Prime Video's 40-Episode Flagship Franchise Is Secretly The Best Western On TV

Published Nov 14, 2026, 10:15 AM EST

Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant's Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones. 

You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, "Movie Monsters of the Deep."

Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant. 

A lone man walks into a small American town that is beset by problems and corruption. He makes an impression, has a fleeting romance with one of the local women, and when the trouble is over, he rides away into the sunset for an unknown destination. This storyline is instantly recognizable to classic Western fans, yet it has been cleverly hidden within one of Prime Video's best action TV shows that is not presented as a Western at all.

Alan Ritchson's performance as Jack "just Reacher" made it clear that Reacher would be a masterpiece, and while the show made some necessary changes from Lee Child's bestselling book series, it has been faithful to its format. The Jack Reacher novels are mostly standalone stories and maintaining this setup is one of the best decisions the creative team made, as it allowed new viewers to begin watching the series at any point. Still, Reacher and its spinoff, Neagley, are presented as action TV shows with the occasional horror, crime, and even neo-noir elements, but their true genre has gone unnoticed.

Prime Video's Reacher Franchise Is A Stealth Western

Reacher's latest season changed genres, with season 4 centering on a worldwide conspiracy and taking the franchise toward horror in its later episodes. However, this is an outlier, and Reacher's four seasons have mostly stayed closer to home, with small town mysteries and corruption that sees its titular character both coming up against law enforcement and working with sympathetic agents. This is a tried-and-tested formula for the Western genre, with Westerns featuring a mysterious drifter hero who mentors local police almost being a genre of their own, and ranging from The Magnificent Seven to Longmire.

Reacher's spinoff, Neagley, might have originally been met with skepticism, but Neagley has beaten Reacher's Rotten Tomatoes audience record by bringing something new to the table but keeping some of the formula Reacher introduced, and this includes its genre. Like Reacher, Frances Neagley has loner tendencies and a strict sense of justice, which both lead to her taking on a vigilante role when she encounters a wall of corruption. The themes of frontier justice are clear in the explosive first season, which takes her to a lawless rural commune with a cult leader.

Comparing Reacher to Neagley
Title	Year	Seasons aired	Total episodes	Rotten Tomatoes critics' rating	Rotten Tomatoes audience rating
Reacher	2022	4	32	95%	77%
Neagley	2026	1	8	94%	82%

Prime Video confirmed that Neagley has been renewed for a second season, and as the spinoff must break Reacher's rule and continue the story with a regular cast, this will have interesting implications. Rather than changing Neagley's genre, this looks set to take the show further along the Western genre path, but while Reacher remains "the man with no first name," Neagley can lead her own team as "the magnificent four."

Reacher Season 5 Is About To Be Another Unusual Genre Blend

Image courtesy of MovieStillsDb

After Reacher stopped a potentially world-changing series of events in the show's fourth season, the show is going to return to its roots with another small-town mystery. Reacher's fifth season is based on Lee Child's book Make Me, which is not just a claustrophobic and ominous story, but another change in genre for the series. The extremely disturbing subject matter will bring in both horror and psychological drama elements that canonically affect Reacher in the later books, which means that season 5 could be a turning point for both the show and the character.

Even so, with Reacher once again arriving in a remote area with hostile and watchful people, and forming a partnership with a woman with a vested interest in the town's secret, the show is also going back to its hidden genre: the Western. This extends to its setting, which takes him to the prairies and farming land of the rural midwest, which will act as the frontier town soon to face his brand of justice, before he inevitably heads off again. Whether Reacher will break from tradition and have company for the next season remains to be seen.

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  Jack Reacher

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  Maria Sten

  Frances Neagley

Without a phone and traveling light, former military police officer Jack Reacher drifts between American towns, embroiling himself in local crimes and bringing justice in his wake. Based on the series of novels by Lee Child, Reacher's journey offers him an intimate understanding of the nation he once served.