The Terminal List Season 1 Review

The Terminal List (2022-)
Season 1 - 8 episodes

Rent The Terminal List on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book (paid link)
Created by: David DiGilio, Based on The Terminal List by Jack Carr
Starring: Chris Pratt, Constance Wu, Riley Keough, Taylor Kitsch, Jeanne  Tripplehorn,k Arlo Mertz, Jai Courtney
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer

Plot
A former Navy SEAL officer investigates why his entire platoon was ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission.

Verdict
It's a boring conspiracy that's a pretense for Chris Pratt as Reece to murder everyone in his path under the pretense of vengeance and justice. He's killing to avenge not just his family, but the soldiers under his command too. This series is heavy on action and light on story. This mentions trauma and PTSD, but I wish it had something to say about the topic or a specific link to Reece other than using it just as a plot device. For anyone outside of Reece's circle, he's a terrorist. The movie fails to address that. This provides a mystery as a springboard for the action that follows, but this series is action first and story a distant second.
Skip it.

Review
James Reece (Chris Pratt) is the lone survivor after his Navy SEAL team is killed in combat. It seems anyone attached to this mission is being systematically terminated, and that culminates in an attack on Reece and his family. From there Reece vows to avenge everyone.

There are a few instances where we question Reece's grip on reality, but that doesn't really go anywhere. How he remembers the mission and the data on it differ. Reece insists he's right, but he can't prove it. He claims conspiracy, but that seems like a reach until he gets proof. I really wish this did more with his faulty memory. This series could have played with the unreliable narrator a bit. It could have created an avenue where his actions could be attributed to this fault and his friends question what he's doing just to provide tension.

Chris Pratt plays James Reece

Reece is a vigilante, which basically amounts to terrorism. He's killing indiscriminately out of vengeance. No one ever points out to him that what he's doing is wrong. Everyone feeds into his desire for revenge. Later in the series it's discovered that what happened to Reece and his men was a coverup, and that justice won't be had. That's a ploy to encourage the audience to get on Reece's side, but that didn't work for me. Reece doesn't just kill, he tortures. He shows no remorse or conflict whatsoever.

It's a crazy story. In the first few episodes where I'd wonder if Reece was sane or jumping to crazy conclusions, the episode would provide proof that Reece is right and he is being targeted. He's not a spy infiltrating the government, he's a terrorist shooting his way through the show. I like this premise, but this has the action of a spy mystery and none of the story underpinnings that make the mystery interesting.

Trauma and PTSD are at the core of the conspiracy, and I kept waiting for a link between those issues and Reece. Has war desensitized him to what he's doing which is why he doesn't see it as wrong? I wanted to attribute his actions to something other than 'an eye for an eye.' His actions come down to, if you cross him you die. It's that simple, and I really wanted this to tie the conspiracy to him directly. The conspiracy is about trying to prevent PTSD. This could have been the drug stops PTSD, but also decreases empathy and compassion while increasing violence. That would have been an ironic twist. None of that happens.

Constance Wu plays Katie Buranek

I don't understand how Reece's body count, even killing on a busy street, goes unaddressed until half way in. That leads to an FBI agent trying to catch him that soon realizes Reece may be right. The story is standard to a fault. It's a pretense for big action set pieces, of which there are many.

Reece is also working with a reporter, Katie (Constance Wu). She manages to put the pieces together and provide Reece with targets. When she figures out who orchestrated this and confronts them with this conspiracy, they freely provide her all of the information. That was a neat twist. This ever so briefly touches on what's legal and what's ethical, then we get back to shooting.

At the start of the final episode, I wondered if this would conclude Reece's saga since season two had already been announced. Season one manages to wrap up the story, and it doesn't even leave us hanging. I would guess season two would be either Reece on the run or somehow forced out of hiding. Either way I expect more of the same action and even less of a story.