Reacher Ending Explained: Joe’s Killer & Margrave’s Counterfeiting

Warning: Contains spoilers for Reacher season 1.

The Reacherseason 1 ending is action-packed and emotional, but some of the details and motivations might not be clear, especially to viewers who haven’t read the books. Reacher season 1 is a relatively faithful adaptation of Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor. Two of Child’s books from later in the series were previously adapted into movies with Tom Cruise playing the lead in Jack Reacher (2012) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016). But the Amazon Prime Video series is far more faithful to the books and the characterization of Jack Reacher, setting up season 2 for an interesting story.

Reacher sees the wandering Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) arrive in the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia after he remembers that his brother, Joe, had once told him a rumor that the blues musician Blind Blake might have died there. Shortly after arriving in town, Reacher is arrested for a murder that he can’t possibly have committed and he works to clear his name. The investigation reveals that the murdered man is actually his brother and during his vendetta, he uncovers a huge counterfeiting operation in Margrave that goes all the way to the Mayor, Grover Teale (Bruce McGill) and the town’s mysterious benefactor, Kliner (Currie Graham).

Reacher season 1 ends with Jack Reacher leaving Margrave behind as he walks on down the road to his next adventure. By this time, he’s cleaned out the corruption in the Margrave police force, burnt the counterfeiting operation to the ground (literally), and exacted vengeance for his brother’s murder. Here’s how the Reacher season 1 ending works, related to the original Killing Floor ending, and how it sets up season 2.

Who Killed Joe Reacher?

The murder of Joe Reacher (Christopher Russell) is what keeps Jack Reacher involved beyond simply wanting his name cleared so he can get out of town and move on with his life. Before he has even seen the body and discovered its identity in Reacher episode 1, “Welcome to Margrave,” Reacher logics that three men must have been involved in the murder based on the way that the body was treated. The kill shot came from a calm and professional shooter, someone who was “unhinged” beat the body after Joe was dead, and a third person was responsible for the ineffective job of hiding the body.

In the Reacher season 1 finale, Reacher’s suspicions about the three-man team and their identity are confirmed. Mayor Teale had most of the town under his thumb in one way or another, including the Chief of Police, Morrison (Peter Skagen), but it was Kliner Junior (Chris Webster) that was behind the murder itself. KJ was the trigger man that actually killed Joe Reacher and tidied up his bullet casings. His friend Dawson (Dark Web: Cicada 3301′s A.J. Simmons) was the one that beat the body after Joe was dead. And the police chief himself, uncomfortable about his involvement and eager to get out of the area quickly was the one who hurriedly tried to hide the body with some cardboard.

Reacher’s Counterfeiting Operation Explained

At the heart of all the murders in Reacher season 1 is a complex counterfeiting operation that operates out of Margrave, Georgia. While Reacher quickly identifies that there is likely a counterfeiting project underway in the town, he has several miscalculations throughout the series about exactly how it operates, as a less experienced version than he will likely be in Reacher season 2. The Kliner foundation creates huge amounts of fake money and uses it to drive the economy of Margrave (in Killing Floor it is revealed that local businesses receive $1000 a week to keep them happy and quiet). The genuine paper for the banknotes is explained to be the hardest part to come by in Reacher and Joe Reacher had locked down all of the manufacturing process to ensure none could be created or stolen. However, all denominations of notes in United States currency are the same size and the counterfeiters found that they could wash the ink off of $1 bills and then reprint them as $100s, but had to use the 1990 version of the $100 bill that predated the introduction of magnetic strips that identify the currency denomination in all notes higher than $2. They could then ship the $100 bills to Venezuela to be used in black market trade as U.S. currency is considered stable for those purposes. Paul Hubble (Good Witch‘s Marc Bendavid) was responsible for making the money going through the Kliner foundation appear legitimate.

