December 23, 2023 • 38 mins
The final ever mini episode of the Cosmic Geppetto Podcast. Brad reviews the first 3 episodes of Season 2 of Reacher.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:21):
From Geppetto Studios in New Freedom,Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Cosmic Geppetto podcast,
your home for inclusive, positive geekculture where we talk about movies,
comics, music, books, andwhatever else we feel like. Please welcome
your host. Want to see Bradhave a meltdown? Just put a slice
of cheese on his hamburger. BradMendenhall, Hey kids, just episode ninety
(00:58):
eight a Cosmic podcast. It isa mini episode and it is the final
mini episode of the podcast. Nextwe have a Our next episode is going
to be with the wonderful Amy Kennerup where we talk about music that shaped
(01:21):
us, and then will be ourgrand finale episode three hundred. So for
the final mini episode. And Ihope you guys have enjoyed these as much
as I've enjoyed doing them. It'ssomething I sort of wish I had started
doing earlier. It's sort of fun, sort of just talking off the cough
about whatever I find interesting. AndI don't know, it's it's it's definitely
(01:42):
a little odd. You know.The sound quality is different because I'm just
recording this on my iPhone well,driving it back from dropping my kid off
at middle school. So the subjectwill be the first three episodes of the
(02:04):
Amazon Prime series Reacher have been released. They released the first three episodes and
then the remaining episodes of season twowill be released weekly. And it is
a I think it's a very goodshow. I had a conversation with Eric
(02:28):
Bain, the my good friend whoseopinions I greatly value, and he sort
of makes in comments about about sortof the writing and acting. It's it's
(02:50):
definitely not a prestige show. Itis an action show, and they lean
into all the ridiculous action tropes.But what works is for me, the
casting of Alan Richson as Jack Reacheris so spot on and it is brilliant.
(03:16):
And Reacher's character is very monosyllabic.He's a man of action, a
man of few words. He's Iimagine it's a little bit of a challenging
acting to act in that role becauseyou're not giving a bunch of long moologues
(03:39):
you were. Your job is tobe large and intimidating and then weirdly smart
in stuff that you have no businessbeing smart in. Uh. They definitely
do the Sherlock Holmes thing where somebodywalks into the room and they have a
smudge on their left shirt sleeve islike, oh, you've obviously been to
(04:01):
the Orient. It's like, howcould you know that. It's like because
the ink that you have. Iwas like, okay, and it's uh.
It's the thing where you write thingsbackwards, where the you know,
in the case of Sherlock, ArthurConan Doyle would find some sort of neat
(04:28):
arcane, a little bit of trivia, and then he would write that into
the story and it wouldn't be reallyorganic, but it would you know,
it would be oh, my gosh, Sherlock knows everything. It's like,
yeah, okay. And they dothat with Reacher. I think though.
One example this season that I gota little bit of a laugh out of
(04:50):
is uh, if you're not familiarwith the story is the Jack Reacher was
a former member of the Army.He led a group of special investigators,
so basically super military police, andaside from being just this huge, jacked
(05:15):
up specimen of human being, hewas also an excellent investigator. But he
ends up knowing stuff that he wouldhave no business knowing. So there was
one scene where he was being questionedby the police and one of the investigators
that worked with him went to RutgersUniversity just studied law, and the other
(05:43):
investigator is his de facto lawyer.Didn't know something, and Reacher said something
along the lines that he said somethingalong the lines that it was like,
that's when you get with somebody whostudied law at the eighty first ranked law
school in the country. Well,it's a funny line, and it's dismissive
(06:06):
of his for lack of a betterterm lawyer in the scene, and he
sort of takes a shot at him, and it shows how much Leacher knows.
But why would a why would heknow that? There's no reason why
a former military investigator would be studyingand would remember the rankings of legal schools
(06:34):
in the United States. So itmakes him seem smart, but he realizes
like, well, that doesn't makeany sense are you saying? And in
the context of the show, he'sbeen retired from the military for years.
He is a drifter and it's whichagain sort of works. The idea is
(06:55):
he just goes from town to townand he's sort of is minding his own
business. He does don't want ahome, he doesn't want he wants nothing
to tie him down, so hejust sort of wanders around and lives off
his military pension, and he likeshe likes blues music and just traveling and
(07:20):
so. But they're saying that whiledoing that, he also studies the rankings
of colleges in the States. Okay, there was another episode I remember in
the first season where again he wasbeing interrogated by a detective, and it
(07:40):
became apparent the Reacher was aware thathe was onto something because the detective started
tapping his foot hard enough that youcould see the glass of water on the
table vibrate. And then later reacherslike, I obviously was onto something because
(08:03):
you started shaking your foot. Itwas vibrating in the glass of water.
We are there are no fault linesrunning through this town. It's like,
how would you know that in somebumblefart little town that you had no intention
of visiting that? Do you studyfault lines in America in your spare time.
(08:31):
It's something done to make him looksmart and informed, and it works.
It's just when you think about it, it makes no sense. He
should know about certain things very well. He should know about interrogation and collecting
(08:52):
evidence, and he would know insideand out military ordinance and military procedure.
