'Reacher's Best Character Still Deserves Their Own Spin-Off

Published Nov 8, 2026, 1:58 PM EST

Jeffrey is a freelance features writer at Collider. He is an MPA-accredited entertainment journalist and a Tomatometer-approved critic based in the LA area. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Radio, TV, & Film and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater.

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Now that Reacher Season 4 has come to an action-packed conclusion, fans are looking ahead to Season 5, which will adapt the twentieth book in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, Make Me. But who says Reacher has to start and end with Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson)himself? Now that the books have become a live-action franchise, the powers that be should start thinking of expanding the Reacher universe with more spin-offs — and one needs to star a fan-favorite character who made a welcome return after being part of the original show's main cast.

Malcolm Goodwin's Detective Finlay Can Carry a 'Reacher' Spin-off

Although the original series is named after Reacher, co-star Malcolm Goodwin asserted himself remarkably well throughout the first season, shouldering a significant amount of the emotional weight even when Ritchson wasn't onscreen. Season 1 establishes Detective Oscar Finlay as an intriguing, layered character; later episodes reveal that he enjoys classic rock, annoying Reacher with his taste in music. Finlay's also capable of holding his own in the action sequences that require it, stripping off his tweed jacket and savoring one last cigarette in the Season 1 finale before going into battle in an epic, Die Hard-style moment.

Yet the best reveal for Finlay comes in Episode 6 of Season 1, "Papier." While Finlay and Reacher are on a stakeout at the Kliner Foundation's factory, Finlay reveals that he's not divorced, which Reacher incorrectly infers in the series premiere. Instead, viewers discover that Finlay's wife, Sharon, passed away from cancer. Blaming himself for his wife's illness and inability to save her, he views his move to Margrave as a self-imposed exile and penance for her death. When Reacher asks why Finlay didn't explain the mistake, Finlay explains that everyone assumes that a man like him is divorced, so he opts not to correct them because he doesn't want anyone's pity. Finlay has even continued paying his wife's cellphone bill so he could still leave her voice messages and hear her voice. The episode's reveal ultimately makes Finlay a much more interesting, sympathetic, and relatable character.

How Could an Oscar Finlay Spin-Off Differentiate Itself From 'Reacher'?

In Season 2 of Reacher, Finlay makes a guest appearance in the fourth episode, "A Night at the Symphony," assisting Reacher and David O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos) in interrogating Daniel Boyd (Kyle Mac). While Reacher and Finlay have shared a prickly working relationship, Reacher demonstrates his deep respect for the detective by saying, "If he was in the Army, I’d have asked him to join the 110th," referring to Reacher's old unit in the Military Police. The episode establishes that Finlay has returned to his hometown and the Boston Police Department — and moved up in rank, earning the position of lieutenant. Finlay also confirms that he's still taking care of Jack, the neglected dog he adopted at the end of the first season.

Not only does Finlay's appearance in Season 2 continue the expansion of Reacher's cast, but it also creates the perfect backdoor for a spin-off. Now that Finlay is back home, a potential series could explore Finlay's new role in the Boston PD while attempting to move on from his wife's loss and living with Jack the dog as his roommate. Since Finlay is a working detective who very much likes to play by the rules, he'll often have to be restricted in ways that Reacher isn't. However, that doesn't mean that some of Reacher's more unconventional methods haven't rubbed off on Finlay during their time together.

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Impact

Action/Quizzes/Your Franchise

Collider QuizWhat Action Series
Would You Thrive In?8 Questions · 4 FranchisesFour franchises. Four completely different ideas of what a hero is: the professional with a code, the family that never leaves anyone behind, the man who does his own stunts, and the guy who simply refuses to go down. Only one of them runs on your particular brand of trouble. Eight questions will tell you which one you would survive.The Four

Wick

Fast

Mission

Die Hard

Find Your Franchise

Beat 01 / 080% Shot

Question 01PRESENCE

01How does a room know you've walked into it?Every action hero arrives differently. Some of them arrive before they arrive.

ASomeone recognizes me, and the temperature in the room drops without a single word being said.BLoudly and warmly. I arrive with my people, and we're already laughing about something.CI'm the one who told everybody where to stand. I walked this room twice before anyone else arrived.DBy accident. I wasn't supposed to be here, and now I'm the only one who can do anything about it.

← BackPick one, then Next

Next Question

Beat 02 / 0812% Shot

Question 02COMBAT

02It turns physical. What does your fighting look like?Choreography is character. Yours says something about you.

AEconomical and devastating. Trained technique, no wasted motion, finished before most people notice it started.BLoud, heavy and weirdly joyful. I'm not elegant, I hit like a truck, and I always have backup.CTo plan, until the plan breaks. Then I improvise at full sprint and refuse to stop moving.DBadly, honestly, and with a lot of swearing. I take more punishment than I deal and I still don't go down.

← BackPick one, then Next

Next Question

Beat 03 / 0825% Shot

Question 03CREW

03Who is standing beside you when it starts?Some franchises are built on a team. Others are built on one person walking in alone.

ANobody. I have contacts, favors and people who owe me, but when it begins I work alone.BEveryone. My people are the entire point, and I'd trade the whole mission for any one of them.CA small hand-picked team I trust completely, and I'd still take the worst part of the job myself.DA voice on the other end of a radio and a building full of people who don't know I exist.

← BackPick one, then Next

Next Question

Beat 04 / 0838% Shot

Question 04PRESSURE

04It has gone badly wrong. What keeps you upright?Act two exists to find out what you're really made of.

