I haven’t watched Reacher. I have no idea who Neagley is, why she has her own spinoff, whether she’s still on Reacher or what she did over there to earn one.
Basically, I walked into Neagley S1E1: “L Train,” with absolutely no homework completed.
And holy hell, I’m glad I did.
It turns out I don’t really need Neagley’s entire life story to understand her. Within one episode, I know Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) is a private investigator, former military cop, fiercely independent, frighteningly resourceful and not particularly interested in anyone’s bullshit.
In other words, my kind of woman.
We do get a brief appearance from Reacher (Alan Ritchson) early in the episode when the two track down a kidnapped little girl. I’m sure that gives Reacher fans a nice little bridge into the spinoff, but it also works for people like me who have no reference point. He shows up, demonstrates that he’s apparently a rather violent dude, they save the kid, and then he and Neagley head to a Cubs game.
She lost half a point for that.
America’s team my ass. Give me the Sox every day.
Fortunately, Reacher doesn’t hang around long enough to make this feel like his show with Neagley temporarily borrowing it. Once he leaves, “L Train” wastes very little time establishing why she can carry this thing herself.
Neagley Would Rather Do Something Than Feel Something
The real story begins with the death of Tommy (Jhaleil Swaby), one of Neagley’s closest childhood friends.
We already know something isn’t right. Tommy stripped naked and jumped in front of an L train in the middle of the night, but he didn’t look like someone stumbling around completely out of his mind. There was something almost euphoric about the way he stared into those approaching lights.
Neagley doesn’t know what we know, but she doesn’t buy the explanation that Tommy was simply high, either.
His parents tell her that Tommy had been living at Echo Valley, an isolated commune outside Chicago, and that they’d unsuccessfully tried to get him out. They also give Neagley a message he left behind:
“Tell Neagley I wouldn’t want her to worry.”
If Tommy didn’t want Neagley to worry, he probably shouldn’t have left Neagley a message telling her not to worry.
Because now she’s going to worry professionally.
There’s another reason the investigation immediately gets under her skin. Neagley is already watching her father Calvin (Tyrone Benskin) die. She’s caring for him, he knows what’s coming, and she doesn’t want to accept something she can’t fix.
Tommy’s death gives her something she can do.
That’s what I found more interesting about Neagley than all the ass kicking. She seems to bury emotion by turning it into action. Grief, fear, trauma — those are messy things she can’t control. An investigation has clues. Suspects. Leads. Problems she can attack.
Her father sees right through it. He initially warns her away from digging into Tommy’s death because he knows where this is headed. Eventually, even he realizes telling his daughter to leave something alone is f*cking pointless.
She’s going.
The Loner Who Keeps Collecting People
For somebody determined to do everything herself, Neagley spends an awful lot of “L Train” accidentally assembling a team.
Detective Riley (Greyston Holt) initially seems useful mostly because he can get information she can’t. Neagley doesn’t exactly throw open the gates and welcome him into her inner circle, but she gradually seems to realize he’s someone she can work with.
Then there’s Keno (Jasper Jones), a street kid who was near the L when Tommy died. Neagley finds him getting beaten up in a warehouse, takes care of that problem rather efficiently and gets the answers she needs.
Keno starts out helping because there’s money in it, but there’s something else there. He sees how determined Neagley is to find out what happened to Tommy, a guy who had been living on society’s edges himself.
Neagley isn’t going to let Tommy simply disappear into the void. I think Keno understands that better than most people would.
Even Renee (Adeline Rudolph), who works at Neagley’s office and apparently complains about her regularly, gets pulled into the operation. Neagley knows Renee doesn’t really want to be a secretary. She wants to be a PI.
So Neagley essentially tells her: You want to be a PI? Fine. Help me.
She may insist she works alone, but I’m not sure Neagley is nearly as solitary as Neagley would like everyone — including herself — to believe.
Echo Valley Picked the Wrong Woman to Screw With
Then there’s Echo Valley.
Neagley goes there supposedly to collect Tommy’s belongings, and the entire place has that wonderful isolated-commune vibe where everybody is just a little too f*cking friendly.
Except Judith (Rebecca Liddiard), the operations director.
The more questions Neagley asks, the more uncomfortable Judith becomes. Tommy supposedly had a drug problem. Neagley doesn’t believe it. Tommy’s belongings barely fill part of a crate. His journal is conspicuously missing.
Then Neagley discovers somebody has been inside her car. And this is where I really started loving her.
She knows Echo Valley is checking into her background, so instead of playing dumb and pretending everybody is friends, Neagley marches back to Judith and saves her the trouble. She tells her about her military investigative background herself.
She also makes it perfectly clear she doesn’t like Judith.
Why play nice and pretend?
Neagley isn’t interested in putting on a pleasant face because somebody might be offended. She’s blunt, she knows she’s good at what she does and she isn’t taking shit from anyone.
When Keno talks about helping her put whoever killed Tommy in cuffs, Neagley corrects him.
She doesn’t want them in cuffs. She wants them in the ground.
Okay, Neagley. You have my full attention.
The people behind Echo Valley apparently realize they have a problem, too, because somebody soon tries running her off the road with a pickup truck.
That goes about as well as you’d expect when you try it against this woman.
Pulling Teeth, Literally
The mystery gets increasingly bizarre from there.
There’s Pierce Woodrow (Matthew Del Negro), who’s involved with an experimental drug supposedly designed to help trauma victims. Neagley has some unresolved trauma of her own, which the episode only begins poking at, including her refusal to shake hands with people.
I’m curious where that connection is going, especially after the drug trial we see ends with everybody wanting to screw each other.
Well, that’s one hell of a side effect.
Meanwhile, the Echo Valley situation escalates from suspicious commune to WHAT THE F*CK ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING?
After the pickup-truck driver dies, two men show up at the morgue pretending to be relatives and pull all the dead guy’s teeth out to destroy evidence.
Unfortunately for them, they’re dealing with Neagley.
She planted a recording device in the corpse’s mouth. That’s the kind of stuff I want from this show.
She’s not merely physically capable. She’s thinking ahead of everybody else.
By the end of “L Train,” Echo Valley is desperately trying to clean up whatever happened to Tommy, and every attempt to cover their tracks only gives Neagley another reason to keep coming.
Good luck with that, guys.
Do I Need to Watch Reacher?
Apparently not.
There were moments when I knew I was missing some Neagley history, and I’m sure Reacher fans caught references and character details that sailed straight past me.
But does it really matter? Not much.
I came into this episode knowing absolutely nothing about Frances Neagley and came out with a pretty firm grasp of who she is. She’s a PI. She’s smart as hell. She’s blunt. She’s stubborn. She’s carrying trauma she doesn’t particularly want to discuss. She’s watching her father die and trying desperately to control something that can’t be controlled.
And if you come after somebody she cares about, God help you.
That’s enough for me.
I may eventually circle back to Reacher to see how she got here, but it’s not exactly at the top of my priority list. Neagley gave me enough to make me want to move forward instead.
🔥 Our Verdict: WATCHABLE
I like badass women, and Neagley is Grade A badass.
But kicking ass isn’t really what sold me. It’s everything underneath it. There’s a woman here who appears much more comfortable chasing down cult members, disabling trucks and planting listening devices inside corpses than dealing with grief, fear or the possibility of losing her father.
That’s considerably more interesting.
I didn’t watch Reacher. But I’m definitely watching Neagley Episode 2.
