What was that HGH joke about in Reacher Season 3 Episode 1? Explained 

Reacher Season 3 starts off on a tense note in Abbottsville. Maine and Alan Ritchson's much-loved avatar engages in some unprecedented action. A kidnapping of a young boy named Richard Beck goes awry, and Reacher intervenes, as expected, leading to a high-intensity series of action and car chases, all of which were staged and pre-planned by Reacher and Susan Duffy (Sonia Cassidy).

Richard is the son of an immensely powerful and rich rug merchant, Zachary Beck (played by Anthony Michael Hall), who seemingly is also involved with drug lords. However, fans get to witness a funny moment in Season 3 Episode 1 where Reacher cracks an insulting joke about HGH at Paulie, Zachary's massively-built bodyguard (Olivier Richters), the moment the two have their first face-off.

HGH (Human Growth Hormone) is a muscle-enhancing drug for maintaining a heavy build. Reacher's sarcasm about Paulie using HGH synthetically with a hypodermic needle sets up the whole Alan Ritchson aura.

Disclaimer: This article contains a general characterization of Lee Child's famous creation, Jack Reacher, and very little opinion from the author. Also, it contains spoilers from Reacher Season 3 Episode 1. Please be advised.

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What do we know about Reacher's HGH joke in Reacher Season 3 Episode 1?

The first face-off between Paulie and Ritcher is as expected, with a tense exchange of words between the two. But Alan Ritchson's character anyway has again stolen the hearts of his die-hard fans.

With a person of such a massive and muscular physique like that of Paulie, any protagonist would feel intimidated by his presence. However, Reacher maintains his calm and composed appearance all throughout, especially with his savage one-liners.

He even denies getting out of the car when Paulie asks him to and funnily tells Richard that "he's rude" - all the more reason for the audience to admire that attitude, which perfectly justifies Lee Child's iconic character, Jack Reacher. Moreover, Nick Santora's creation has given space to Reacher's subtle sense of humor since the first season.

Once again, we see the same thing happening when he funnily instigates Paulie about his hugely muscular and wrestler-type presence. When Reacher gets out of the car to be checked for weapons by Paulie, the former appears much less formidable than what he seemed like in the previous seasons (especially due to his well-built physique and height).

This is mostly because of Paulie's antagonistic appearance. Reacher was literally spun around like a toy by Paulie, and while the face-off culminates, he delivers another savage reply to Paulie's question on what he was "hoping to find" while checking him.

Reacher's exact words were:

"More HGH and a hypodermic needle."

This line seems like the best dialogue from the ex-army turned undercover agent in the first episode of Reacher. He implicated that Paulie was probably looking for some more synthetic drugs to maintain his muscular and gigantic physique.

It was a nasty joke meant to target Paulie on his exposure to steroids and other drugs to grow his muscles even further - rather than focusing on building his physique naturally and through workouts. Later on, during the Russian Roulette scene (one of the most gut-wrenching so far), we again see Reacher making fun of Paulie about not clearing "the OCS Exam" (after he learns that Paulie was also in the army but "hates officers").

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Reacher has very little chance of winning a fight against Paulie if the two ever directly engage in combat. However, the former's witty presence and smart tactics give him an upper hand in certain ways.

His special forces skills have trained him over the years to survive any situation and extract himself (or anyone else) with as little harm as possible. To be precise, we have already gotten a glimpse of that in Seasons 1 and 2, the new chapter being no exception to this.

Reacher is back again and even more prepared this time to take down the bad men. A stronger opposition does not make him feel scared, but he's always looking for ways to make them feel like they are not facing someone easy, and the HGH joke is yet another rendition of that.

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