‘The Terminal List’ kicks in your door and raids your house with season two
It was an unfortunate series of events that kept a new season of “The Terminal List” from getting to air. The 2023 Writer’s Strike, a Screen Actor’s Guild strike, and the busy schedule of the show’s popular lead Chris Pratt, who portrays rogue Navy SEAL Lt. Cmdr. James Reece.
But on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, viewers will catch up with Reece on the other side of international law when “The Terminal List” season two binge drops on Amazon Prime Video.
Fans coming into the series because of Pratt’s work on “Parks & Recreation,” “Jurassic World,” or “Guardians of the Galaxy” should be forewarned: James Reece is not the actor’s usual, lighthearted role. We find Reece on the run from the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Defense after his one-man war against an entire sector of the American defense apparatus—while trying to restart some kind of life.
Obviously, not every character who had a large part in season one will be able to return for season two. No spoilers, but many of them suffered from terminal bullet wounds. There are also a handful of characters from 2025’s “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf” returning, and some may even survive an encounter with Reece.
Constance Wu returns as reporter Katie Buranek, Tom Hopper reprises his role as Raife Hastings, and even Taylor Kitsch returns as Ben Edwards, despite his own terminal bullet wound to the head.
“The Terminal List” for New Viewers
For anyone who’s never seen an episode of The Terminal List,” it’s an action-thriller series wrapped around a political conspiracy. And season two is more of what Carr fans love, with just a different mystery to unravel. The show is also known for bringing a whole new level of military authenticity to the screen.
There’s a reason military people tend to love it.
Authenticity is not just using three-letter acronyms (TLA) civilians don’t understand while shooting weapons at bad guys who look vaguely Middle Eastern. What former Navy SEAL Jack Carr brings to the action genre is an understanding what combat looks like in real life: that hand-to-hand combat isn’t slow-motion, firearms require reloading at times, and grenades produce fragmentation and not a massive fireball.
Executive Producer and former Navy SEAL Jared Shaw (you might remember him as Boozer from season one) and Executive Producer and former Army Ranger Max Adams oversee the action while nearly 17 others work behind the scenes to get it right. Five of the season’s eight episodes were written by veterans and four were directed by vets. “Warfare” director and former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza even directed an one.
Critics didn’t love season one of the show, but that didn’t matter to Carr. What matters to him (and everyone else involved with the production) is that the fans loved it. And by that metric, the critics got ratioed. Hard.
But what’s left for James Reece to do, now that his Terminal List is complete? The first season of “The Terminal List” was based on Carr’s 2018 book of the same name. It’s no secret that the source material for season two is the second book in the Reece series, 2019’s “True Believer.” In that book, Reece fights to neutralize a rogue conspiracy that could lead to war between Russia and the United States.
For many fans, “True Believer” is their favorite of the series, but they should be prepared for some divergence—some of what Carr depicted in 2019 has echoes in real-world events since: an attack on a German Christmas market, drone assassinations, and coordinated attacks planned by Russian intelligence, just to name a few. Obviously, James Reece can’t prevent things that already happened.
But that kind of prescience makes the series even more compelling. Carr doesn’t just bring combat authenticity to the screen, his books draw from the real-world geopolitical picture. And the world is a very different place nowadays. Since 2019, there was a global pandemic, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, Russia invaded Ukraine (which likely forced dramatic changes the book), there was Hamas’ Oct. 7 2023 attack on Israel and the war that followed, and the Iran War—just to name a few.
But what could possibly be better than the tried-and-true Cold War-style cloak-and-dagger thriller? One that’s peppered with the special operations combat and Middle Eastern influences of the Global War on Terror generation, that’s what. It looks like that’s what we can look forward to.
Rewatching “Dark Wolf”
After an extended break between seasons, it’s natural for viewers to want to go back and refamiliarize themselves with the previous storyline, but Reece fans seem divided on whether or not rewatching “Dark Wolf” should be part of it—if it’s been a while, it’s worth revisiting. It’s a prequel (of sorts), but one nearly as good as the original.
More importantly, there are three cast members with ties to Reece that viewers need to keep an eye on. Dar Salim, who reprises his role as Mohammed “Mo” Farooq from “Dark Wolf;” Luke Hemsworth returning as Jules Landry; and Tom Hopper’s Raife Hastings are all critical to the story in “True Believer,” and are likely just as important to “The Terminal List” in its second season.
“The Terminal List” is not “NCIS.” There will be no dramatic pauses in firefights, no one-punch knockouts, and the problem will not be solved procedurally at the end of 42 to 44 minutes. Nor will you want it to be.
You’ll wish there were more than eight episodes.
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