Although the "Reacher" TV series has had plenty of freedom when it comes to picking which novel to adapt next, as of season 4, it still hasn't chosen star Alan Ritchson's favorite: "Die Trying." Ritchson described the 1998 novel in an April 2024 interview as "personally [his] favorite book," continuing by saying, "I hope and I believe we could be getting to that one soon."
"Die Trying" is the one where Reacher is unexpectedly kidnapped alongside a random woman he met in Chicago; the kidnappers are
only there for the woman, but Reacher's taken along for the ride anyway. If the show had adapted the books chronologically, this would've been made into season 2, but the show picked a non-chronological order and jumped straight to book #11.
Why does Ritchson love "Die Trying" so much? As he explained in a 2023 interview with /Film, it's because he thinks it best captures the essence of what sort of man Reacher is:
"I do think the stories like ''Die Trying,' where he's really drug reluctantly into the situation, is more true to who he is, because I think otherwise Reacher just wants to be left alone. I don't think Reacher goes into a diner in the middle of the Sierra Nevadas looking for a fight, but it finds him. That's sort of what the books do over and over. The ones where he inserts himself or [it] feels like he's kind of looking for trouble are usually not my favorite."
This is part of why Ritchson was a little frustrated with the season 2 premiere, even if he liked it overall. In the same interview, he described that opening scene where Reacher casually interferes with a carjacking and tells the mother afterward, "I'm someone who prefers not to get involved."
"I just feel like that's like the biggest lie," Ritchson said. "It was the weirdest thing. I felt so weird saying that after kicking the s**t out of some carjacker, that nobody really asked for his help." The trend of Reacher looking for trouble continued into season 3, in which he infiltrated a crime family to get revenge on a bad guy from his past. Reacher's motivations in season 3 (and "Persuader," the book it's based on) are sympathetic, but they don't fall in line with the idea of a man who is simply dragged into stuff by pure bad luck.
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Will 'Die Trying' Be Adapted In Season 5?
The book for season 4 has already been announced — "Gone Tomorrow," book number 13 in the series — but unless the show's ratings somehow fall off a cliff, there will almost certainly be a season 5. What book will the showrunners pick for that one?
In a February 2025 interview, author of the books Lee Child (who co-runs the TV series) shed some light on how they go about choosing the next book. "We try to impose some kind of logic to it, in that season one was really about Reacher's emotional roots with his real family. Then season 2 was his emotional roots with his professional family. And season 3, therefore, we can launch him on his own, the classic lone wolf Reacher, and 'Persuader' was a great story for that."
In other words, it seems like the first two seasons were quasi-origin stories for Reacher, delving into his background and explaining his whole deal. It's only with season 3 and onward that the show let go of its constant-flashback format, no longer bothering with any major character revelations about the lead himself. This likely means the show will pick books that feel increasingly standalone and less reliant on characters from Reacher's past. If that's the case, "Die Trying" would be perfect.
Another point in the book's favor is the locations the show has picked so far. Season 1 took place in Georgia, season 2 in New York City, season 3 in Maine, and now season 4 is back in New York. Even though Reacher's whole deal is that he likes to wander around all of America, so far, he's only spent time on the East Coast. Perhaps the show will switch things up in season 5 and throw Reacher into a new time zone. If so, they could certainly do worse than "Die Trying," a book that starts off in Chicago and takes Reacher all the way to California. It may take a few extra seasons than Ritchson expected, but his favorite "Reacher" book may get its proper adaptation soon.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