AFocus, commitment and sheer will. Grief is fuel if you point it in the right direction.BThe people counting on me. I don't appear to have a limit when it's family on the line.CRefusing to accept the odds. Somebody has to do the impossible part, and it's going to be me.DSpite, mostly. And a growing sense that these people picked the wrong building.

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Next Question

Beat 05 / 0850% Shot

Question 05WHEELS

05There's a vehicle. What are you driving, and how?No action franchise has ever survived without a car chase. This one is yours.

AA black muscle car I am unreasonably attached to, and I will dismantle an entire empire over it.BSomething impossibly modified, at impossible speed, off an impossible ramp. Physics is a suggestion.CA motorbike at full throttle through a city I memorized last night. And then off a cliff.DA borrowed car, badly, while somebody in the passenger seat politely asks me to slow down.

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Next Question

Beat 06 / 0862% Shot

Question 06ORDERS

06How do you feel about the people giving the orders?There is always an institution. There is rarely a good one.

AThere are rules and I respect them absolutely, right up until somebody breaks one against me.BI don't take orders. I take care of people, and everything else tends to sort itself out.CI serve the mission, not the memo. If my people are in danger, the orders come second.DThey're in a van outside telling me what I'm doing wrong while I'm the one standing on broken glass.

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Next Question

Beat 07 / 0875% Shot

Question 07MOTIVE

07Underneath all of it, what are you doing this for?The stunts are the reason people come. This is the reason they stay.

ASomething was taken from me that can't be replaced, and I've been settling that account ever since.BBelonging. I built a family out of people who had nowhere else, and I'll defend it with everything.CThe conviction that if I stop, people pay for it. I don't know how to hand that to anyone else.DI just wanted to get through the holidays with my family. Everything after that was self-defense.

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Next Question

Beat 08 / 0888% Shot

Question 08LEGEND

08When the credits roll, what do people say about you?Every franchise is really an argument about what makes someone worth watching.

AThat I was a myth people warned each other about in whispers, and that they were right to.BThat I never left anyone behind, the door was always open, and there was always a place at the table.CThat I did the impossible part myself, every single time, and never asked anyone to risk it for me.DThat I was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, who turned out to be very hard to stop.

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Reveal My Franchise

Casting Has Been CompletedYour Franchise Is

Four action series. One of them is built around exactly the way you handle pressure, people, and a room that has just gone very quiet. Here is where you would survive the trilogy, and probably headline it.

2014-2023John WickJohn Wick to Chapter 4Reasonable to the line. Immovable past it.

You are precision with a grudge. You don't posture, you don't escalate, and you don't warn anybody twice. That is exactly why the people who know you are so careful never to be the reason you start.Why You Would Thrive Here

• The Wick films run on discipline: an underworld with actual etiquette, a hero who honors every rule of it, and a world that unravels the instant someone breaks one against him.
• You share that quality. You are extraordinarily reasonable right up to the line, and then completely immovable past it.
• Focus, commitment and sheer will. You'd be the one carrying grief through three sequels and turning it into technique rather than noise.
• People wouldn't call you dangerous. They'd say your name quietly and let that do the work.

The CodeNo Wasted MotionSay It Quietly

2001-2023Fast & FuriousThe Fast and the Furious to Fast XThe mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.

You understand the thing the whole franchise is secretly about: the cars are spectacular, but the crew is the point. You collect people, you keep them, and you'd drive through a building for any one of them.Why You Would Thrive Here

• This series went from street racing to orbit without ever changing its real subject, because loyalty scales and plot doesn't have to.
• You have the same instinct. You build a family out of whoever turns up, and then you defend it past the point of reason.
• You'd thrive here because the franchise rewards exactly your strengths: warmth, nerve, an absolute refusal to leave anyone behind, and a relaxed relationship with physics.
• The mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.

Found FamilyRide TogetherPhysics Optional

1996-2025Mission: ImpossibleMission: Impossible to The Final ReckoningYou have never once delegated the cliff.

You over-prepare and then take the dangerous part yourself anyway. It looks like control, but it's really responsibility. You have never worked out how to ask somebody else to carry the risk.Why You Would Thrive Here

• This is the franchise of the plan that collapses on schedule: the team, the mask, the rooftop, and the one person sprinting flat out because sprinting is all that's left.
• You share that refusal to accept an outcome. Told the odds, you treat them as an administrative error.
• You'd thrive here because these films reward competence and loyalty in equal measure. The mission matters, but nobody on the team gets left on the wrong side of a door.
• Some people delegate the cliff. You have never once been that person.

Over-PreparedOwn The RiskStill Running

1988-2013Die HardDie Hard to A Good Day to Die HardYou declined to be the person who let it happen.

You are not the most trained person in the building, the best equipped, or the one anybody would have picked. You are simply the one still standing at the end, which turns out to be the only qualification that matters.Why You Would Thrive Here

• Die Hard invented the modern action hero by making him mortal: outnumbered, out-planned, battered, and extremely funny about it.
• You share that stubbornness. Adversity doesn't make you noble, it makes you sarcastic, and then it makes you unstoppable.
• You'd thrive here because these films reward improvisation and nerve over preparation, and you've never had the luxury of preparing anyway.
• You didn't want any of this. You just declined to be the person who let it happen.

Wrong PlaceImprovisesStill Standing

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Prime Video creating another Reacher spin-off for a supporting character wouldn't be a huge stretch. The streamer previously greenlit two spin-offs for the Bosch franchise, as well as a prequel spin-off for The Terminal List. Why not capitalize on Neagley's success by building a Jack Reacher TV universe while they're at it? Until Amazon Studios explores or greenlights a Finlay spin-off, fans can enjoy the first four seasons of Reacher, which are streaming now on Prime Video. Season 5 is currently in production and will be released on a date yet to be announced.