Warning: major spoilers for Reacher season 4, episode 7 follow.
Reacher has never mistaken subtlety for one of Jack Reacher’s core skills. Alan Ritchson’s version of the wandering investigator tends to solve mysteries with sharp deductions, enormous physical force, and the kind of presence that makes a locked door look less like an obstacle than a future pile of splinters. That established personality makes a small musical joke in season 4’s penultimate episode especially fitting: while Reacher pursues what he believes is an imminent chemical attack, an orchestra begins playing the unmistakable Mission: Impossible theme.
It is a quick gag with several layers. The characters do not stop and announce its significance, nor does the episode build a scene around the tune. Instead, the reference sits in the middle of an urgent sequence involving Reacher, Tamara, and Jacob. Yet the selection carries a clear connection to Tom Cruise, the star of the Mission: Impossible films and the actor who previously played the Lee Child character in two theatrical Jack Reacher movies.
For a show built around a larger-than-life Reacher who looks markedly different from Cruise’s screen interpretation, that fleeting musical cue lands like an inside joke delivered at full orchestra volume.
A mission that looks right—until it absolutely does not
Episode 7 escalates the danger posed by Lila and Amisha Hoth. The pair have revealed an aerosolized chemical toxin and intend to have one of their operatives release it in a public setting. Once Reacher learns enough to understand the scale of the threat, his focus becomes identifying where the attack will occur before it is too late.
The clues lead Reacher and his allies to an arena hosting an orchestral movie-score concert. It is a sensible target from their perspective: a large public event, a contained venue, and a crowd that could be caught unprepared. The episode therefore turns the concert into a pressure cooker, with Reacher’s group moving toward what seems to be the Hoths’ chosen site while the orchestra supplies music associated with some of cinema’s most elaborate, precision-engineered espionage set pieces.
Then comes the Mission: Impossible theme, a playful choice precisely because Reacher is not Ethan Hunt. Hunt’s assignments tend to involve disguises, elaborate entries, dangling from impossible heights, and technology that may self-destruct after a recorded briefing. Reacher, even when operating outside official channels and avoiding police attention, is generally built for a considerably less covert style of problem-solving.
That contrast is the heart of the nod. The music evokes Cruise’s superspy franchise, while Ritchson’s Reacher is a figure more likely to enter a situation head-on than to vanish inside it. Both characters take on seemingly insurmountable assignments, but they approach those jobs from opposite ends of the action-hero tool kit. One is a master of high-wire stealth; the other is, quite often, the high wire snapping under a very determined person’s boots.
Why Tom Cruise is part of Reacher’s on-screen history
The connection is not merely a broad pop-culture wink. Cruise played the title role in Jack Reacher, released in 2012, and returned in 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. The films brought a major movie star to a character known for imposing physical dimensions, which became a central point of discussion around the adaptation.
The two films received less-than-stellar critical reception on Rotten Tomatoes, and commentary surrounding Cruise’s casting often focused on whether he matched the role as readers imagined it. The television series, led by Ritchson, has offered a notably different physical interpretation of Reacher. That history gives the episode’s choice of music a little more bite than an ordinary espionage reference. It recalls an earlier screen Reacher through the franchise most strongly associated with that earlier actor.
No explanation is needed inside the episode because the joke is designed to work in the background. Viewers familiar with both versions of the character can connect the dots: Cruise’s association with Mission: Impossible, his two turns as Jack Reacher, and the deliberately contrasting version of Reacher now carrying the television series.
It is also the sort of reference that suits a show whose hero spends much of his time reading rooms, noticing overlooked details, and identifying the crucial fact hiding inside a larger pattern. The audience is invited to do a smaller version of Reacher’s work. Hear the familiar melody, recognize its history, and realize that an orchestra concert has briefly become a crossover point between two very different action-star philosophies.
The concert is a decoy, and the real attack has consequences
The lightness of the musical callback does not last. Reacher’s team is wrong about the arena. The Hoths have used the concert to pull attention away from their actual plan, sending their operative instead to John Sampson’s party.
That reversal reshapes the whole sequence. What appeared to be a race against time to protect an arena crowd becomes confirmation that Lila and Amisha are willing to weaponize uncertainty itself. Reacher, Tamara, and Jacob have been sent in the wrong direction, and the delay has a terrible cost.
At Sampson’s party, the operative attempts to carry out the toxin release. Sampson stops him by pushing him into the water, but the act results in Sampson sacrificing himself. It is a grim ending to the episode’s major misdirection: the presumed target survives because it was never the target, while danger strikes at a more personal gathering where the heroes are not positioned to prevent it.
The episode leaves the Hoths’ campaign unresolved. Their objective remains the release of the poison, and the failed arena assumption demonstrates that Reacher cannot simply protect the most obvious location. With revenge driving Lila and Amisha, the finale has to contend with opponents prepared to keep changing the board until they find a way to succeed.
A callback that works because Reacher is not Ethan Hunt
The best pop-culture references do more than point at another property and wait for recognition. Here, the Mission: Impossible theme underlines what makes Reacher distinct. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is famous for controlled chaos: the plan may disintegrate, but he responds with daring improvisation and an astonishing ability to remain mobile, unseen, or suspended from something very unsafe.
Reacher’s capabilities are no less formidable, but his operating system is different. He analyzes, commits, and hits the problem with enormous conviction. The character can be clever, patient, and observant, but he is not defined by the sleek spy aesthetic represented by Hunt. The musical reference makes that difference funny without requiring the show to make Reacher the punchline.
Instead, it recognizes an unusual piece of franchise history while reinforcing the current show’s identity. This Reacher is an immovable force thrown into a scenario where the villains have made themselves difficult to find. The stakes are grave, the clock is running, and his enemies have already demonstrated that they can exploit expectations. If the episode briefly plays the theme of a famous cinematic secret agent, it does so while reminding viewers that its own hero has little interest in becoming one.
For more genre-screen chatter beyond Reacher’s world, check out our coverage of the production of The People v. Gorilla Grodd.
When the Reacher season 4 finale arrives
Reacher season 4 concludes on Prime Video on Wednesday, September 16. Episode 7 leaves the story at its most precarious point yet: Sampson is gone, the chemical threat persists, and Lila and Amisha Hoth remain committed to their revenge-driven plan.
The finale now has the task of resolving a plot in which identifying the threat was not enough. Reacher found a likely answer, pursued it decisively, and still arrived at the wrong place because the Hoths were counting on exactly that response. It is a harsh lesson heading into the last episode—and one that makes the earlier Mission: Impossible needle-drop feel even more mischievous. A covert-operation anthem plays during Reacher’s pursuit, but no impossible stunt or clever disguise prevents the trap from closing somewhere else.
