And if you think the show is bad, the book, which is fast-paced and bloody and replete with descriptions of weaponry and gear, is worse. Yes, this is, as the Daily Beast’s review’s headline called the show, “an unhinged right-wing revenge fantasy.” Yes, it’s yet another invitation to worship at the altar of the Navy SEALs, who have become, in the decades after 9/11, our culture industries’ warrior saints, which isn’t good. The conspiracy that killed his team gets revealed by bloodshed, and plenty of it.

As James Reece’s creator Jack Carr-himself a former SEAL with just the kind of bearded, gun-slinging author photo that you’d expect-described the story in the preface to the first book in his Terminal List series: “It is about what could happen when societal norms, laws, regulations, morals, and ethics give way for a man of extraordinary capability, hardened by war, and set on a course of reckoning a man who is, for all practical purposes, already dead.” The answer to that question will not surprise you: That man, played drawn and weary by a grey-faced Pratt, travels far and wide, a motley crew of allies in tow, to interrogate and then murder gang members, lawyers, financiers, and military personnel in a variety of creative ways. The Terminal List, starring Chris Pratt as James Reece, a badass SEAL with a recently-diagnosed brain tumor whose entire team was just killed in a suspicious operation gone wrong, is a visually murky, exceedingly grim revenge story, catnip for people who like to see these kinds of operators let loose on the world. This article contains spoilers for The Terminal List.

Cast of the terminal list