| In the Book |
In the TV Show |
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Set in 2007. Starts with Calvin Franz being dropped from a helicopter into the desert 50 miles north-east of Los Angeles. |
Set in 2023. Starts in the Catskill mountains north of New York City with a man dropped from a helicopter to the ground. |
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No kidnapping/carjacking/clothes shopping. Reacher sees $1030 deposited in his bank account while withdrawing money from an ATM in Portland Oregon because he spent his money on dinner with a cute attorney before sleeping with her. He calls the bank and is able to find out that Frances Neagley sent him the money. He contacts the security agency where she is a partner, and is told by her assistant that she is flying to LA and he has to find her there. |
Reacher is buying new clothes and discarding his old ones. He needs to go to the ATM where he finds the victim of a carjacking/kidnapping. He incapacitates the carjacker. Reacher looks at his ATM receipt and sees a deposit for $1030 which is a code Neagley uses to inform him that he needs to call her. Neagley tells Reacher that Calvin Franz has died and he needs to get to NYC quickly.
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These flashbacks are not in the book. There are details on Reacher’s reason for leaving the Army in the novel, “The Affair”. Reacher investigates a corrupt US Army captain and his Senator father. Reacher eventually murders them both and leaves their car to be hit by an oncoming train. Reacher is disillusioned by the military and resigns his commission to roam the country. |
There are numerous flashbacks throughout each episode that show Unit 110 and their activities involving previous criminal cases as a means to introduce the characters that are dead at the beginning of the series. Unit 110 is trying to bring down US Army officers involved in a drug smuggling operation. The unit is ordered by Col Fields to drop the investigation to avoid embarrassing the local commanding officer. Unit 110 makes the bust anyway and the careers of all of the Unit are ruined. Reacher resigns his commission soon after and starts drifting. |
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Reacher finds Neagley at a Denny’s Diner in Hollywood; she determined that Reacher would be headed there for food after deciding she would be in Hollywood. She is actually staying at the Wilshire in Beverly Hills. She tells him that Franz is dead and that someone might have thrown him out of an airplane. Mrs. Franz called Neagley to report his death, nothing about assistance required. |
Reacher tracks Neagley down at a café in NYC. She tells him Franz was found dead in the mountains. Franz was working on something and wanted to talk to Neagley about something.
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Reacher thinks Franz’s widow is deceptive when talking to him about her husband’s death. She gives them keys to her husband’s place of business. Their house was not ransacked. |
Franz’s widow talks to Neagley and Reacher. Mrs. Franz says she could not contact Franz while he was out working on something while she was out of town. She returned home to find her home ransacked. Franz dealt with wall street type clients. He no longer handled dangerous clients. She gives Reacher the keys to Franz’s office. |
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Neagley figures out that Franz mailed his important files to himself from the USPS across the street from his office. The next day they question the landlord of the mini-mall in which Franz rented his office. He said well dressed men, not cops, paid him for keys to Franz’s office space. |
Neagley figures out that Franz mailed his important files to himself from the USPS across the street from his office. It is after 5pm and closed, they will come back tomorrow. Reacher knows Neagley is doing very well as she can afford good things and has been promoted twice at the PI company she works for.
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Reacher gets a haircut and new clothes. The barber tells him where he can score drugs. He runs into a dealer’s bag man with his car and steals $900. Reacher always keeps the money he steals from the people he kills or beats up. |
Reacher tells Neagley he needs to buy a gun. He goes to a local church and asks the priest for help looking for his friend who is on drugs and on the street. The priest gives him the name of a drug den to look for him at. Reacher drives to the drug dealer’s hangout, beats them up, steals a pistol and throws away their drugs. He gives the dealer’s money to the priest. |
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This does not happen in the book. Azhari Mahmoud already has his passports available to him. |
Azhari Mahmoud buys a set of passports from two men, then kills them.
