Why Susan Duffy From Reacher Season 3 Looks So Familiar

This article contains spoilers for "Reacher" Season 3.

"Reacher" Season 3 is finally here, and with it, the towering Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) attains yet another colorful supporting cast. This time, the military police extraordinaire-turned-voluntary vagrant finds himself in Maine, where he rescues a strange young man (Johnny Berchtold) from a kidnapping attempt and ends up accidentally killing a plainclothes police officer as a result. Fortunately, the kid's father, Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall), happens to be a wealthy big shot who's willing to help. Soon, Reacher finds himself semi-forcefully recruited into a strange group that seems to be doing something far shadier than its stated raison d'être of selling rugs ... or does he?

In reality, both the kidnapping and the cop's death were a ruse. Reacher and the people who set them up are in cahoots, with the protagonist working as an undercover agent for the hard-as-nails Susan Duffy. Both Reacher and Duffy have their own reasons for the risky infiltration mission, and while they're working toward the same goal, their strong-willed mentalities clash on occasion. Since Reacher has two seasons of character development under his belt, this setup requires a lot of presence from the actor portraying Duffy. Fortunately, the show found Sonya Cassidy, who rises to the challenge with plenty of experience from major TV shows. Here's why she might seem familiar to viewers.

Sonya Cassidy played a menacing synth on Humans

The events of AMC's "Humans" take place in a world where extremely human-like "synth" robots are commonplace and assigned to perform all sorts of functions that range from manual labor to medical work and certain more ... unsavory tasks. This poses several ethical and social issues, especially since some of the synths out there are actually conscious — and not always happy about their predicament.

In 2016, Sonya Cassidy appeared in "Humans" Season 2 as Hester, a mistreated factory worker synth who becomes conscious and teams up with her kindred Ten (Raphael Acloque), Max (Ivanno Jeremiah), and synth hybrid Leo (Colin Morgan). The group spends much of its time on the run and nigh-immediately loses a member. As a result of her shock awakening, bad memories of humanity, and fugitive life, Hester finds it hard to adjust to her new situation and soon develops a coldly burning hatred toward humanity. In a 2016 interview with International Business Times, Cassidy analyzed the character's development, and how she feels the grim direction of Hester's character arc is rooted in realism:

"Her newly acquired sentience [causes her to] immediately feel the effect of memories (until now just data) of neglect and mistreatment at the factory, at the hands of humans. On top of that, one of her first experiences is that of being lied to, hunted, and shot at; resulting in Ten's death. Everything moves so quickly for this newly formed group that Leo and Max don't really have the time to explain things to Hester, to reassure her that things can be different. That's vital. As a result, she has to learn to survive and contribute based on these experiences. I think the result is a very human response."

She dealt with life's hard knocks as Liz on Lodge 49

If you want a quick idea of Sonya Cassidy's range, watch "Humans" back to back with her other major AMC show, "Lodge 49" — a Jim Gavin-created comedy-drama about Dud (Wyatt Russell), a Long Beach surfer type who's looking for a new direction in life and ends up joining a secret society. This, of course, is a very simple way to describe the show's multi-layered (and often very funny) musing on life, which is anchored by touching characters and performances.

Cassidy plays Liz, Dud's twin sister. Her life is in at least as much disarray as her brother's, as her past mistakes have slammed so many doors shut that she's stuck in a dead-end job while dealing with the debt their dead father left behind. She was part of the main cast of "Lodge 49" from 2018 to the show's cancellation after its second season due to declining ratings.

While the critical darling series never had a chance to conclude on its own terms, Cassidy delivered a powerhouse performance. She paints a picture of a powerful but downcast person, underlining Liz's mental struggle with the subtle ways the character moves in the show. Here's how she analyzed her character's physicality in a 2019 interview with the A.V. Club:

"She's kind of minimized herself. Her life has been getting up, putting on makeup, going to work, wearing an outfit. And then when she's not there, it's very much about covering her body, slouching on the sofa, just not really taking care of herself. So delving into that kind of crushed core — which is quite a nice symbol as well for essentially the last year of her life and how trodden down she's been — felt like the right way to go for her."