All that stuff would make sense,but I don't think he would be a
seismologist or or an expert on collegiaterankings. That said, the show really
(09:24):
does work because the action is goodand Richson is very believable. He is
massive. He is a tree trunkof a human being. But he's different
than Arnold Swarzenegger. Arnold Swarzenegger thebest example of tree trunk actors, Arnold,
(09:50):
who had likability, charm, andcharisma and this undeniable presence. The
one thing that Arnold did not havewas athleticism. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't believable really.
(10:16):
Whenever he would have to do anythingathletic, they would call him a
stuntman. The best example. Ithink it's telling why probably his best movies
as an action star were their firsttwo Terminator films, because all I had
to do was sort of walk andget shot and then shoot people. It
(10:39):
wasn't about him doing Von dam Splitzor Jackie Chan daring Do or anything like
that. He was just a big, strong guy with amazing presence. True
Lies an excellent movie, also directedby James Cameron. Like their first two
(11:01):
Terminator films, he had it wasmore of a let's put Arnold Swarzenegger in
a James Bond film, and wheneverhe sort of had to do anything athletic,
run from people shooting at him,doing some flips or whatever other impressive
(11:22):
gymnastic feats, it was obviously astuntman. And partially it's because you don't
want to do anything where your twentyfive million dollar star gets hurt a second.
I don't think you could do it. He was not what he was
good at. Richson is significantly moreathletic. I think he can do this.
(11:46):
He does a lot of the stuntshimself, and he can pull them
off a lot better. I'm notsaying that Richson is Arnold. It's Arnold
Schwarzenegger at his peace was a itwas iconic, and rich In is certainly
(12:07):
takes a lot and that's a that'sa once in a generation thing what he
Arnold had. But Riching is richIn is great, and he delivers a
line solid with conviction. He doesn'ttry to do too much. He understands
that it's it's a tough thing todo. You have to convey Reacher's presence
(12:35):
and charisma and everything else without havingquippy one lines. He just sort of
is very matter of fact. Soyeah, he doesn't get to be the
rock. Where the rock always hasthe best one liners and has a lot
of and has a lot of energyand charm and uh sort of snarkiness.
(13:03):
Richard doesn't get that. It's justhe gets to be tall, glowering and
states things matter of fact and itworks. He really does a great job
with it. The plotline in thesecond season is his group of Special Investigators.
In the group that he formed inthe military. Two of the members
(13:26):
have been murdered. He has tothe surviving members that are working together to
try to find out who was afterthem, and it works. They did
a smart job where they have onereturning character from last year, this amazing
(13:46):
African American actress who is in alot of ways the only person we've seen
thus far that is as good atthe Sherlock Holmes style tuition and knowledge as
he is. She actually outsmarts hima couple times. And then they have
(14:11):
a smart ass guy and then awoman who was an accountant or would investigate
in accounting crimes in the military,who is very pretty and there was and
had an attraction to reach when theywere in the military. Halfway through the
second episode, they're sleeping together,I think, which when it happened,
(14:37):
I was like, wow, that'spretty early in the series. It's almost
like they wanted to get it outof the way. It's like, okay,
well, we could drag this outtill halfway through the season, or
let's just get it out of theway. We'll get to see Richmond with
his shirt off, and we'll getto see the pretty actress in her underwear.
(15:03):
Is very much eighties action movie stuff, where if you saw the attractive
woman who was one of the detectiveswork on the cases, like, okay,
she's gonna be topless. By thesecond act, the actress is given
some pretty good stuff to do soand gets to be smart and gets to
(15:28):
be confident. So it's I know, I imagine, and it's not fair
for me to act like I knowthis person having to be knowledge about her
this decision making process. But itseems like, well, I gotta be
(15:52):
that person, and I gotta beogled a little bit, but I guess
some cool lines and I get tobeat people up, so all told,
it's worth it. The speaking ofArnold in the Terminator movies, the bad
guy from the second Terminator film,The T one thousand, whose name escapes
(16:15):
me. He's a wonderful actor who'splayed so many great bad guys, from
the T one thousand to the toeven like the First Marine movie with John
Cena to He was actually the leadin the later seasons of X Files.
(16:38):
He replaced Fox Mulder. He isthe bad guy. He was actually just
recently seen on the very good showPeacekeeper that was also on that was on
HBO Max. He played Peacekeeper's dad, who was a racist, evil guy.
