Neagley premiered its first season in its entirety on September 16, 2026. In October 2026, the series was renewed for a second season.
Premise
Frances Neagley, a private investigator based in Chicago, Illinois, seeks the truth after her childhood friend has died in a suspicious accident that leads her to Echo Canyon Farm, a peaceful cult-like commune that fronts an illegal human experimentation operation run by Lawrence Cole and Invection Pharmaceuticals CEO Pierce Woodrow.
Cast and characters
Main
Maria Sten as Frances Neagley, a former U.S. ArmyMaster Sergeant, military police officer, and member of the elite 110th Special Investigations unit, now a private investigator
Frances Neagley learns that her best childhood friend Tommy Crane has been killed by a L train after walking onto the tracks. She investigates Tommy's death, and Detective Hudson Riley shows her footage of a boy fleeing the scene, whom she later saves from some thugs. Meanwhile, the CEO of Invection Pharmaceuticals, Pierce Woodrow, pitches his drug Tranqlara to leading psychiatrists. Tommy's trail leads Neagley to Echo Canyon Farm, where she meets its suspicious director of operations, Judith Gray. A pick-up truck tries to kill her, but it crashes and explodes, killing the driver. Neagley learns from Hudson that his family were the Water Rats, a powerful criminal smuggling and weapons trafficking network. Neagley and Hudson retrieve a recording mentioning farm CEO Lawrence Cole, then find the camera repairman dead, leading Neagley to realize that people linked to Echo Canyon's illicit activities are being systematically eliminated.
2
"Team Building Exercises"
Sam Hill
Nicholas Wootton & Nick Santora
September16,2026(2026-09-16)
Two weeks ago, Tommy expressed concern about the farm and the Project, where Tranqlara’s development takes place, but his friend Lulu dismissed his worries. Tommy is then horrified to see her severed finger and confronts Cole, but Cole tells him not to worry. In the present, Neagley and Hudson believe that the camera repairman was a staged suicide. Neagley notices two mercenaries aiming a sniper at them, seeing them through her sniper rifle. Neagley and Hudson visit a bar and enquire about the mercenaries, with the owner revealing their names are Davos and Ford. Neagley later visits her dad and asks about her haphephobia, soon noticing an envelope containing rye powder from Tommy. Neagley and Hudson then chase after Ford and arrest him, and enquire about Cole and the murders, but Ford says Cole was a savior. Later, Neagley sends Keno undercover to the farm. Neagley and Hudson confront the repairman's wife, while Davos aims at them. Cole holds Keno at gunpoint.
Four years earlier, Cole unsuccessfully promotes Echo Canyon, but Woodrow offers to finance him. In the present, Neagley wounds Davos on a rooftop, but he escapes. Cole confronts Keno about his drug addiction and accepts him onto the farm. Deputy Chief James Plemel orders Hudson to arrest Neagley, but she escapes and asks her friend Renee Birdwhistle to locate Davos. Hudson later finds Neagley but decides to help her, using Renee's list of unlicensed doctors to track Davos. With Hudson's cousin Mickey, they identify Jens Waller as Davos's doctor. Keno learns about the Project from Mandy. Davos tells Neagley and Hudson that Cole ordered Tommy's death. They stage Neagley's arrest when police arrive, but Officer Murphy kills Davos, claiming he tried to take his gun. At night, Keno enters the Project's barn and discovers a man drugged with Tranqlara injuring himself without feeling pain, along with kilos of the rye flour Tommy previously sent to Neagley.
4
"Breaking & Entering"
Gary Fleder
Kyle Long
September16,2026(2026-09-16)
A year earlier, Cole and Woodrow subjected Owen Vark, a retired veteran, to Tranqlara testing, but it failed. In the present, Keno tells Neagley, Hudson, and Renee about the Project and asks to leave the farm, but Neagley forces him to investigate further. She asks Birdwhistle to identify the other person who served with Davos and Ford in Afghanistan. Gerry York, Neagley's boss, visits her home but finds two thugs there. Murphy threatens Hudson over his account of Davos's death. Renee identifies Davos and Ford's former partner as Owen, now in a psychiatric hospital, and Neagley and Hudson visit him. Owen says Cole promised to eliminate his trauma and reveals that 41 patients came before him. Mandy helps Keno but is punished by Cole and selected for the Project. Neagley discovers Gerry has been murdered in her apartment. Keno sneaks into the barn again and finds bags containing mutilated corpses in a van, hiding among them when he is nearly caught. Neagley drinks the milk that the thugs spiked.
