Reece returns home with a severe concussion suffered during the failed raid and tries to adjust to regular life with his wife and daughter. This is derailed when it becomes apparent to Reece that there's more to the deadly SEAL mission than simply bad intelligence, or incompetence. The first sign of this is that the official account of what happened during the raid differs significantly from Reece's memory of it. Then the only other surviving member of his SEAL team suddenly and improbably commits suicide leading an already suspicious Reece to believe that his buddy was suicided and there's something deeply sinister going on (spoiler: there is). He attempts to go through proper channels but is brushed off by his superior officers, his concerns dismissed as PTSD and paranoia. But of course, it's not paranoia if someone actually is chasing you; an attempt is made on Reece's life and, after he dispatches the would-be assassins, he races home only to find that his wife and young daughter have been murdered.
Anyway, who doesn't like to see a good revenge story, where villains who have done terrible things are punished by the very people who were victimized by their actions? Some of our very best and most memorable tales feature this plot device... The Iliad, Hamlet, The Count of Monte Cristo... heck, even The Princess Bride makes use of it: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” So away with this silly nonsense of sneering at revenge as a plot motivator.
The Terminal List is violent- obviously- but because of the pacing, the bursts of violence are interspersed with long periods of time when no action is taking place, so it seems like there's less violence that there actually is. Also, most of said violence is of the garden variety gunplay type though there are a few notable exceptions. The most memorable one is what happens when Reece catches up with the guy who actually physically murdered his wife and daughter... he literally disembowels the man. Fortunately this is done in a dark room and we don't actually see too much of what's happening, but... ew. Late in the show, Reece also makes one of the baddies into an involuntary suicide bomber as well. You can decide whether or not the escalating violence is a bug or a feature. I will mention that the show is unrelentingly dark; don't expect any levity such as there is to be found in the Reacher series. There isn't any- just a man grimly determined to destroy everyone involved in the deaths of his family, or die doing it.
The show is at its best when Reece is using his SEAL acquired skills to outwit the enemy, or the good guys who are trying to stop his murderous revenge. My favourite scene is when he's in the wilderness, dodging a SEAL team which has been sent to take down their rogue officer. Using his skills to blend into the background, he also has complete knowledge of the methods the SEAL team uses to find their target, so is able to circumvent them and even use their own tactics to his advantage. Adding to the tension is the fact that, while they have orders to shoot him if necessary, Reece is trying to avoid actually killing any of these men because they are innocent, just doing their jobs. So he has to work doubly hard to not only keep them from shooting him, but to keep himself from getting into a position where he'd have to shoot them. This is my favourite type of action scene.
Also, I quite liked the uncertainty we have about Reece due to his medical problems. Between his concussion, PTSD, and tumor, we're never sure if some of the things he remembers actually happened the way he thinks they did. For example, on one occasion, a compatriot has to correct a statement he makes about a past mission they were on, because he is mistaken about the details. We're left to wonder uneasily if all of the things he remembers about the disastrous op he and his men were on actually went down the way he thinks it did. Or if his spiral into gratuitous violence is merely him taking his revenge or if it has something to do with his brain injury. Unfortunately, as the show goes on, this uncertainty is more or less dropped or ignored, as it becomes clear that everyone on Reece's list is guilty and he's right about everything.
In the end, I guess my opinion is that The Terminal List is definitely watchable- and better than a lot of new content you'll find streaming these days. But I feel like it missed some great opportunities to be more than just a "revenge fantasy". It may seem a little inconsistent that I was fine with this lack in Reacher; maybe it's because Reacher is lighter in tone, and The Terminal List is so much darker that I unconsciously expected it to have a more serious examination of the issues raised by the plot. In any case, apparently there's going to be a second series, so we'll see what happens.