(17:00):
He's the bad guy so far.He wears a suit and he barks
orders and he threatens people, buthe does it very well. And there
was a sort of a funny scene, a little joke where Reacher. One
of his foibles is he will alwaysgiven alias as a former second baseman for
(17:23):
the New York Yankees and the womanwho is his partner. Early in the
series they run hotel rooms under thename of Mickey Mortendin. I know he
didn't play for the Yankees, buthe's a second baseman and she gave the
alias of Sarah Connors. Of course, Sarah Connors really the protagonist of the
(17:49):
Terminator films as iconically played by LindaHamilton. So you know there's the terminator
guy the T one thousand. Thatactor is like, oh well, that
was the second basement for the Yankeesin nineteen seventy two. It's like,
who's Sarah Cottage. He's like,who gives a shit? As like,
(18:10):
ah nice in joke. I sortof liked that stuff. I don't always
catch it, but I caught thatone. That was good. So a
little background on the Jack Reacher character. He has been around for a long
time, as written by author LeeChilds. Lee Child's has written up a
(18:33):
bunch of Reacher stories and the conceitwas and the term Molly Sue gets thrown
around, and Reacher sorted that heis a perfect character. He is the
smartest, he is the biggest,he is the toughest, he's the strongest.
(18:56):
Tea is completely morally righteous. Andit's on one hand that could be
very boring. And I only readone Reach Your book. It was the
first one. It was the basisfor the first season of the Amazon Prime
(19:22):
series. I read the book.It wasn't very good. You could definitely,
you could definitely see that there wasa compelling character at the center of
it, Like the concept was great, but uh, it was tough.
And I don't know if it's athing of child's not yet knowing exactly what
(19:48):
he had, which which happens inpop culture all the time, where pardon
me, the things that make thecharacter iconic, you who actually don't realize
they are what they are until afterthe first or second iteration. The best
(20:10):
example I can think of, andI've used this before is Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones. You think about thewhip, you think about the hat,
the satchel, the jacket, allthose things that are Indiana Jones. Well,
in the first movie and Raiders ofthe Lost Dark and originally Raiders,
it wasn't even called Indiana Jones andRaiders of the Lost Ark. It was
(20:32):
just Raiders of the Lost Dark.Like the name wasn't even appreciated for how
important it was. And also thelast third of the movie, Indy wasn't
wearing the hat, he didn't havethe satchel, he didn't have the whip.
(20:52):
He actually sort of went undercover.He beat up a German soldier,
took his switched uniforms, and sothat the final fifteen minutes of the movie
Indiana Jones doesn't even look like IndianaJones. That hat that theoretically he had
(21:18):
worn for fifty years. He knowthat he receives as a teenager when he
was portrayed by River Phoenix, andyou know, is still wearing as an
old old man in the Adventures ofYoung Indiana Jones, where he would have
old Indie telling stories, it's thesame hat. Nah, he like threw
(21:44):
that hat in the trash can.No, they didn't show this, but
he didn't take that with him.So in the firstly Child's book, they
had a lot of things, butyou would also have him describing Reacher sort
(22:06):
of high fiving and sort of dancingwith doing a celebratory dance when he figures
out a case. And it's like, that's definitely not something this character would
do. He wouldn't like do thejig because he's so happy that you figure
something out. It would just sortof grunt, maybe give half a smirk
and go about his business. It. It was definitely, from my opinion,
(22:36):
a book that was doing a greatThey did a great job of setting
up other media for that character orfuture books. Now for all I know,
again, I only read the firstbook. It wasn't. It was
readable, the character was compelling,the mystery was sort of fun. I
just didn't wasn't very impressed with thekid. I thought it lacked consistency of
(23:02):
characterization, and I didn't think theirwriting style was anything to write home about.
But obviously, you know, butobviously a lot of people liked it,
and I've certainly have read much worsethen. Tom Cruise was in two
(23:26):
Starting to Reacher movies, the firstone Jack Reacher, which was very good.
The second was not good at all. I think the second one was
called Never Back Down. It wasbad. It didn't have the same created
behind it, and just everything thatworked in the first movie didn't work in
(23:49):
the second, and they didn't havethe compelling action stuff. But from the
moment he was cast, people complainedthat Tom Cruise was not a good Jack
Reacher. Tom Cruise, who canbe a very compelling action star, but
he didn't look like Jack Reacher.He wasn't six foot five, he wasn't
(24:14):
he wasn't wide as an oak tree. So you have this five seven,
very very classically good looking actor.I was like, well, that's that's
not Jack Reacher at all. Insummation, I think The second season of
(24:41):
Reacher thus far has been very good. I don't think it's as good as
the first season, but we're onlythree episodes in. I think some of
the plotting has felt a bit rush, specifically going so quickly into Reacher and
his will they won't they partner,consummating their relationships so quickly. It felt
(25:07):
sort of like they felt that thecreatives behind it felt they needed to get
that out of the way. Butthe action is still good, the mysteries
are still compelling without being too dense, and they have a great bad guy
(25:27):
for the series. Literally, Ithink they have one of the best TV
and movie bad guys working in there. It's like him and Neil McDonough.
So I'm looking forward to following thisseries, and I'm looking forward to future
(25:51):
seasons. I think Reacher, theway they have it set up and the
way the character is, I thinkyou could have year after year of compelling
work. And I think it's becauseof the conceit where every reach is a
drifter. You can have a futureseason or if they have a bad year,
(26:18):
if they have a season where,oh, this plotline didn't work out,
or this wasn't a good mystery,or this romantic interest or these side
characters didn't work as well, noproblem, basically a sign from Reacher and
the other woman who was one ofthese special investigators. She's been in both
(26:41):
seasons. As long as you haveyou have those two, those two characters
work, I think you can justmove on. Just you start all over
again in a new location with anew supporting cast, and you can,
and theoretically you could keep what doeswork. They mentioned the case from the
(27:10):
first season, and there's nothing keepingthem from at some point in the future.