Her Lady Eadgifu was a major endgame player on The Last Kingdom

2022 was a busy year for Sonya Cassidy, who played major roles in no less than two TV shows. The first of them was the BBC/Netflix historical drama "The Last Kingdom," which is based on Bernard Cornwell's "The Saxon Stories" book series and partially covers the same ground as History's "Vikings."

Cassidy joined the show in Season 5 as Eadgifu, who becomes a major force to be reckoned with during this final season — as well as the 2023 sequel film "The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die." Unfortunately for her fans, Cassidy didn't return to reprise the role for "Seven Kings Must Die," in which Elaine Cassidy plays the character instead. This wasn't because Cassidy didn't enjoy the role either. On the contrary — in a 2022 interview with The Digital Fix, Cassidy revealed that the sole reason behind her absence in "Seven Kings Must Die" was an issue with scheduling:

"It's with a heavy heart that I say no [to reprising the role], because of a scheduling conflict. I had a blast on 'The Last Kingdom.' I was a big fan of the show anyway, so it was really fun to kind of join those guys in beautiful Budapest. And I really liked that character, I really enjoyed playing Eadgifu, but my time playing her was for Season 5. Alas, someone else will be picking up that baton. So I'm glad that at least her story will continue. In another world, I'd have happily done it. But unfortunately, I couldn't."

She was a tech CEO in a difficult spot on The Man Who Fell to Earth

Sonya Cassidy's other major 2022 project was "The Man Who Fell to Earth," the Showtime sci-fi drama from creators Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman. The show has a truly fascinating premise: It's a sequel to the 1967 movie of the same name where David Bowie plays the titular "Man Who Fell to Earth" — aka Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who disguises himself as a human to undertake a secret mission (one that takes the film in directions the viewer couldn't possibly see coming). In the TV sequel, Bill Nighy takes over as Newton, while Chiwetel Etiofor plays a new alien visitor known as Faraday. Names like Naomie Harris, Jimmi Simpson, Rob Delaney, Kate Mulgrew, and, of course, Cassidy round out the key cast. Cassidy's role is that of Edie Flood, a central character who runs a tech company with a surprising connection to Newton and, as a result, eventually finds herself at the negotiation table with a very surprising immigrant.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a relatively short gig for Cassidy and the rest of the cast. While /Film's Rafael Motamayor found "The Man Who Fell to Earth" to be a timely and fresh adaptation of a sci-fi classic (you can read his full review here), that joy was short-lived, and the series didn't receive a second season.

You may have seen Sonya Cassidy in many other TV shows too

Sonya Cassidy's screen acting career started in 2009 with appearances on no less than four different projects, including a guest star role as the Duchess of Milan in Season 3 of Michael Hirst's Showtime period drama "The Tudors." She went on to play comparatively minor roles on shows like "The Midsomer Murders" after that. However, by 2012, she had already started playing major characters in two different series — namely, the BBC drama "The Paradise" (in which she starred as Clara throughout the show's two-series run) and the ITV whodunnit "Vera," where she played Celine Ashworth from Series 2 to Series 4. She's worked steadily ever since then, usually with at least one major TV role on her plate. Cassidy has also found time for quicker guest star turns in shows like the BBC Jack the Ripper mystery drama "Ripper Street" — and, notably, Brett Goldstein and William Bridges' AMC sci-fi anthology series "Soulmates," where she co-headlines Season 1, Episode 2, "The Lovers," with David Costabile.

Though the bulk of her work so far has been on the small screen, Cassidy has appeared in a number of movies as well. She played a small role as a secretary in the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring Wikileaks biopic thriller "The Fifth Estate" (2013), and also portrayed Annabelle in the 2014 Kelsey Grammer banking comedy "Breaking the Bank." She can additionally be seen playing Helen in "V for Vendetta" and "Ninja Assassin" director James McTeigue's star-studded 2015 crime thriller "Survivor."

New episodes of "Reacher" drop Thursdays on Prime Video.