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Franz had four encrypted flash drives in the mail. The first three flash drives erased after Neagley entered three wrong passwords for each. They take a break and go look for Swan at the New Age company. Margaret Berneson tells them Swan was laid off. They find O’Donnell waiting for them back at their hotel room, he was out of contact as he was in New Jersey taking care of a sick sister. O’Donnell tries Reacher as a password; it works. |
Neagley and Reacher find O’Donnell in her hotel room. He is recently arrived back from vacation and looking for them. O’Donnell figures out Franz’s password for his thumb drive; the password is Reacher. |
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O’Donnell and Reacher confront the driver of the car following them after they leave Swan’s house. Reacher beats him unconscious. The man is Charles Brant, LAPD. They leave him to recover in his car and run away. |
Reacher confronts the driver of a different car that was following them. He beats up the driver; he is NYPD (Russo). O’Donnell, Neagley and Reacher leave the scene.
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O’Donnell and Neagley turn in their rental cars at the airport. Karla Dixon is at the airport; in from NYC via Las Vegas and looking for them. She rents a car for the team. Dixon tells the others that she cannot find Sanchez or Orozco and thinks they have been missing for three weeks. |
They turn in Neagley’s rented Range Rover to the car rental at the airport. Reacher finds one of his old team, Karla Dixon, at the car rental return. She is recently returned from Texas and rents a car for them with her fake ID. |
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The team goes to a local bar to find Jorge Sanchez’s girlfriend, Milena. They speak to her the next day. She takes them to his house. She said he got a call about some numbers that he wrote on a napkin then called Calvin Franz about them. Milena claims Sanchez no longer had clients, but Orozco’s wife might know more. Tammy Orozco claims her husband got a call for help from one of the Unit 110 team members. |
They track down Orozco’s girlfriend at a local bar. She tells them that Orozco was working on a case and she has not heard from him for a while. He overhead a phone call where he mentioned “650 for $100k each”.
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Orozco and Sanchez were working casino security in Vegas until the casino established their own in-house security. Reacher and the team talk to casino security (Wright) about their missing friends. He assures them no one is running a money scam on them. He also says Azhari Mahmoud is not in any Las Vegas hotels. After they retire for the night, Dixon goes to Reacher’s room for sex. |
Orozco and Sanchez were working casino security. Reacher and his friends talk to casino security (Wright) about their missing friends. He assures them no one is running a money scam on them. |
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While leaving a local bar when looking for Sanchez’s girlfriend, a man tries to shoot all four of the team in the back. Reacher hears the man behind him then manages to push everyone to the ground while O’Donnell shoots and kills the man. They bury him at a construction site. They take the hitman’s SUV. Reacher calls the hitman’s last number dialed on the phone and talks to the boss. Reacher tells him he has two days until they throw him out of a helicopter. |
Dixon and Reacher spot men following them and run away. The split up inside of a construction site. Reacher stabs a man with a trowel and tosses him off of scaffolding. Dixon beats another man to death with a piece of rebar. The third man tries to shoot Dixon, but Reacher takes him out. They search the hit man’s car and find info on the team. Reacher uses the man’s phone and calls the boss (Shane Langston) to mock him. They toss the three bodies into wet concrete.
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While Neagley and O’Donnell are changing cars at the airport, a man tails them. Reacher and Dixon study the sheets of data and have sex when the other two are out. |
Reacher stitches up his wound from the fight at the hotel room. Reacher digs a bullet fragment out of Dixon’s chest above her left breast. She comes on to him and they have sex. |
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Azhari Mahmoud meets with the sellers and gives them $65 million in bearer bonds and diamonds. He is given a key to a shipping container at the Los Angeles docks containing the missiles. The manifest lists the contents as 650 DVD players. |
Twenty miles outside of Denver Colorado, Azhari Mahmoud meets a man who gives him information on the “650 in the truck”. He gives him a phone to track the shipment via a GPS locator in the truck along with two good ambush points along the route. The man wants assurances that the weapons will only be used overseas and that the driver will not be killed. Azhari Mahmoud assures him he does not hurt anyone.