Him Reacher realizing that he needs backup, he needs help, and he
goes back to somebody who he workedwith in a previous season, is like,
(27:32):
I need your help, and boom. Then you have could have a
one or two episode arc with somecharacters that he worked with before. I
think the only limitations is the schedulesof the actors and the imagination of the
(27:56):
creatives. Now. One thing thatwill be interesting to see going forward is
Alan Richson is I think on hisway to potentially becoming a star. He
(28:17):
already is the lead in a prettybuzzy and successful Amazon Prime show. People
really enjoyed the first season. Itgot uh and it's different than it used
to be. It's not streaming servicesare very selective about what information they share,
(28:38):
but it's obviously a well liked show. And he he's he seems like
he's one movie away from becoming astar. He is already. He also
does a very good job on themedia side of being an actor. He
(29:06):
is a good interviews. I've seenhim on some late night shows and some
other interview and he was on theYeah, I played Lex Luthor and Smallville
has a very good podcast where hedoes deep dive interviews. He was great
on that. He's charming and likablebut also sort of no nonsense. He's
(29:33):
good at sort of setting up verymemorable or click baity statements. He talked
about how he could he was inFast and Furious ten, one of the
brighter parts of the movie. Iwould say, and you're looking forward to
(29:55):
seeing him throw down with Vin Dieselor the because he with his physical presence,
he looks like you could take himso so he'll in his character survive
that movie. So you're looking forwardto the big throwdown at the end of
(30:18):
the next film, and they are. I know Fast tend didn't do well,
but I think there are reasons tobelieve that the next Fast and Furious
movie will be more successful because Ithink there'll be some with revelation and spoiler
(30:41):
alert that the Rock will be returningfor the next Fast movie. So I
think there's every possibility that he's ableto ride, that he'll have that throwdown.
It could be, it could bea highlighted movie. Is like watching
him trade punch just with the Rockor trade punches with Vin Diesel, and
(31:04):
then it's just a matter of himpicking the right next roll. And that's
not easy. It's it's tough togo from buzzy bad guy in a movie
and picking the next role so youbecome you become an action star. An
example of where that didn't work was, uh, Carl Drago himself. Oh
(31:32):
boy, I'm bad with names today. The guy who was he was the
Russian in Rocky four. Hold on, hold on, hold on. This
is the problem with doing these uhthese dolph Lungren. How could I forget
(31:57):
the name Dolph Lungren. Dolph lunghe was in Rocky for just this amazing
specimen of a human being and hehad a chance and well listen, Dauphine
and Grinn not a great actor andincredibly but great looking guy with an amazing
(32:21):
physique, very smart, very welleducated, and so theoretically he it was
actually weird that he's not a betteractor as smart and educated as he and
dedicated he as he is, thatwhy can't he act, which just goes
to show something about natural charismo.But regardless, he had a chance.
(32:51):
It's like, okay, your nextmovie is going to be you have a
chance. A few people get thatRocky film was massively successful. The Rocky
films were such a big deal andhe was great in it, so the
thinking is, it's like, okay, And when he chose to do Red
(33:13):
Scorpion, which nobody went to see, and it wasn't very good where he
played like a Russian super soldier basicallywho you know, then turned against the
Russians. Didn't work out. Andthen he did the very very bad Masters
(33:34):
of the Universe that he played heman and it was very very bad.
So that's all it took, andthen he never got he never got another
shot. He certainly has had successas an actor, but you know,
he's had a career that a lotof people would be very happy to have.
(33:57):
But he never became an a Liststar, he became a became a
B movie star that occasionally shows upin supporting roles Johnny Namonic and he'll soon
be in the second Aquaman film.You know, there's there's worst things to
be So, as I said,I'm gonna keep watching it and I recommend
(34:22):
everyone else do so. If youhaven't watched the first Jack Reacher movie with
Tom Cruise, it was a verygood movie, just not necessarily he was
just not necessarily the best choice forthe character. And definitely watched the first
season of the Amazon Prime show.It was very good and sort of rewatchable.
