Summary
Reacher finally unveils all of its Season 4 mysteries in an exposition-heavy penultimate episode that nonetheless sets the stage for an action-packed finale.
We all knew that Reacher Season 4 had some explaining to do. There were plenty of mysteries still left unresolved, including the real contents of the photograph, who Tomas Waberi from Djibouti is, and what John Sampson has to do with everything. Virtually all of that explaining is handled in Episode 7, aptly titled “Vote for Sampson”, clearing the runway for an action-packed finale with real stakes now that we thoroughly understand everything that’s going on.
Granted, that does make this outing rather tame, but it manages to sneak a bit of torture in for good measure, so every cloud. This stuff needed to be handled at some point, and now is as good a time as any. It also gives us plenty to discuss, so we might as well get on with doing that.
Needless to say, as predicted, Reacher and Tamara don’t die. Despite the rather perilous predicament the previous episode left them in, Springfield comes to the rescue, which is perhaps just as well. This gives Reacher the chance to stake out Ahlquist’s office and T-bone his car off the road so that they can continue their conversation from earlier, with a couple of broken fingers providing Ahlquist with incentive to talk. And talk he does. Here are the details.
The photograph contains the formula for a chemical weapon of mass destruction. Following the Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, the U.S. figured that chemical weapons would be the armament of choice for the world’s worst terrorist groups and governments, so the CIA contracted DARPA to create them, with the intention of reverse-engineering them to find antidotes. The project was called Operation Mongoose, but it couldn’t be run on Uncle Sam’s soil, so Washington cut a deal with General Putra. In exchange for Delta Force training his troops, he allowed the construction of a secret chemical weapons lab. Sampson didn’t know, since he was enough of a Boy Scout to blow the whistle, but Cahill did.
When Anna Merrick stole the files after being strong-armed by Lila and Amisha, it tripped some kind of hidden alarm. Department of Defense agents were sent to follow her. The CIA goons were working on behalf of Foster, the Agency muckety-muck who ran Mongoose and who is now, thanks to Reacher, sans one ear. And Ahlquist hired mercenaries to cover things up since he had based his pesticide business on the weapon formula. So, that’s all the various factions covered. Lila and Amisha are mostly out for money, but Amisha also used to be in Putra’s special forces unit, and apparently worshipped him. She even took the photo that everyone is so concerned about, so she knew that while the whiteboard in the background is illegible in the original version, recent advances in AI technology mean that the lens can be digitally refocused to reveal its contents.
The weapon is derived from a plant native to Indonesia, the seeds of which Lila happens to keep in her bracelet. With them, it only takes a few commonplace chemistry items to create the weapon, which can be aerosolized to cover a wide area. And since Putra found out and stole the weapon, the DARPA team never got around to creating an antidote. Needless to say, this is all very bad news.
Lila and Amisha already have a working version of the compound, which they test on a kidnapped junkie, so time is running out. Luckily, Docherty has a change of heart and lets Jacob go, so he’s able to call Reacher and Tamara with more bad news. Lila and Amisha are auctioning off the weapon on the dark web, and the listing mentions a proof-of-concept demonstration (Jacob has Plum’s phone, which is how he knows this). That means a lot of people are liable to die in the test unless Reacher and Tamara can figure out the target venue.
The first suspected location is an outdoor orchestra playing movie theme tunes, but Docherty checks the place out — much to his own detriment; he’s hilarious in this episode — and it comes up clean. The next suspicion is morning rush-hour traffic. Reacher calls Sampson, who is glad-handing at a fundraiser, to ask him to get the interstates shut down. But Sampson realises too late that the real target is his own function. Once again, he kept an important detail from Reacher. When the U.S. sent a team to take out Putra, he was on it. It was him who pulled the trigger, and Amisha saw him do it. Why not choose a demonstration target that includes a bit of payback, too?
Hence, Tomas Waberi. Reacher realises that the best way of deploying the chemical weapon is a suicide bomber, and Waberi is the volunteer. That’s why Lila and Amisha were so grateful to him. And it means that Sampson has to scour the venue using the same bomber checklist as Reacher used to identify Anna Merrick in the premiere. He spots Waberi just as Reacher is pulling up outside and racing on foot through the gates. But the commotion gets Waberi’s attention, so Sampson charges him and sends them both toppling into the river. The bomb goes off underwater, presumably dulling the effects of the weapon, but the blast seems to have ended Sampson’s political campaign for good.