Breaking down some silly parts of Reacher... season 3 (SPOILERS)

If you aren't up to speed on season 3 of Reacher and you are planning on watching this you can probably still safely read this because the spoilers I am presenting here don't really reveal any part of the actual plot, they are just minor things that are included in order for the plot to progress. Many critics refer to these happenings as "plot armor" but I might have the terminology mixed up.

Basically, these are silly plot devices that are used in the series that are impossible or wildly coincidental to the point where it simply wouldn't ever happen but it NEEDS to happen in order for the Reacher story to progress.

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Season 3 of Reacher is pretty good and I actually started watching it by accident and didn't even realize it was season 3. I was not in the room when the "previously on" part happened so as far as I knew this was season 1. I like how it isn't really all that necessary for you to have seen the first 2 seasons in order to get what is going on here and that is certainly by design. The show is mostly done pretty well but it certainly isn't perfect, as I will point out in a few of the things that kind of irked me.

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At one point in time during the first couple of episodes, Reacher finds himself in a situation where he needs to get out of a complex he is staying in without being noticed in the middle of the night. He can't leave by the front entrance so he heads towards the sea which is on the same property. He jumps into the a rather raging Maine coastline and then just swims to the meetup point.

I have been to the Maine coast in summertime and even in July that water is friggin freezing. I looked up the average temperature of the water there and it is 6 degrees Celsius. According to medical websites in relation to hypothermia, people can manage to be in water of this temp for about 10 minutes before losing control of their limbs. It also makes breathing extremely difficult. While they do not indicate how far Reacher has to swim in this, based on the currents, it would definitely take longer than that. Yet he emerges on the other side with his hair looking wonderful and not at all in shock from coming close to freezing to death.

The fact that this is how he had to exit the property brings about another point about the complex just generally speaking.

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The place that he is staying is meant to be an impenetrable, super-high security complex and the reason why he has to lie his way into the good graces of the person who owns the estate is because the security is meant to be so good that government agencies couldn't possibly monitor it. Yet as it is pointed out early on in the episode, Reacher notices all the security cameras are pointed outward towards the only road leading to the property. This is absurd.

He is able to run around the property including climbing up and down the side of it without being noticed by any cameras or other security personnel. I get that we need this for the story, but it kind of spoils the illusion of this being something so secure that the only way possible to infiltrate it was to put a planted person inside of it as an employee.

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This next one really bothers me and I hate it when it is used in anything, films, movies or books.

I got no bars!

There is a situation where tension is created and Reacher has to rush to help his cop friends who are on location and unaware that they are about to be ambushed. Reacher finds out about the plan to attack them well before it happens, but his calls to a person that up to this point has answered on the first or 2nd ring, goes straight to voicemail.

The reason? They don't have cell phone / mobile phone service in their area. Urgh! and who has voicemail anyway?

I recall a time that I was about 30 miles off the coast in the middle of the ocean one day and everyone on that boat had a mobile signal. Do you really expect the audience to believe that at a warehouse in Maine that is in an area where people live and work, doesn't have cell phone coverage? There are a load of ways they could have done this better even so much as the cops having left their phones in the car or the battery is dead. But the extremely tired and untrue case of not having any mobile service is just lame and a lazy plot device to create tension.

Everyone has a signal at all times. The scientists in Antarctica have a signal. This is just stupid and I literally rolled my eyes when the fat cop says "I got no bars" to the other cop so that we, the audience, can know that this is the reason why they are un-contactable.

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Don't get the wrong idea if you are a fan of this series because I too, am a fan. I'm just very fussy when it comes to plot and dialogue and find things like this to just be lazy writing. Every episode in the season needs some sort of tension to be created and the writers do exactly that. Some times though, the situations are a bit ridiculous, just like Jack Reacher's always perfect hair even after swimming and being in a massive fistfight.