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This scene is not in the book. |
A flashback to ten days earlier shows Calvin Franz being tortured by Shane Langston and his men for information related to the location of other team members. He refuses to talk; they then toss him into the mountains from a helicopter. |
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Neagley withdraws $50,000 in cash from her account, the team buys four used cars, work clothes (disguises), and burner call phones. Reacher robs a pawnshop of seven Glock pistols when the owner refused to circumvent California gun control laws and threatened him for asking. |
Reacher buys several pistols and burner phones from a New Jersey gun dealer. He pays him extra to circumvent gun control laws.
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LA County sheriffs Brant (the one Reacher assaulted) and Maurey meet the team at their hotel. The sheriffs and the team exchange clues. Brant says that they got video surveillance of Swan, Franz, Sanchez and Orozco together right before they disappeared. Later on Mauney informs them of Orozco’s body found in a gully in the desert near the location Franz was found at. Reacher later identifies his body at the morgue. |
Reacher, Neagley, Dixon and O’Donnell are pulled over by NYPD. Reacher is arrested by the police officer (Russo) he beat up earlier. O’Donnell is allowed to go with as his lawyer. Russo explains how he caught them; he saw Dixon renting a car for them. Russo informs them of the deaths of Orozco and Sanchez, he wants to exchange information with them. He is well informed about Unit 110. Orozco and Sanchez dug up information on Azhari Mahmoud, that got them killed. |
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Two men chase Reacher and O’Donnell on the street with pistols. They disarm the men, then O’Donnell maims their hands with a knife and takes their pistols. |
Reacher and his team are ambushed by a biker gang. They kill the bikers. Reacher calls Langston on one of the biker’s phones to tell him the ambush did not work. Langston offers a bribe, Reacher says he wants to throw him out of a helicopter.
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This does not happen in the book. |
Azhari Mahmoud goes to Denver airport but spots people looking for him. He leaves the airport and later tells Langston he will be late. |
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This does not happen in the book. |
Reacher and his team track down Trevor Seropian’s (one of the men Dixon killed at the construction site) home. They go to the home where Reacher tosses in a small homemade nail bomb. After it detonates, Reacher and his team murder the rest of the men in the house.
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This does not happen in the book. |
An SUV speeds away from the house they bombed, Reacher disables it by throwing a gas grill through the windshield. Reacher pulls a fat old man out of the SUV who promptly dies of a heart attack. He has a New Age company pass on him. |
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This does not happen in the book. |
Russo confronts his boss, Lt Marsh, about the hitmen at the funeral. He accuses Marsh of conspiring with New Age to kill Reacher and his team. Marsh admits that Langston paid him a ton of cash for updates on what Reacher and his team were up to. He claims he took the money to save his life and tells Russo to do so also. Russo refuses.
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Neagley and Reacher follow Margaret Berenson home and question her at gunpoint. She says Alan Lamaison, a New Age executive, raped her, then threatened her and her son if she did not lie to anyone investigating Swan’s disappearance. Lamaison and Maurey served in the LAPD together; both were/are dirty cops. When Swan went to the LAPD to report the New Age illegal activities, Maurey betrayed Swan to Lamaison. |
Margaret Berenson is not in the TV series. There is a New Age Director of Operations named Marlo Burns who lies to the team about Swan’s disappearance. She later runs away from home after being threatened by Langston. Reacher’s team locates her then uses her as bait to draw out Langston. She tells them that a New Age engineer would he required to show any terrorist how to install the chips for the missile. Langston’s men attack the team and Marlo; three of Langston’s men are killed but Langston escapes. Russo dies protecting Marlo’s daughter. |
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Maurey contacts the team and say Orozco is at the hospital. Neagley and Reacher met there, but are unable to find Dixon and O’Donnell. They suspect that they were kidnapped after finding out Maurey is working for Lamaison. |
Reacher and Neagley go to the hospital to question (torture) Langston’s sole survivor of the goons that killed Russo. He reveals the location and time of Langston’s sale after they torture him. Reacher murders the man with an air embolism. As they’re leaving, they see one of Langston’s men dressed in hospital scrubs and chase him. The man attacks Neagley, then Reacher kills him. Reacher calls Langston to mock him, Langston tells him that he kidnapped O’Donnell and Dixon and wants Reacher and Neagley to surrender. Reacher tells Langston that Neagley is dead, but he will meet Langston.