(34:43):
I rewatched it not that long agoand it was really good. So
until then, like I said,we have the two remaining episodes of the
podcast coming up. Until then,as Jeff likes to say, seeing the
funny page, subscribe to the CosmicGeppeo podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or
(35:22):
wherever quality podcasts can be found.Rate and review us while there. Follow
us on Twitter at cosmic gpod,and we will follow you back unless you're
a jerk. We don't follow jerks. Like us on Facebook at Facebook dot
com, forward slash Cosmic geppetto.We love hearing your ideas for upcoming episodes,
(35:43):
email us at Cosmic Guppetto at Comcastdot net. The Cosmic Geppeto Studios
would like to wish you in yoursa happy holiday season. Talking do not
(36:45):
know and is not yet by any
From Geppetto Studios in New Freedom,Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Cosmic Geppetto podcast,
your home for inclusive, positive geekculture where we talk about movies,
comics, music, books, andwhatever else we feel like. Please welcome
your host. Want to see Bradhave a meltdown? Just put a slice
of cheese on his hamburger. BradMendenhall, Hey kids, just episode ninety
(00:58):
eight a Cosmic podcast. It isa mini episode and it is the final
mini episode of the podcast. Nextwe have a Our next episode is going
to be with the wonderful Amy Kennerup where we talk about music that shaped
(01:21):
us, and then will be ourgrand finale episode three hundred. So for
the final mini episode. And Ihope you guys have enjoyed these as much
as I've enjoyed doing them. It'ssomething I sort of wish I had started
doing earlier. It's sort of fun, sort of just talking off the cough
about whatever I find interesting. AndI don't know, it's it's it's definitely
(01:42):
a little odd. You know.The sound quality is different because I'm just
recording this on my iPhone well,driving it back from dropping my kid off
at middle school. So the subjectwill be the first three episodes of the
(02:04):
Amazon Prime series Reacher have been released. They released the first three episodes and
then the remaining episodes of season twowill be released weekly. And it is
a I think it's a very goodshow. I had a conversation with Eric
(02:28):
Bain, the my good friend whoseopinions I greatly value, and he sort
of makes in comments about about sortof the writing and acting. It's it's
(02:50):
definitely not a prestige show. Itis an action show, and they lean
into all the ridiculous action tropes.But what works is for me, the
casting of Alan Richson as Jack Reacheris so spot on and it is brilliant.
(03:16):
And Reacher's character is very monosyllabic.He's a man of action, a
man of few words. He's Iimagine it's a little bit of a challenging
acting to act in that role becauseyou're not giving a bunch of long moologues
(03:39):
you were. Your job is tobe large and intimidating and then weirdly smart
in stuff that you have no businessbeing smart in. Uh. They definitely
do the Sherlock Holmes thing where somebodywalks into the room and they have a
smudge on their left shirt sleeve islike, oh, you've obviously been to
(04:01):
the Orient. It's like, howcould you know that. It's like because
the ink that you have. Iwas like, okay, and it's uh.
It's the thing where you write thingsbackwards, where the you know,
in the case of Sherlock, ArthurConan Doyle would find some sort of neat
(04:28):
arcane, a little bit of trivia, and then he would write that into
the story and it wouldn't be reallyorganic, but it would you know,
it would be oh, my gosh, Sherlock knows everything. It's like,
yeah, okay. And they dothat with Reacher. I think though.
One example this season that I gota little bit of a laugh out of
(04:50):
is uh, if you're not familiarwith the story is the Jack Reacher was
a former member of the Army.He led a group of special investigators,
so basically super military police, andaside from being just this huge, jacked
(05:15):
up specimen of human being, hewas also an excellent investigator. But he
ends up knowing stuff that he wouldhave no business knowing. So there was
one scene where he was being questionedby the police and one of the investigators
that worked with him went to RutgersUniversity just studied law, and the other
(05:43):
investigator is his de facto lawyer.Didn't know something, and Reacher said something
along the lines that he said somethingalong the lines that it was like,
that's when you get with somebody whostudied law at the eighty first ranked law
school in the country. Well,it's a funny line, and it's dismissive
(06:06):
of his for lack of a betterterm lawyer in the scene, and he
sort of takes a shot at him, and it shows how much Leacher knows.
But why would a why would heknow that? There's no reason why
a former military investigator would be studyingand would remember the rankings of legal schools
(06:34):
in the United States. So itmakes him seem smart, but he realizes
like, well, that doesn't makeany sense are you saying? And in
the context of the show, he'sbeen retired from the military for years.
He is a drifter and it's whichagain sort of works. The idea is
(06:55):
he just goes from town to townand he's sort of is minding his own
business. He does don't want ahome, he doesn't want he wants nothing
to tie him down, so hejust sort of wanders around and lives off
his military pension, and he likeshe likes blues music and just traveling and
(07:20):
so. But they're saying that whiledoing that, he also studies the rankings
of colleges in the States. Okay, there was another episode I remember in
the first season where again he wasbeing interrogated by a detective, and it
(07:40):
became apparent the Reacher was aware thathe was onto something because the detective started
tapping his foot hard enough that youcould see the glass of water on the
table vibrate. And then later reacherslike, I obviously was onto something because
(08:03):
you started shaking your foot. Itwas vibrating in the glass of water.
We are there are no fault linesrunning through this town. It's like,
how would you know that in somebumblefart little town that you had no intention
of visiting that? Do you studyfault lines in America in your spare time.
(08:31):
It's something done to make him looksmart and informed, and it works.
It's just when you think about it, it makes no sense. He
should know about certain things very well. He should know about interrogation and collecting
(08:52):
evidence, and he would know insideand out military ordinance and military procedure.
