Reacher Season 3 villains explained, including Paulie and Quinn

Jack Reacher goes toe-to-toe with his most dangerous opponents yet in the new series, so here’s what to expect from the villains in Season 3 on Prime video.

Season 1 of Reacher saw the former soldier facing off with a gang of counterfeiters, while Season 2 revolved around shady defence contractors.

Season 3 is based on Lee Child’s 2003 novel Persuader, though in adapting the book, the writers have made one major change, involving a beloved character.

The villains remain much the same however, with Jack coming into conflict with three extremely dangerous criminals in Reacher Season 3. Mild SPOILERS below.

Zachary Beck

Zachary Beck is a rich businessman with generational wealth, who trades in carpets, importing and exporting expensive rugs.

But his huge security detail (see Paulie below) and the fact that his son keeps getting kidnapped suggests that Beck is into something a good deal more criminal. Which Reacher discovers when he goes undercover to infiltrate Zach’s operation, which is connected to an enemy from Jack’s past (see Quinn even further down this page).

Beck is played by Anthony Michael Hall, who started out in the John Hughes teen movies, but has played darker characters in recent years, including a starring role in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone.

Paulie

Paulie is Zachary Beck’s bodyguard, and an actual giant, standing at 7 feet and 2 inches, making him a full foot taller than Jack Reacher.

In Episode 2 of Season 3, we learn a little about the past of this imposing figure, with Paulie being discharged from the army for punching a captain’s eye out of its socket, and snapping off another man’s finger. Making him extremely dangerous, which only ups the anticipation for his inevitable fight with Reacher.

Paulie is played by Oliver Richters, a former bodybuilder who has appeared in the likes of Black Widow, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Borderlands.

Xavier Quinn

There’s much mystery attached to Francis Xavier Quinn at the start of Reacher Season 3, but the way Jack acts when he sees him – with a mixture of shock, fear and rage – suggests that he’s a very bad man.

A former Lieutenant Colonel in the army, during Episode 1 Jack reveals that Quinn sold military secrets to America’s enemies, and calls him “the single worst person I’ve ever known.”

Quinn is also somehow involved with both Zachary Beck and Paulie, and that connection means he’s on a collision course with Reacher, which is likely to be the major conflict this season.

Quinn is played by Brian Tee, who was the villain in both Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, meaning he knows a thing or two about being a baddie onscreen.

For more on the big guy, here’s a Reacher Season 3 release schedule, our review of the first three episodes, and a guide to the Reacher Season 3 cast and characters.