Woodrow reprimands the assassins for killing Gerry, but they assure him that the substance injected into Neagley's milk will soon take effect. At Hudson's house, Renee tells Neagley and Hudson that a government nuclear vault lies beneath the barn, leading them to suspect that Cole and Woodrow use it to experiment on Echo Canyon members. Keno is thrown into a hole with bags meant to be burned, but the men run out of fuel, leaving him trapped. Neagley begins suffering the substance's effects and escapes the house. She hallucinates about seeing her father kill a man when she was a child, and the assassins try to kill her until Hudson arrives and saves her. Keno escapes just as two men set the bodies on fire. Woodrow is reprimanded by his board for years of ineffective Tranqlara testing and threatened with funding cuts. His boss then threatens him about the situation. Renee tells Keno to leave the farm, but he refuses without Mandy. Later, Neagley and Hudson drug Woodrow.
6
"Rocked"
Phil Abraham
Adam Higgs
September16,2026(2026-09-16)
Keno encounters Renee at an Echo Canyon market, as she has gone to rescue him, but when he decides to stay to save Mandy, she reluctantly agrees to help. Neagley and Hudson investigate a pharmaceutical company linked to several deaths in Hamilton and speak with the sister of journalist Doty, who died investigating it. She reveals that Doty and her work were burned. With Renee's help, Keno finds the vault conduit beneath the barn, and Renee admits she forced him to investigate to see if her missing brother was a member. Neagley and Hudson find evidence of Doty's work hidden in a conduit and defeat several thugs, one of whom reveals Woodrow hired them. Keno finds Mandy in the vent and asks her to escape, while Hudson finds evidence linking the operation to his father. Cole has Judith stoned to death after discovering that she doubted his leadership. Armed guards later trap Keno and discover that Mandy betrayed him to Cole.
Neagley confronts her father about killing Elliot Percy, who he reveals was a predator. When she still presses him about it, Calvin suffers a heart attack. Hudson visits his father, Boone, in prison, who asks him to eliminate evidence against a convicted man in exchange for the account number where he was paid. Hudson agrees, sending Neagley to see Tracy, who provides information about Boone's account. They then uncover Rawlings Corp. funding Boone. Mandy visits Keno ostensibly to help him, but he discovers her deception. Hudson steals and burns the evidence and then kills Murphy after a fight. Neagley discovers that the two thugs who want her dead are following her and Renee, who kills them both after a fight. Rawlings visits Woodrow, who proposes killing Cole and installing a new Echo Canyon leader, but Rawlings kills Woodrow and makes Cole his new partner. After discovering Woodrow's death, the trio prepares to prevent Rawlings' getaway, like in Hamilton, and Keno from dying.
8
"Touched"
MJ Bassett
Nick Santora & Nicholas Wootton
September16,2026(2026-09-16)
Rawlings' mercenaries trick Cole into believing there is a FBI raid, sending everyone to the vault beneath the barn. Neagley, Hudson, and Renee enter and discover Rawlings' plans to kill everyone and destroy the operation with bombs. Neagley sends Renee to find them. A distraction allows several Echo Canyon members to escape. Keno escapes and reunites with Renee. The group retrieves the hard drives and leaves the vault as Neagley uses a walkie to detonate the bombs, killing Cole. Finding Rawlings, Neagley injects him with Tranqlara; he walks into traffic and is run over, avenging Tommy. Neagley learns Tommy went to Echo Canyon after being abused by Percy; Calvin killed Percy because of this. She goes to apologize to her dad but discovers he has died. After his funeral, Jack Reacher visits Neagley, who begins to overcome her haphephobia by shaking his hand; Echo Canyon's crimes are exposed. Using the money Reacher gave her, Neagley reopens the detective agency with Hudson, Renee and Keno.
The series' writing team is composed of Nick Santora & Nicholas Wootton, Adam Higgs, Kyle Long, and Lacey Herbert. Neagley explores the title character's life in greater detail than in Reacher. Sten said: "Neagley has a lot going on in her life. She has a history, and she has a life lived. She has some quite severe personal issues of her own that she's grappling with… I'm just thrilled to get going and sink my teeth in".
All eight episodes of Neagley were released on September 16, 2026.
Reception
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 94% approval rating, based on 31 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critics consensus states, "Neagley isn't Reacher and it uses that to its advantage to chart its own thrilling path towards action hero greatness." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 67 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
