If it looked like Reacher really got the wind knocked out of him in this moment, it’s because filming this stunt actually knocked Ritchson unconscious. Ritchson insisted on doing this stunt himself, despite pushback from his team because he wanted it to look real for the audience. “And I get the bright idea to shoot a stunt in a way, because I was like, ‘I want the audience to know that I’m doing this for us. I’m taking one for Reacher and we’re all in this together,’” Ritchson told Entertainment Weekly. “And so I wanted the camera to come up and just stay on my face the whole time while I get smashed through a table on the barn floor.”
After getting smashed through the table and into “the seventh circle of hell,” as Ritchson describes it, the actor woke up “a day and a half later” having to explain to his kids, who were on set during filming, that he was okay.
Thankfully, Ritchson came out alive and relatively well, and was able to eventually continue filming this fight. According to the actor, it took three weeks to film the sequence in its entirety, which isn’t surprising given that the garage is but one of many locations across the Beck property that these two square off in.
After getting knocked through the table, Reacher also finds a way to get back up again. For a while, it seems like both of these beefy gents are virtually indestructible as they continue to survive whatever the other throws at them – Paulie even finds his way back to shore after Reacher leaves him to sink to the bottom of the rocky ocean waters that border the mansion.
Finally, Reacher finds a way to outsmart Paulie, just as he did in the gym at the beginning of the season. Reacher jams the machine gun in Paulie’s little security shed, so that when Paulie tries to fire it at him, it backfires. It’s a bloody way to go, but coming back from an explosive gunshot to the throat is nearly impossible, even for Paulie.
Even though we know the odds are high that Reacher is eventually going to come out on top, it’s an exciting fight to watch. It took three weeks for them to shoot the 28 minutes or so we see on screen, which proves how dedicated the show is to giving the fans what they want out of these big action sequences. Ritchson was so dedicated to doing this right that he put himself at risk to get a good shot.