There are some odd additional details that helped to explain Reacher’s counterfeiting scheme. They had originally been using the chemicals to clean the bills in another town, but the runoff from their counterfeiting caused extreme pollution in the town of Chester and they had to close up shop to avoid being discovered. When they set up in Margrave, they used ground animal feed to soak up the spent chemicals so that they would not be discovered in the same way again. The Coast Guard, up to the start of Reacher season 1, had been cracking down on the movement of illegal goods, meaning that the counterfeiting operation could not ship out any of their fake $100 bills for a long time, and this was causing tensions with the Venezuelans, which led to the apparent need to kill multiple people related to the operation. In the Reacher season 1 ending, Reacher not only kills all those involved in the process, but he also burns their warehouse to the ground, taking the chemicals and all of the stockpiled fake notes with it.

Why Does Reacher Leave Margrave And Roscoe?

Throughout Reacher season 1, the Amazon TV series does a good job of establishing a rapport and relationship between Reacher and Office Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald). While it seems like their relationship might continue after the Reacher season 1 ending, the Prime show’s Jack Reacher leaves town instead. He explains that he believes long ago there were those who stayed by the fire and those that wandered and that he was a wanderer. This is underscored by the use of blues songs in Reacher that relates to the rambling man tradition, such as Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues.”

In Killing Floor, Reacher provides more insight into his decision to leave Margrave rather than stay with Roscoe. He and Roscoe stay up all night talking it over as she asks him to stay and he knows he can’t and he asks her to come with her and she says that she can’t. Reacher reflects that if he were to stay and be interviewed about the whole counterfeiting operations, the fallout from the investigation would keep him tied up for at least two years. At the same time, Roscoe is planning to run for mayor. While he considers staying for her, he recognizes that they want different things and that election campaigns would not suit him, and so he has to leave. In the Reacher season 1 ending, some of this explanation is delivered to Finlay (iZombie‘s Malcolm Goodwin) instead, with Finlay covering for Reacher so that he doesn’t have to be interviewed.

Why Reacher Buried The Medal For Joe

Before leaving Margrave at the end of Reacher season 1, Reacher visits the site where Joe was murdered by KJ and buries the medal that their grandfather received for bravery in the face of danger. Throughout Reacher season 1, flashbacks show that their mother always asserted that Joe would try to solve all the world’s problems while Reacher was a strong person who had the bravery to do the right thing. When Reacher buries the medal, he says “It takes bravery to solve the world’s problems. too, Joe.” Reacher is acknowledging that their mother was not always fair in her characterization of them and it serves as a farewell for Reacher in acknowledging the importance of Joe’s example in their youth. Interestingly, this is not included in Killing Floor, where instead of the Reacher season 1 ending, Reacher has a funeral arranged that he is not present for and asks that Joe’s ashes be scattered at the spot where Reacher‘s Blind Blake had once played so many years before.

Will Roscoe, Finlay, And Neagley Appear In Reacher Season 2?

The Reacher season 1 ending hints at the futures that Roscoe and Finlay will have once Reacher has left town. Roscoe will run for mayor, while Finlay (who in Killing Floor stayed in Margrave in the same role) plans to quit the force and move back to Boston. Based on the Jack Reacher books, it is unlikely that either of these characters will appear again in the Reacher TV series as they are not featured in any of the later novels, despite Roscoe giving Reacher her phone number in both versions of the story. However, this might be altered to help build a sense of continuity in the TV series, especially with Finlay moving back to Boston, as Reacher could easily pass through the town and ask for his help with something.

Reacher season 1 also introduces the character of Neagley (Maria Sten). Neagley does not appear in Killing Floor but does appear in several later books. While Reacher season 2 will most likely adapt Die Trying, the second book in the series, and another book that does not include Neagley, it seems likely that she will appear again. Reacher has presented her as an equal to Reacher and one who can help him out regardless of where the two of them are in the country. She is instrumental in the Reacher season 1 ending, so while Roscoe and Finlay might not return, Neagley will most likely appear in Reacher season 2, helping to maintain a connection to Reacherseason 1 beyond Reacher himself.

About The Author

Faefyx Collington
(488 Articles Published)

Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They’re a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter.
Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series “Unramblings,” and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well.
Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.

More From Faefyx Collington