TL;DR – While it has a slow start, it sinks its hooks in as you desperately want to see the bad guys fail before the bodies pile up too high.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service used to view this series.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Neagley Review Introduction –

One of Amazon Prime’s most successful series in recent years has been Reacher, and given its success, it was only a matter of time before someone tried a spin-off. But if you are going to spin off such a successful series, you need to have a good hook, and I think one of the most successful supporting cast members is a good place to start. Now, we have had the chance to watch the season, and it is time to dive back in to see if it worked or not.   

So, to set the scene, it is 2 am in Chicago, and a man walks out onto the train line tracks into oncoming traffic and is killed instantly. The man, Tommy Crane (Jhaleil Swaby), was an old childhood friend of Neagley (Maria Sten), who has just finished off a successful resolution of a kidnapping case with a little help from her old boss Reacher (Alan Ritchson). While she had not seen Tommy in years, him getting so high that he would walk out onto oncoming traffic does not sound like him, and so she must investigate. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Cult

Oh wow, did they nail the vibe of that cult at Echo Canyon Farm, maybe to the point where it started to get a little too caricature-ish. Lawrence Cole (Damon Herriman) hits every single one of the creepy manipulations of a cult leader. Sexual exploitation, gaslighting, brutality, and abject hypocrisy at every turn. This creates such fertile ground for tension because you never know when things are going to dramatically escalate. Which only increases when Keno (Jasper Jones) gets dropped undercover. Because we know the farm is murdering people on-site and is a lot more dangerous than anyone knows. Continuing this throughout the season kept you and the characters always off-balance.

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

I don’t know why, given this is a spin-off of Reacher, but it was honestly surprising just how many bodies pile up throughout the season. Not just the usually low-level functionaries and the big bad at the end, though of course all those things happen. But there is a trail of corpses that litter behind our investigators. Part of that comes from these out-of-pocket moments that come out of nowhere, such as surprise rebar and the chair-coffin. The other part comes from mounds of corpses that everyone is piling up, to the point that even with all the conspiracies going on, you would have thought that hundreds of deaths should have been flagged before now. But hey, it’s Swedes that are the bad guys this time around; that is a nice change from the usual.   

Finding Its Feet

I will say that I did have some concerns with the show when I watched the first episode, L Train. Part of that came from a feeling that it was just a carbon copy of Reacher, with Neagley subbed in. I am happy to say that as the season progressed, it did find its own voice. As the season expanded, the fact that everyone involved had a hometown stake in the outcomes did give it a different vibe from Reacher’s drop-in and drop-out mentality. It also allowed the worlds of Neagley and Hudson Riley (Greyston Holt) to crash in interesting ways. You did feel the emotion as some of those story points land towards the end, and that only works if you have made that connection. The narrative actively supported and promoted the themes of the show, and I do like when that reinforcement is there.  

Action Star

We knew from Reacher that Maria Sten was quite capable when we got into the more action-heavy parts of the series, and I am happy to say that this continues here. Indeed, the whole cast is quite capable, which we see throughout, but especially in the finale episode, Touched, which is, as tradition, mostly one long action sequence. If I had to pick my favourite for the season, it was probably Hudson brawling for his life with Murphy (Mal Dassin). The good thing was that none of the fights felt forced because it had been too long since the last one, so we needed to add a new one in. Also, I respected that while Alan Ritchson is back for the season finale, he does not turn up as a wall-of-muscle Deus ex machina during the final action scene.  

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Neagley? Yes, we would. While it starts a little slow, when it finds its feet, it starts running for its life. I felt concern, wonder, and a couple of emotions to boot. I hope we get to see more of this ragtag team. Have you seen Neagley yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Neagley
Directed by – MJ Bassett, Phil Abraham, Gary Fleder, & Sam Hill
Written by – Lacey Herbert, Kyle Long, Adam Higgs, Nick Santora & Nicholas Wootton
Created by – Nick Santora & Nicholas Wootton
Based On – Reacher by Lee Child
Production/Distribution Companies – Amazon MGM Studios, Skydance Television, Paramount Television Studios, Blackjack Films & Amazon Prime
Starring – Maria Sten, Greyston Holt, Adeline Rudolph, Jasper Jones, Matthew Del Negro, & Damon Herriman
With – Alan Ritchson, Peter Outerbridge, Tyrone Benskin, James Downing, L. Dean Ifill, John Bregar, Robinne Fanfair, Nigel Shawn Williams, Mal Dassin, Jessica Clement, Michael Thomas Hough, Ari Cohen, Emilie Ullerup, Anders Yates, Ian Tracey, Justine Nelson, Rebecca Liddiard, Eric Miracle, Jeff Kassel, Tara Rosling, Jerry O’Connell, Joel Keller, Frank Cox-O’Connell, Brian Hamman, Stephen Louis Grush, Matthew Finlan, Jhaleil Swaby, Gerald York, & Sean Cullen
And – Zion Hutson, Kyle McKim, Ema Ines, Frank Moore, Nicholas Tull, Lars Melby, Zach Parsons, Ryan Turner, Taylor Bernier, Kenzie Heaven Grist, Marie Ward, Jonathan Maxwell Silver, Randal Baumer, Hannan Younis, Frank Chiesurin, Glen Michael Grant, Michael Wisniewski, Michael Gordin Shore, Keethan Krish, Zoe Belkin, David Gingrich, Ken Hall, Devon MacDonald, Tyler Murree, Luis Fernandes, Dennis Nimoh Jr., Jim Monaco, Jordy Trevan, Wilfred Lee, & Emily Mitchell 
Episodes Covered – L Train, Team Building Exercises, Hammer Time, Breaking & Entering, Trip, Rocked, LeBron’s No Jordan, & Touched