Jacob Isn’t Annoying, He’s Real – Reacher Season 4 Showcases Flawed Heroes

If you’ve been tuning into Reacher Season 4, reactions have ranged from calling it one of the best and most entertaining seasons yet to saying it didn’t fully live up to the hype.

But Reacher is no stranger to being polarizing. What’s undeniable is that it’s staying at the forefront of conversations, and mostly because of the season’s primary players beyond just the Big Guy.

One of the characters dissected the most (not to mention heavily criticized) is Anna’s brother Jacob, but truthfully, he’s been one of the more compelling characters of the season, precisely because he’s so realistic.

When you watch a series like Reacher, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the badassery of this massive mountain of a man drifting from city to city, finding trouble, and kicking ass.

But something that’s been striking about Reacher Season 4 is that it allows the characters to feel a bit more real. Maybe the plot points aren’t always the most realistic, grounded storylines to come out of the series, but the characters?

Oh, I’d say they’re pretty grounded.

It’s probably the first season where we’ve been seeing Reacher get his butt kicked almost as much as he’s been kicking butt.

Things are getting bloodier; the man sustains injuries that actually seem to last, and at one point, in the adrenaline-inducing, action-sequenced-to-the-high-heavens Reacher Season 4 Episode 5, the man flat-out admitted that he was tired.

We’ve been watching him run on pure fumes and adrenaline, trying to solve a massive conspiracy in only a few days, so it tracks.

And at the center of that conspiracy is Anna. She died because of information on that flash drive; David is dead because of it, and when you take a moment to let that simmer enough, the fact that Jacob Merrick is even remotely functioning right now is impressive.

But Jacob is an interesting character because he’s the closest we have to a realistic audience stand-in as part of the B-Team, so it’s almost amusing to see how the character catches so much flak for not being rational, badass, or clever enough.

I’d argue that’s the point.

As a beat cop from a small town that’s literally called Mayfield, where everyone pretty much knows each other’s names, he’s not some herculean, kickass hero type. He’s more of the everyday hero.

That doesn’t make him less than heroic either — because this version of heroism looks different than what we’re use to.

It’s quieter, messier, more grounded in reality, and yes, more compelling because of it. If anything, Jacob prompts you to think about statements Alan Ritchson has made about how action movies have strayed too far into presenting only one type of hero.

Nearly every action hero these days is always some retired spy, Special Forces, a career criminal with a special set of skills, and everything else under the sun.

But what made movies like Die Hard so interesting in the first place was that John McClane was just a man trying to get home, and Sergeant Al Powell was just a normal cop who knew how to communicate with him.

Jacob is a character who woke up one day not knowing that he’d lose both his sister and his nephew, all he ever really had to live for, and he’s been trying to push through his grief ever since.

It’s that grief that makes him illogical and messy, but that’s also what makes him so human.

Because at the end of the day, no matter how many books you read or shows and films you watch, few people are handling the situations presented to them like Jack Reacher or even Tamara; they’re handling them exactly like Jacob.

Jacob is precisely what you get when a normal person is pulled into something much larger than themselves, and considering he’s operating on unprocessed grief, not sleep, and a thirst for vengeance, his recklessness, lack of reasoning, and so forth make perfect sense.

It’s not just used to push forward the plot either, but it speaks to an entire theme of the season, where our heroes are fallible.

They’ve telegraphed it most of the season, with each primary character combating against some poor choices.

Reacher was so blinded by how attractive he found Lila that he not only ignored the fact that she lied to him at least twice upon meeting her, but he didn’t even see it coming that she was the evil entity that he was supposed to be taking down in the first place.

He got the whole situation completely wrong, and one has to wonder how long it would’ve actually taken him to figure that one out if he didn’t have the other members of his ragtag conspiracy team investigating this, too.

I’d even argue that at some point, his involvement with this case stopped being about Anna as much as he thought he was helping Lila, since his split focus often had him running to her aid while the others followed their respective leads.

And then there’s Tamara, whose entire presence on this case seems to be deeply rooted in her desire to get back out there and right some wrongs from her inability to solve an important case before.

Docherty, as annoying as he is, did have a valid reason to be frustrated.

His partner, who got screwed over on the job and effectively sidelined and benched, could’ve been on the path toward righting her career again, only to go rogue on this investigation with Reacher that has her risking everything.

For our entertainment, it’s amazing. But for Tamara as a character, she’s a truly flawed heroine in this regard — joining a crusade that could not only cost her the very job she covets but potentially put her in prison too.

Adding to the mix is the simple fact that Jacob has made her vulnerable. He’s become a liability and a soft spot for her, putting her at even greater risk, but that’s also part of what makes her character evolution throughout the season so intriguing.

Humans care.

Sympathy and vulnerability can simultaneously be one’s greatest strength and worst weakness, depending on how they’re directed or the circumstances.

Reacher exploring that, however subtly, makes this character-driven season a fun departure from some of the previous ones.

It also means that Jacob isn’t somehow the exception to this flawed hero narrative that the season has been exploring so much.

He’s just the most obvious display of it. I can’t find that annoying, given the circumstances, just… real.

Over to you, Reacher Fanatics. Are you a Jacob sympathizer like me? Have you noticed this season’s flawed hero narrative? Let’s discuss.