All that stuff would make sense,but I don't think he would be a
seismologist or or an expert on collegiaterankings. That said, the show really
(09:24):
does work because the action is goodand Richson is very believable. He is
massive. He is a tree trunkof a human being. But he's different
than Arnold Swarzenegger. Arnold Swarzenegger thebest example of tree trunk actors, Arnold,
(09:50):
who had likability, charm, andcharisma and this undeniable presence. The
one thing that Arnold did not havewas athleticism. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't believable really.
(10:16):
Whenever he would have to do anythingathletic, they would call him a
stuntman. The best example. Ithink it's telling why probably his best movies
as an action star were their firsttwo Terminator films, because all I had
to do was sort of walk andget shot and then shoot people. It
(10:39):
wasn't about him doing Von dam Splitzor Jackie Chan daring Do or anything like
that. He was just a big, strong guy with amazing presence. True
Lies an excellent movie, also directedby James Cameron. Like their first two
(11:01):
Terminator films, he had it wasmore of a let's put Arnold Swarzenegger in
a James Bond film, and wheneverhe sort of had to do anything athletic,
run from people shooting at him,doing some flips or whatever other impressive
(11:22):
gymnastic feats, it was obviously astuntman. And partially it's because you don't
want to do anything where your twentyfive million dollar star gets hurt a second.
I don't think you could do it. He was not what he was
good at. Richson is significantly moreathletic. I think he can do this.
(11:46):
He does a lot of the stuntshimself, and he can pull them
off a lot better. I'm notsaying that Richson is Arnold. It's Arnold
Schwarzenegger at his peace was a itwas iconic, and rich In is certainly
(12:07):
takes a lot and that's a that'sa once in a generation thing what he
Arnold had. But Riching is richIn is great, and he delivers a
line solid with conviction. He doesn'ttry to do too much. He understands
that it's it's a tough thing todo. You have to convey Reacher's presence
(12:35):
and charisma and everything else without havingquippy one lines. He just sort of
is very matter of fact. Soyeah, he doesn't get to be the
rock. Where the rock always hasthe best one liners and has a lot
of and has a lot of energyand charm and uh sort of snarkiness.
(13:03):
Richard doesn't get that. It's justhe gets to be tall, glowering and
states things matter of fact and itworks. He really does a great job
with it. The plotline in thesecond season is his group of Special Investigators.
In the group that he formed inthe military. Two of the members
(13:26):
have been murdered. He has tothe surviving members that are working together to
try to find out who was afterthem, and it works. They did
a smart job where they have onereturning character from last year, this amazing
(13:46):
African American actress who is in alot of ways the only person we've seen
thus far that is as good atthe Sherlock Holmes style tuition and knowledge as
he is. She actually outsmarts hima couple times. And then they have
(14:11):
a smart ass guy and then awoman who was an accountant or would investigate
in accounting crimes in the military,who is very pretty and there was and
had an attraction to reach when theywere in the military. Halfway through the
second episode, they're sleeping together,I think, which when it happened,
(14:37):
I was like, wow, that'spretty early in the series. It's almost
like they wanted to get it outof the way. It's like, okay,
well, we could drag this outtill halfway through the season, or
let's just get it out of theway. We'll get to see Richmond with
his shirt off, and we'll getto see the pretty actress in her underwear.
(15:03):
Is very much eighties action movie stuff, where if you saw the attractive
woman who was one of the detectiveswork on the cases, like, okay,
she's gonna be topless. By thesecond act, the actress is given
some pretty good stuff to do soand gets to be smart and gets to
(15:28):
be confident. So it's I know, I imagine, and it's not fair
for me to act like I knowthis person having to be knowledge about her
this decision making process. But itseems like, well, I gotta be
(15:52):
that person, and I gotta beogled a little bit, but I guess
some cool lines and I get tobeat people up, so all told,
it's worth it. The speaking ofArnold in the Terminator movies, the bad
guy from the second Terminator film,The T one thousand, whose name escapes
(16:15):
me. He's a wonderful actor who'splayed so many great bad guys, from
the T one thousand to the toeven like the First Marine movie with John
Cena to He was actually the leadin the later seasons of X Files.
(16:38):
He replaced Fox Mulder. He isthe bad guy. He was actually just
recently seen on the very good showPeacekeeper that was also on that was on
HBO Max. He played Peacekeeper's dad, who was a racist, evil guy.
(17:00):
He's the bad guy so far.He wears a suit and he barks
orders and he threatens people, buthe does it very well. And there
was a sort of a funny scene, a little joke where Reacher. One
of his foibles is he will alwaysgiven alias as a former second baseman for
(17:23):
the New York Yankees and the womanwho is his partner. Early in the
series they run hotel rooms under thename of Mickey Mortendin. I know he
didn't play for the Yankees, buthe's a second baseman and she gave the
alias of Sarah Connors. Of course, Sarah Connors really the protagonist of the
(17:49):
Terminator films as iconically played by LindaHamilton. So you know there's the terminator
guy the T one thousand. Thatactor is like, oh well, that
was the second basement for the Yankeesin nineteen seventy two. It's like,
who's Sarah Cottage. He's like,who gives a shit? As like,
(18:10):
ah nice in joke. I sortof liked that stuff. I don't always
catch it, but I caught thatone. That was good. So a
little background on the Jack Reacher character. He has been around for a long
time, as written by author LeeChilds. Lee Child's has written up a
(18:33):
bunch of Reacher stories and the conceitwas and the term Molly Sue gets thrown
around, and Reacher sorted that heis a perfect character. He is the
smartest, he is the biggest,he is the toughest, he's the strongest.