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This does not happen in the book. |
Azhari Mahmoud makes an appointment with a doctor that resembles him. He kills the doctor and his secretary in the office with a knife, then hangs up a closed sign. He does this to steal his identity. |
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This does not happen in the book. |
Reacher and O’Donnell rough up a drug dealer on the street and steal his drugs. The team then buys new suits/dresses to attend a symphony.
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Neagley writes to a source in the Pentagon for information. He replies with information saying New Age is making a weapons system called Little Wing. This leads them to Diana Bond, a staffer for a man on the House Defense Committee. Bond gives the team info on Little Wing, a new kind of shoulder launch surface to air missile. Swan was investigating New Age to determine why there was a high failure rate of the missile prototypes. The “failed” missiles were being sold, not destroyed. Swan, Franz, Sanchez and Orozco found out and were killed while investigating the matter. Detective Finley is not in this book. |
Dixon entraps a Senator’s aide using drugs who is then arrested by Detective Finley. The aide reveals information about a missile project called Little Wing. |
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Neagley calls her contact in DC and gets him to use their information on New Age to audit the rocket motor manufacturer that contracted with New Age for the missile motors. He reveals there are 650 previous edition rocket motors scheduled to be hauled away for destruction. Reacher wants to know when the missiles will be moved so he can catch the terrorist that is going to steal them. He does this so they can kill the people who killed their friends, instead of merely getting them arrested. |
Neagley and Dixon go to New Age to make a bogus surprise government inspection. They are told that 650 missiles went out for delivery ten minutes ago.
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O’Donnell does not have a wife or children. |
O’Donnell’s wife and kids go into hiding. |
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This does not happen in the book. |
The delivery truck driver stops for a “disabled semi”. The driver is murdered and the cargo stolen. The hijackers inform Azhari Mahmoud.
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This does not happen in the book. |
O’Donnell and Reacher talk to the Secret Service about Azhari Mahmoud and his mysterious background. Reacher implies he will kill Azhari Mahmoud instead of arresting him. |
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This does not happen in the book. |
Dixon and Neagley catch up to the hijackers while they are switching trailers. The hijackers shoot at them and disable their car. One man drives away with the hijacked truck, the other three are killed by Dixon and Neagley. They call the police anonymously then torch the car and run away.
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This does not happen in the book |
Reacher is detained by government agents on the street, they want to know more about why they interrogated the senator’s aide. The agents bring Reacher to Senator Lavoy. He wants Reacher’s help to retrieve the missiles. |
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This does not happen in the book. |
Reacher, Dixon, Neagley and O’Donnell go to Franz’s funeral. Russo tells Reacher that Langston and others were hired by New Age after they early retired to avoid an investigation.
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This does not happen in the book. |
Dixon and O’Donnell arrange for Marlo Burns and her daughter to stay in a safe place in Buffalo. Reacher and Neagley confront Marsh about Russo’s death and the Little Wing missiles. Reacher tortures Marsh for information then murders him. He leaves most of the dirty money in Marsh’s home after giving some to Neagley to pay her back for expenses during their operation. |
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This does not happen in the book. Reacher is an inexperienced and poor driver. |
Hitmen attack at the Franz funeral. Neagley kills one of the riflemen, the other is captured by Russo and Reacher. Reacher is shown to be a skillful driver. Reacher threatens to kill the man unless he talks. The shooter says Swan hired him and is waiting to give him the rest of the money at another location. The building explodes when the hitman enters.
