Reacher's sloppiest character death is the biggest mistake of the Prime Video series

The response to Reacher Season 3 was, on the whole, overwhelmingly positive, and the latest season still stands out as one of Prime Video's biggest hits, drawing 54.6 million global viewers in its first 19 days of release on the streamer. However, Season 3 was not without its flaws. Fans took exception to Agent Susan Duffy's (Sonya Cassidy) Boston accent and the constant questions and references to the missing Teresa Daniel (Storm Steenson). But the worst and clumsiest angle in Season 3 involves the subplot with the bodyguard, Johnny Cooper (Ronnie Rowe), which led to one of the show’s most foolish and preventable deaths of the season: Agent Eliot (Daniel David Stewart).

Jack Reacher Takes Johnny Cooper's Position in the Smuggling Organization

In the Season 3 premiere, "Persuader," a reluctant Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is recruited to join an off-the-books operation, headed by Agent Duffy, to infiltrate Richard Beck's (Johnny Berchtold) smuggling ring as his new bodyguard. Duffy and fellow DEA agents Guillermo Villanueva (Roberto Montesinos) and Steven Eliot (Stewart) plan and stage a fake kidnapping hoax and take Beck's original bodyguard, Cooper, prisoner. The idea is to make it look like Reacher saves Richard from an attempted kidnapping, killing a cop in the process (with Villanueva posing as the dead cop).

But then what do you do with Cooper after staging the kidnapping heist? If Cooper reports back to Beck, he could potentially break Reacher's cover and erase any chances of finding the whereabouts of Duffy's missing informant, Teresa. Reacher suggests the DEA agents plant evidence to create some trumped-up felony charges, so they can hold Cooper in their custody indefinitely without formally charging him. Of course, this is illegal, but Reacher is not a cop or a federal agent, and all he wants is another shot at payback against Xavier Quinn (Brian Tee).

However, after nabbing Cooper and taking him prisoner at their safe house, the DEA agents seem to have no idea what to do with him next. The DEA team seems to think it's okay to keep Cooper handcuffed out in the open in a rickety chair. Later in Season 3, Episode 5, "Smackdown," Cooper tricks Agent Eliot into lighting a cigarette, using the opportunity to create a makeshift fireball by spitting out alcohol and burning Eliot, who then dies after Cooper stomps on his head. It's then that Reacher and Villanueva set a trap for Cooper before he can return to the Beck estate and report back to his superiors. The whole plan with Cooper exemplifies the poor thought process of the entire team.

Reacher and the DEA Agents Should've Considered the Conditions of Cooper's Custody

"Persuader" depicts Reacher and the DEA agents meticulously planning out their heist to stage Richard Beck's kidnapping. They hash things out to the last detail, including Reacher marking the chamber of the revolver he uses on Villanueva during the heist so he doesn't end up shooting him with a real bullet by accident. It's a smart move that puts Villanueva at ease since Reacher plans to use live ammunition in the gun before they enact the fake shooting. Despite comprehensively planning out every detail of the heist, they failed to plan out how to deal with holding Johnny Cooper in their custody indefinitely. It's unclear how long they expected Reacher to work his cover as Richard's new bodyguard, but obviously, the team needed a longer-term plan to deal with Cooper.

The DEA agents give little thought to the conditions of Cooper's custody, sometimes leaving only one of the agents (such as Agent Eliot) to guard him at a time. "Persuader" establishes Eliot as a young greenhorn and inexperienced agent, someonewho is out of his depth and prone to making mistakes. Before the events of the series transpired, he had already messed up by placing a surveillance camera on the wrong plot of land. As a result, the footage was no longer admissible in court, screwing up Agent Duffy's drug sting of Darien Prado (Greg Bryk). Eliot is clearly not the best agent to be guarding a dangerous and resourceful criminal like Cooper.

Leaving Cooper alone with Eliot predictably goes awry and leads to Eliot's senseless death. This means Duffy has to be the one to deliver the bad news about Eliot's death to the young man's father. Duffy must potentially accept the inevitable end of her career as a federal agent, along with dealing with the loss of a young man's life on her own conscience.

Any Victory in 'Reacher' Feels Shallow After Steven Eliot's Death

There is no getting around the fact that the victory over Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall) came at the cost of Steven Eliot's death. Eliot's death could have been easily avoided. Reacher has often come off as a fairly smart and deductive individual, but how he and the team treated Cooper's imprisonment is a glaring oversight. Considering how important it was for Reacher to keep his role in Bizarre Bazaar, this is a detail that shouldn't have been ignored. The whole incident with Johnny Cooper is incredibly sloppy and leads to an unnecessary death. At the end of the day, Eliot's blood is equally on the hands of the "good guys" in Season 3.