It Funnier

Neagley doing it is arguably even funnier because she’s a private investigator.

Reacher at least exists outside normal society. He doesn’t have a home. He doesn’t have a job. He doesn’t own much of anything. He wanders into town, destroys a criminal organisation and wanders off again.

Neagley has an office.

She presumably sends invoices.

By the end of Neagley, she’s got York Investigations and what looks suspiciously like the beginnings of an actual PI team.

Which means there is presumably going to be paperwork.

I desperately want to see the expense reports.

Lock picks — $34.

Surveillance equipment — $1,200.

Chloroform — DO NOT REIMBURSE.

And Riley is now potentially going from being the policeman who watches Neagley commit crimes to being part of the private investigation outfit that commits them.

Fantastic career progression.

The Really Weird Thing Is That It Works

The odd thing is that none of this particularly bothers me while I’m watching.

That’s probably because Reacher has always operated according to a very simple moral framework rather than a legal one.

There are bad people.

The authorities either can’t stop them, won’t stop them, or are actively involved with them.

Reacher knows they’re bad.

Reacher punches them until the problem stops existing.

Neagley inherits a lot of the same logic. The details are different and she’s much more of an investigator than Reacher, but the basic philosophy remains:

The law and the right thing are not necessarily the same thing, and our protagonists are extremely comfortable deciding which one they’re going to follow.

As television, it’s enormously satisfying.

As an actual criminal-justice system, it would be fucking terrifying.

Imagine Being Their Lawyer

This is the spin-off I actually want.

Not another action series.

Just eight episodes following the exhausted attorney tasked with dealing with the aftermath of a Reacher investigation.

“So you entered the property without a warrant?”

“I don’t need a warrant. I’m not a cop.”

“THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT BETTER.”

“And then?”

“I questioned him.”

“You assaulted him.”

“He answered the question.”

“You broke three of his ribs.”

“He was being evasive.”

Meanwhile Neagley is sitting beside him silently wondering how much longer this is going to take because she’s already identified another suspect she’d quite like to illegally detain.

Please Never Fix This

And despite everything I’ve just written, I don’t actually want Reacher or Neagley to become realistic police procedurals.

I don’t want Riley spending six episodes applying for warrants.

I don’t want Reacher carefully documenting chain of custody.

I absolutely don’t want Neagley saying, “We know he’s responsible, but unfortunately this evidence would be inadmissible in court.”

That isn’t what these shows are.

They’re ridiculous.

They know they’re ridiculous.

And there’s something incredibly entertaining about watching an intelligent investigator spend twenty minutes meticulously piecing together evidence before eventually deciding that the next stage of the investigation is a felony.

I just want the police officers standing beside them to occasionally acknowledge it.

Neagley chloroforms a man.

Riley stares at her.

“What?”

“I’m a police officer.”

“I know.”

“You just drugged him.”

“I know.”

“Right.”

And then they put him in the car.

Perfect.