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This does not happen in the book. |
Azhari Mahmoud is confronted by a police officer for hanging an item from his rear view mirror. While the officer is checking his license, he kills her. |
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Reacher and Neagley find the actual New Age manufacturing facility for the Little Wing missiles. They use Molotov Cocktails to start a fire at the facility, then run in on foot after the fire trucks arrive. They find Maurey and recover a briefcase with $65 million. Reacher tells Maurey to order the gate to be opened. Reacher orders Nealey to run out the gate; Reacher stays behind and murders Maurey. |
Reacher walks up to the facility fence and into the New Age compound to surrender while Dixon and O’Donnell are being prepped for loading onto the helicopter. Later inside of the facility, Reacher defeats six armed men in a fight with his hands cuffed behind is back. Langston stops the fight and shoots O’Donnell in the leg with Reacher’s pistol. The three soldiers that Senator Lavoy sends to help, invade the New Age facility with Neagley and kill nearly everyone inside.
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This does not happen in the book. |
Langston says Swan signed off on Little Wing paperwork. Langston shows them Swan’s eyeball and finger that he used to access his computer and house. |
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Reacher hides on the helicopter; Dixon and O’Donnell are loaded on tied up. When the Helicopter reaches the Badlands, Reacher kills Lennox and pushes Parker out to his death. Reacher frees Dixon and O’Donnell. After the pilot lands, Reacher kills him as he had flown the other Unit 110 members to their deaths. |
Reacher runs out to the helicopter and jumps on just as it is taking off with Langston. Reacher rescues his teammates and tosses Langston to his death. The helicopter lands at the engineer’s house to wait for Azhari Mahmoud.
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Neagley locates the New Age engineer, Edward Dean, who is being forced by the New Age company to teach Azhari Mahmoud how to arm the missiles. They tell him to leave. Azhari Mahmoud shows up and tells Reacher (thinking he is Edward Dean) he has to show how to arm the Little Wing missiles when the rocket motors arrive. Reacher and Neagley knock out and tie Azhari Mahmoud up. They tie up the truck driver who delivers the rocket motors and leave them both outside. Reacher and his team drive away; Neagley calls her contact in DC who in turns sends Homeland Security to recover the missiles and arrest Azhari Mahmoud and the truck driver. |
The truck hi-jacker meets with Azhari Mahmoud and turns over the missile components. Mahmoud tells the driver to take him to the engineer to show him how to program the missiles. Azhari Mahmoud and the truck hijacker show up at the engineer’s house. But Reacher and Neagley are waiting for them. The truck hijacker is killed. Azhari Mahmoud is brought into the house where he tries to justify his business before the team all empty their pistol magazines into him. |
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This does not happen in the book. The New Age engineer’s life is spared as he was also a victim. |
Reacher tells the helicopter pilot and engineer to leave. As they depart in the helicopter, Neagley uses a Little Wing launcher to shoot down the helicopter. After shooting down the helicopter, Senator Lavoy’s soldiers tell Reacher and his team they have orders to kill them to avoid the story leaking out. But Reacher has also called Homeland Security to back them up; they show up just in time to save them. Reacher calls Senator Lavoy to tell him he has one more loose end. Lavoy is arrested while Reacher is on the phone with him. Reacher denies knowledge of the location of the $65 million.
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The team decides to send the $65 million in bearer bonds and diamonds with Dixon so she can convert it to cash and divide among the surviving family and team members. Reacher goes to an ATM and finds deposits for $101,810.18 and $10,012 in his account. 1018 for mission accomplished and Dixon’s zip code. He buys a bus ticket and departs. |
The team shows up at a diner covered in bandages and blood. They decide have Reacher take control of it. Reacher gives the money to his team’s families and others involved. He takes nothing for himself. Dixon and Reacher shack up for a few days before going their separate ways. Reacher reveals that he bought himself a year-long bus pass. He says goodbye to Neagley at the bus station. |