Tracker Season 2, Episode 9: X-Files Veteran Brings a Fresh Dynamic to the Show

Tracker Season 2, Episode 9, “The Disciple” ends the Gina Picket story that started in the Season 2 premiere. And while it does provide some answers, for a show that’s proven to be one of CBS’ bigger hits, it feels somehow anticlimactic. The series accomplishes its goals, but doesn’t have the emotional impact that other series have achieved with similar storylines.

“The Disciple” narrows down Gina’s mystery by picking up where the previous episode left off. This brings Colter Shaw back around to Frank Whales, and with some help from an old friend, Colter is able to use Whales to get to the real perpetrator. But finding “The Teacher” (hence the title) is only as memorable as it is because of a connection to The X-Files.

Tracker Season 2, Episode 9 Reveals What Happened to Gina Picket

Fans Will Have All the Facts After This Episode

Tracker deserves some props for not stretching out the Gina Picket storyline over the entire second season, but this attempt at serialized storytelling has both pros and cons. The most important thing is that audiences will understand what happened to Gina by the end of “The Disciple.” There’s no last-second cliffhanger for drama’s sake and there are no major loose ends. Viewers get the answers that they’ve been waiting for. But beyond that, this episode makes the argument that the CBS drama works best when it sticks to a one-off, “case of the week” kind of structure.

The actual narrative of “The Disciple” never has the intense momentum that TV audiences would expect in the conclusion to an ongoing story, especially an ongoing serial killer story. Even when Colter gets to the barn where The Teacher previously kept his victims and finds a body as well as other human remains, there’s not a palpable sense of urgency. And there’s not much of a whodunit: Colter, Keaton and later Reenie just wrangle more and more information out of Frank Whales until they get where they need to go. There’s an emotional arc set up with Frank turning on the man who abducted and then groomed him, but its payoff is one brief scene before Frank is incapacitated by the Teacher and left on the floor, never to be seen again.

Many other shows like Criminal Minds have created scary serial killers, especially those who prey on children and women. So the villain that Tracker has created isn’t novel, and has a high bar to clear in terms of actually unsettling the audience. And that doesn’t have to mean showing some kind of death or torture (this is an 8:00 p.m. network TV show, after all). It just means telling a story that keeps viewers guessing. But in this episode, the fans almost feel like they’re just waiting for Colter to catch up. At least in the end, justice is finally served, so everyone can walk away feeling good.

The Finder is a charming series that follows former U.S. Army Major Walter Sherman as he embarks on an obsessive journey of tracking things down.

Tracker Is Helped Out by This X-Files Actor’s Guest Appearance

Nicholas Lea Does What He Does Best

Part of the lack of suspense in “The Disciple” comes from the casting. As Colter has moved from place to place, the casting of the guest characters is critical for Tracker, because they’re what makes each story different. In Season 2, Episode 9, Colter visits a nursing home to speak with the man who owns the barn that The Teacher was using. Yet once viewers lay eyes on The X-Files alum Nicholas Lea, they’ll know that his character Noah Darview is The Teacher. Lea portrayed the “love to hate him” character of Alex Krycek throughout the FOX series and he was brilliant in that role.

He’s equally creepy here, though with much less to do. Noah only appears in one scene before he’s unmasked as the bad guy, so there’s not any real room for Lea to lull the audience into a false sense of security. Tracker also misses an opportunity to let the actor loose by just saying that Noah confessed to Gina’s murder off-screen, instead of showing it. One of the episode’s biggest flaws is that fans get all this information about what Noah did and how he pulled it off, but all they learn about him as a character is just background info spelled out after he’s already been caught. He’s indistinguishable from all the other similar bad guys — except for Lea’s performance.

Someone who gets to have a bit more fun is Brent Sexton as Keaton. The actor from HBO’s hit series Deadwood gets to play the “old-school” cop who thinks nothing of threatening a suspect at gunpoint or roughing him up a little. It’s a tired archetype for sure, but it means Sexton has some material to sink his teeth into. The partnership between Colton and Keaton is what pushes the episode along, since they’re in several key scenes together. Keaton is the kind of character whom Tracker could revisit someday on a different investigation.

The winter premiere of Tracker airs Feb. 16

Tracker Season 2, Episode 9 Says Goodbye to Camille & Colter

The Episode Essentially Cleans the Show’s Slate

With Gina’s mystery solved, it’s time for Tracker to say goodbye to her sister Camille Picket — literally. After Gina’s memorial service, Camille tells Colter that she’s going traveling internationally and gives him a farewell kiss. Although she says it’s not “goodbye forever,” that takes the character played by Supergirl and Grey’s Anatomy actor Floriana Lima out of the story, and calls time on the romance between Colter and Camille. It’s not a surprise, because doing so frees up Colter to connect with other characters in future episodes as he continues to wander the country. This is the writers keeping their story options open. But there is a sadness, given the past between Camille and Colter, too.

Tracker Season 2, Episode 9 closes the book on this recurring storyline in every way possible. Gina’s captor has been caught, Camille has her closure, and she goes off into the world so that Colter can go on his way. Viewers get the satisfaction of no longer waiting for answers and the CBS show’s creatives can now do just about anything they want next. But after a half-season of mystery, “The Disciple” is a pretty quiet end to all that. Yes, there are moments of worrying about whether or not Colter will find The Teacher’s latest victim, but otherwise no one really feels in peril, and only Camille really seems to have changed. Episode 9 does what it came to do, yet it could have done a lot more.

Tracker airs Sundays at 8:00 p.m. on CBS.