Prime Video’s *Reacher* Season 4, adapted from Lee Child’s *Gone Tomorrow*, reaches its penultimate hour with “Vote for Sampson.” After weeks of circling a stolen photograph and a growing body count, the episode finally explains what everyone has been killing for—and then spends its last minutes putting that knowledge to work.
The episode dropped September 9, 2026. The season finale, “Cut,” follows September 16.
**Spoiler warning:** Major plot details from Episode 7 follow.
Episode 6 left Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) and Detective Tamara Green (Sydelle Noel) cuffed in a van, Ahlquist’s hired guns preparing to execute them in the woods. “Vote for Sampson” opens on that same moment. Springfield (Aaron Poole), Congressman John Sampson’s security chief, arrives first, kills the mercenaries, and pulls Reacher and Green out. Sampson had sent him after Reacher forwarded the photograph from Anna Merrick’s drive.
Reacher does not waste the opening. He intercepts chemist and Plutus Chemical CEO Leo Ahlquist (Shawn Doyle), T-bones his car, and finishes the conversation from earlier—this time with broken fingers as incentive. Ahlquist talks.
The photograph is not just evidence of an old scandal. It captures a whiteboard from a classified 1990s program, Operation Mongoose. After the Tokyo subway sarin attacks, the CIA contracted DARPA to develop chemical weapons so the United States could reverse-engineer antidotes. Scientists working in Indonesia produced a formula but never completed a reliable countermeasure. Modern AI can now pull that formula from the blurry board. That is what Lila and Amisha Hoth wanted. That is why Anna Merrick died.
Reacher kills Ahlquist on the spot so the Hoths cannot use him. Springfield is not pleased. Meanwhile the sisters test their product on a homeless man; he dies badly. They order a larger batch and prepare a demonstration. Jacob Merrick learns they intend to auction the drive on the dark web and show the weapon that night.
Sampson fills in the last personal piece. Years earlier, when the U.S. turned on Indonesian general Reza Putra, Sampson—then with Delta—put the bullet in him. Amisha served under Putra and idolized him. The fundraiser is not only a high-profile target. It is revenge.
Reacher walks Sampson through the behavioral tells of a suicide bomber while racing toward the event. Sampson spots Tomas Waberi. Reacher is still coming through the gates when Sampson charges. He tackles Waberi off the balcony into the Delaware River. The device detonates underwater. The episode cuts on Reacher’s face at the railing. Sampson’s fate is left unresolved. Whether the water contained the agent is likewise unanswered.
“Vote for Sampson” has the unenviable job of dumping nearly every remaining mystery before the finale. You feel the weight. The Ahlquist interrogation is long, heavy on flashbacks, and occasionally more briefing than scene. That is the cost of a season that spent its middle stretch accumulating questions.
The answers themselves are satisfying. The photograph is no longer a MacGuffin; it is a usable weapon. The Hoths are no longer abstract operators; they have a working product and a personal score to settle with Sampson. Reacher’s decision to kill Ahlquist is consistent with the character: he removes a tool the enemy can still use.
Marc Blucas carries the hour’s best work. Sampson has spent the season looking like a politician with something to hide. Episode 7 strips that away and then asks him to act like the soldier he used to be. The coaching sequence—Reacher listing tells over the phone while Sampson scans a crowded fundraiser—is the closest the show has come this season to the book’s opening subway scene: Reacher’s mind, applied at distance. The tackle into the river gives the episode the finish it needs.
The cliffhanger is earned. The conspiracy is now clear. The immediate threat is public and chemical. One episode remains for Reacher, Green, and Jacob to finish what Anna Merrick started.
Exposition-heavy but necessary. The last five minutes justify the wait and send Season 4 into its finale with real stakes instead of leftover puzzles.
Season 4 continues Wednesday on Prime Video.
