I’m Worried About How Reacher Season 4 Will Adapt The Book’s Most Disturbing Scene

January 17, 2026

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Warning: Potential spoilers for Reacher season 4Reacher season 4 will adapt Gone Tomorrow, which features one of the most harrowing scenes from the novels, and I’m not sure how the show will bring it to life. Gone Tomorrow is book 13 in the Lee Child Jack Reacher book series, and sees Jack look into a strange suicide he bore witness to.

Gone Tomorrow is a great choice for Reacher season 4, as it’s a twisty novel full of surprises. It harkens back to the murder mystery of the show’s first season, and while the Alan Ritchson-fronted series will no doubt pump up the action quota, the book already features some memorable setpieces.

Reacher Season 4 Features One Of The Book Series Most Disturbing Sequences

Alan Ritchson sitting at a desk in Reacher.

However, the thing I remember most about Gone Tomorrow is the passage where Reacher receives a mysterious DVD from the villain. Not being very technological, he first has to seek out a DVD player, and once Reacher watches it, it’s revealed to be a snuff film depicting two men being tortured to death.

While Child doesn’t go into Clive Barker’s levels of detail involving the gore, this chapter is quite graphic in the way it depicts the men being disemboweled and left to die. Brutal as this passage is, it’s designed to up the stakes and make Reacher himself very, very angry.

Jay Baruchel was originally cast in a key part in Reacher season 4, but was later replaced by Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette.

Both the Jack Reacher novels and the TV show have featured gruesome scenes, but Gone Tomorrow’s DVD takes the cake. It’s a chilling, kind of sickening part of the story, and Reacher himself is threatened with the same fate by the villains, who perform a running commentary as he watches.

Child’s books can be more disturbing than the show, such as the horrific murder of Dominique Kohl in Persuader. Season 3 toned down Kohl’s death significantly, but the novel made it clear she was beaten, tortured and had pieces cut from her body.

There’s also a chapter in the book Die Trying involving Reacher having to crawl through a very tight tunnel and getting stuck that disturbed readers. Still, Gone Tomorrow’s DVD double murder tends to stick out amongst readers as, hands down, the most unpleasant chapter in the entire series.

Gone Tomorrow’s Torture Scene Is Essential To The Story

Alan Ritchson as Reacher looking to the right.

Time will tell how Prime’s Reacher adapts the scene, but it’s also too important to simply drop it. This chapter is a major turning point in Gone Tomorrow, revealing the fate of a missing person Reacher had been seeking, and underlining just how twisted the villains are.

The contents of the DVD are so unpleasant that even Reacher runs to a bathroom to throw up in the aftermath. While it didn’t sicken me to the same degree, it certainly made an impression while I was reading it.

I’m in no rush to see the live-action version, but it would be worse if season 4 tried to avoid it. Child didn’t include this moment just to disturb or upset readers; it’s critical to the plot, and it adds a layer of tension to proceedings as Reacher might end up in the same position.

In fact, when he later comes face to face with his enemies, he nearly becomes the star of their next DVD. Dropping this moment or replacing it with something else would be cowardly. It will no doubt get audiences talking (and make a few of them mad), and it sets the stage for Reacher gaining righteous revenge in the finale.

Reacher Season 4 Will Need To Be Careful Adapting This Sequence

Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher looking to the side while sitting in a bench in Reacher season 3.

Which comes back to my original question: how will Reacher bring this torture/murder scene to life? The reason it works in the novel is because of the graphic detail involved, such as stomachs being sliced with surgical precision. Part of the horror is how clinical and exacting the villains are while doing it.

On the flipside, nobody wants to tune into an episode of Reacher and get confronted with a scene right out of a Saw sequel either. That’s why I’m a little worried about how this sequence is going to work in TV form. If the violence is largely implied, it will lessen the raw shock audiences are meant to feel.

If it’s too explicit, it might push viewers to switch off. Again, Prime’s Reacher has often taken the tack of dialing back from the nastier moments from Child’s novels. If I had to guess, this scene will be reconceived to be waaaay less distressing, like the events of the DVD being described to him instead.

The worst thing would be to remove it, since I can’t picture Gone Tomorrow without it. Child intentionally pushes the envelope further to make a point, and it even unnerves the unflappable man mountain that is Reacher. And making Jack himself vulnerable (and scared) is a good thing for the show.

Reacher might be the modern equivalent of a musclebound action movie hero from the 1980s, but Prime’s adaptation is more interesting when it makes him human. Gone Tomorrow’s snuff film achieves that, and while I might be wincing through it, the season would be lesser without it.