(18:56):
Tea is completely morally righteous. Andit's on one hand that could be
very boring. And I only readone Reach Your book. It was the
first one. It was the basisfor the first season of the Amazon Prime
(19:22):
series. I read the book.It wasn't very good. You could definitely,
you could definitely see that there wasa compelling character at the center of
it, Like the concept was great, but uh, it was tough.
And I don't know if it's athing of child's not yet knowing exactly what
(19:48):
he had, which which happens inpop culture all the time, where pardon
me, the things that make thecharacter iconic, you who actually don't realize
they are what they are until afterthe first or second iteration. The best
(20:10):
example I can think of, andI've used this before is Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones. You think about thewhip, you think about the hat,
the satchel, the jacket, allthose things that are Indiana Jones. Well,
in the first movie and Raiders ofthe Lost Dark and originally Raiders,
it wasn't even called Indiana Jones andRaiders of the Lost Ark. It was
(20:32):
just Raiders of the Lost Dark.Like the name wasn't even appreciated for how
important it was. And also thelast third of the movie, Indy wasn't
wearing the hat, he didn't havethe satchel, he didn't have the whip.
(20:52):
He actually sort of went undercover.He beat up a German soldier,
took his switched uniforms, and sothat the final fifteen minutes of the movie
Indiana Jones doesn't even look like IndianaJones. That hat that theoretically he had
(21:18):
worn for fifty years. He knowthat he receives as a teenager when he
was portrayed by River Phoenix, andyou know, is still wearing as an
old old man in the Adventures ofYoung Indiana Jones, where he would have
old Indie telling stories, it's thesame hat. Nah, he like threw
(21:44):
that hat in the trash can.No, they didn't show this, but
he didn't take that with him.So in the firstly Child's book, they
had a lot of things, butyou would also have him describing Reacher sort
(22:06):
of high fiving and sort of dancingwith doing a celebratory dance when he figures
out a case. And it's like, that's definitely not something this character would
do. He wouldn't like do thejig because he's so happy that you figure
something out. It would just sortof grunt, maybe give half a smirk
and go about his business. It. It was definitely, from my opinion,
(22:36):
a book that was doing a greatThey did a great job of setting
up other media for that character orfuture books. Now for all I know,
again, I only read the firstbook. It wasn't. It was
readable, the character was compelling,the mystery was sort of fun. I
just didn't wasn't very impressed with thekid. I thought it lacked consistency of
(23:02):
characterization, and I didn't think theirwriting style was anything to write home about.
But obviously, you know, butobviously a lot of people liked it,
and I've certainly have read much worsethen. Tom Cruise was in two
(23:26):
Starting to Reacher movies, the firstone Jack Reacher, which was very good.
The second was not good at all. I think the second one was
called Never Back Down. It wasbad. It didn't have the same created
behind it, and just everything thatworked in the first movie didn't work in
(23:49):
the second, and they didn't havethe compelling action stuff. But from the
moment he was cast, people complainedthat Tom Cruise was not a good Jack
Reacher. Tom Cruise, who canbe a very compelling action star, but
he didn't look like Jack Reacher.He wasn't six foot five, he wasn't
(24:14):
he wasn't wide as an oak tree. So you have this five seven,
very very classically good looking actor.I was like, well, that's that's
not Jack Reacher at all. Insummation, I think The second season of
(24:41):
Reacher thus far has been very good. I don't think it's as good as
the first season, but we're onlythree episodes in. I think some of
the plotting has felt a bit rush, specifically going so quickly into Reacher and
his will they won't they partner,consummating their relationships so quickly. It felt
(25:07):
sort of like they felt that thecreatives behind it felt they needed to get
that out of the way. Butthe action is still good, the mysteries
are still compelling without being too dense, and they have a great bad guy
(25:27):
for the series. Literally, Ithink they have one of the best TV
and movie bad guys working in there. It's like him and Neil McDonough.
So I'm looking forward to following thisseries, and I'm looking forward to future
(25:51):
seasons. I think Reacher, theway they have it set up and the
way the character is, I thinkyou could have year after year of compelling
work. And I think it's becauseof the conceit where every reach is a
drifter. You can have a futureseason or if they have a bad year,
(26:18):
if they have a season where,oh, this plotline didn't work out,
or this wasn't a good mystery,or this romantic interest or these side
characters didn't work as well, noproblem, basically a sign from Reacher and
the other woman who was one ofthese special investigators. She's been in both
(26:41):
seasons. As long as you haveyou have those two, those two characters
work, I think you can justmove on. Just you start all over
again in a new location with anew supporting cast, and you can,
and theoretically you could keep what doeswork. They mentioned the case from the
(27:10):
first season, and there's nothing keepingthem from at some point in the future.
