Reacher Season 3: What Quinn Really Did To Dominique Kohl

Warning: Major spoilers for Reacher season 3 episode 2 "Truckin'" below!

Graphic descriptions of torture below.

The death of Dominique Kohl is a source of trauma for Reacher's title character, but what happened to the young sergeant? Fun as it was, Reacher season 2 suffered from a villain problem. None of the 110th Special Investigators' antagonists felt like credible threats, undermining any tension the season may have had. Seemingly responding to this feedback, season 3 adapts Persuader, which features a couple of great villains.

The Reacher vs Paulie dynamic is one of the book's most memorable elements, with their inevitable fight being hyped up in a big way for season 3. Reacher's actual target in his undercover investigation is former military intelligence officer Francis Quinn (Brian Tee). Reacher and his protege Kohl (Mariah Robinson) investigated Quinn over his suspected selling of military intelligence, but after he brutally murdered Kohl, Reacher found Quinn and executed him personally. It's only a decade later that Reacher learns Quinn survived, and he teams with the DEA to track him down.

Jack Reacher looking up in Reacher season 3

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What Happened To Dominique Kohl, According To Lee Child's Persuader Novel

Kohl's murder is one of Reacher's deepest regrets

Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher, looking angry, in Reacher season 2 episode 6

Kohl's murder haunts Reacher in both Persuader and its TV adaptation. Alan Ritchson's anti-hero has a rare display of emotion when DEA agent Turner (Sonya Cassidy) asks what Quinn did to Kohl, with Reacher being so choked up over the memory he can't even respond. Assuming Amazon's show is faithful to the Lee Child Reacher novel it's adapting, his hatred for Quinn is well justified. The novel slowly built to Kohl's fate, where after a lengthy investigation, Reacher tasks her with arresting him.

Kohl's graphic murder shakes the normally unshakable Reacher so severely that he vomits upon discovering the body...

Reacher becomes justifiably concerned when she fails to call in and he heads to Quinn's house; this is where he finds Kohl's badly mutilated body in Quinn's master bedroom. Kohl had been stripped nude, badly beaten, and then tortured before Quinn cut off both of her breasts. As a killing blow, Quinn stabbed Kohl under her chin until the knife blade hit her brain. Kohl's graphic murder shakes the normally unshakable Reacher so severely that he vomits upon discovering the body and cries for "... the first time in more than twenty years."

Reacher's Visible Trauma Over Finding Kohl Says More Than The Actual Explanation

Reacher is still grieving Kohl years after her death

While there was a hint of romantic tension between Reacher and Kohl in Persuader's flashback chapters, the two were ultimately just good friends. Reacher holds himself responsible for sending Kohl to arrest Quinn, which is why he took it upon himself to execute the man personally. In season 3's second episode, "Truckin'," Reacher doesn't have to say anything to Duffy to convey the depth of his trauma surrounding Kohl's murder. The show will get around to details surrounding the killing, but for now, all Reacher has said of Quinn is that "He's the single worst person I've ever known."

Quinn's actor Brian Tee previously co-starred with Alan Ritchson in 2016's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

It's unlikely Kohl's death in Reacher will be as graphic as its depiction in Persuader for a few reasons. Either the show will soften how brutal her death was, or it will be left up to the viewer's imagination. In the novel series, Kohl casts such a long shadow over Reacher's life that her memory comes up again in the novel Personal, proving her death is one of his biggest regrets.