Him Reacher realizing that he needs backup, he needs help, and he
goes back to somebody who he workedwith in a previous season, is like,
(27:32):
I need your help, and boom. Then you have could have a
one or two episode arc with somecharacters that he worked with before. I
think the only limitations is the schedulesof the actors and the imagination of the
(27:56):
creatives. Now. One thing thatwill be interesting to see going forward is
Alan Richson is I think on hisway to potentially becoming a star. He
(28:17):
already is the lead in a prettybuzzy and successful Amazon Prime show. People
really enjoyed the first season. Itgot uh and it's different than it used
to be. It's not streaming servicesare very selective about what information they share,
(28:38):
but it's obviously a well liked show. And he he's he seems like
he's one movie away from becoming astar. He is already. He also
does a very good job on themedia side of being an actor. He
(29:06):
is a good interviews. I've seenhim on some late night shows and some
other interview and he was on theYeah, I played Lex Luthor and Smallville
has a very good podcast where hedoes deep dive interviews. He was great
on that. He's charming and likablebut also sort of no nonsense. He's
(29:33):
good at sort of setting up verymemorable or click baity statements. He talked
about how he could he was inFast and Furious ten, one of the
brighter parts of the movie. Iwould say, and you're looking forward to
(29:55):
seeing him throw down with Vin Dieselor the because he with his physical presence,
he looks like you could take himso so he'll in his character survive
that movie. So you're looking forwardto the big throwdown at the end of
(30:18):
the next film, and they are. I know Fast tend didn't do well,
but I think there are reasons tobelieve that the next Fast and Furious
movie will be more successful because Ithink there'll be some with revelation and spoiler
(30:41):
alert that the Rock will be returningfor the next Fast movie. So I
think there's every possibility that he's ableto ride, that he'll have that throwdown.
It could be, it could bea highlighted movie. Is like watching
him trade punch just with the Rockor trade punches with Vin Diesel, and
(31:04):
then it's just a matter of himpicking the right next roll. And that's
not easy. It's it's tough togo from buzzy bad guy in a movie
and picking the next role so youbecome you become an action star. An
example of where that didn't work was, uh, Carl Drago himself. Oh
(31:32):
boy, I'm bad with names today. The guy who was he was the
Russian in Rocky four. Hold on, hold on, hold on. This
is the problem with doing these uhthese dolph Lungren. How could I forget
(31:57):
the name Dolph Lungren. Dolph lunghe was in Rocky for just this amazing
specimen of a human being and hehad a chance and well listen, Dauphine
and Grinn not a great actor andincredibly but great looking guy with an amazing
(32:21):
physique, very smart, very welleducated, and so theoretically he it was
actually weird that he's not a betteractor as smart and educated as he and
dedicated he as he is, thatwhy can't he act, which just goes
to show something about natural charismo.But regardless, he had a chance.
(32:51):
It's like, okay, your nextmovie is going to be you have a
chance. A few people get thatRocky film was massively successful. The Rocky
films were such a big deal andhe was great in it, so the
thinking is, it's like, okay, And when he chose to do Red
(33:13):
Scorpion, which nobody went to see, and it wasn't very good where he
played like a Russian super soldier basicallywho you know, then turned against the
Russians. Didn't work out. Andthen he did the very very bad Masters
(33:34):
of the Universe that he played heman and it was very very bad.
So that's all it took, andthen he never got he never got another
shot. He certainly has had successas an actor, but you know,
he's had a career that a lotof people would be very happy to have.
(33:57):
But he never became an a Liststar, he became a became a
B movie star that occasionally shows upin supporting roles Johnny Namonic and he'll soon
be in the second Aquaman film.You know, there's there's worst things to
be So, as I said,I'm gonna keep watching it and I recommend
(34:22):
everyone else do so. If youhaven't watched the first Jack Reacher movie with
Tom Cruise, it was a verygood movie, just not necessarily he was
just not necessarily the best choice forthe character. And definitely watched the first
season of the Amazon Prime show.It was very good and sort of rewatchable.
(34:43):
I rewatched it not that long agoand it was really good. So
until then, like I said,we have the two remaining episodes of the
podcast coming up. Until then,as Jeff likes to say, seeing the
funny page, subscribe to the CosmicGeppeo podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or
(35:22):
wherever quality podcasts can be found.Rate and review us while there. Follow
us on Twitter at cosmic gpod,and we will follow you back unless you're
a jerk. We don't follow jerks. Like us on Facebook at Facebook dot
com, forward slash Cosmic geppetto.We love hearing your ideas for upcoming episodes,
(35:43):
email us at Cosmic Guppetto at Comcastdot net. The Cosmic Geppeto Studios
would like to wish you in yoursa happy holiday season. Talking do not
(36:45):
know and is not yet by any
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