Tracker Season 2 Episode 16 Review: Colter Shaw Enters a Living Nightmare

Two trackers diverged in a wintry wood, and thankfully, the Tracker villain of the week could not travel both. Strength in numbers served Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) well despite a few dicey moments in Season 2, Episode 16, “The Mercy Seat.” What starts as a pretty normal rescue mission leads to a remote-ish family with a history of making hikers disappear. Was there a 2-for-1 deal at Paramount for stories involving satellite phones, snowy wild, teenagers disappearing, and creepy antlers? Between this episode and the events of Yellowjackets Season 2, it’s on the way to becoming a pattern. There’s even a character on Tracker this week who talks about the wilderness providing victims… let’s get into it.

Colter Shaw Joins Search & Rescue on ‘Tracker’ Season 2 Episode 16

The episode opens with Colter and a search and rescue worker named Roger (Diego Klattenhoff), looking for two young female snowboarders in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana. They find tracks going in two different directions and split up. Colter immediately finds Shelly (Lexi Simonsen), and his buddy just as quickly finds her sister Brianna (Madison Lawlor). Shelly is suffering badly from a head injury, and both girls have hypothermia. They can’t be moved off the mountain until she gets better. Plus, the SAT phone is smashed.

Colter puts his survivalist skills to work. He builds a campfire so the girls can warm up. Brianna tells a scary story fit for the crackling glow: she and her sister separated because she saw a man wearing antlers in the woods and tried to follow him. The search and rescue guy heads back towards cell service, and Colter goes looking for more firewood. He’s not gone long before he runs into a cabin with electricity and a girl, Amelia (Ariana Guera), not much older than Shelly and Brianna, dancing on the porch. The girl knocks on the cabin, and two brothers named Dash (Sean Depner) and Rufus (Jedidiah Goodacre) jovially emerge. They welcome the three of them into their home and serve them soup. But when Colter mentions that Roger is still out there, they share some furtive looks.

Now, we’ve had plenty of hints about Colter’s unconventional childhood on Tracker. We know his upbringing lacked a lot of normal activities. But has he never seen a horror movie before? How does he not immediately clock that something is off about the young adults living off the grid on a “digital detox” in a cabin? Sure, the fact that Depner played the antagonist (and incredibly named) Brett Weston Wallis on Riverdale and Goodacre played Dorian Gray on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina makes it more obvious to the viewer. But still! Given the aforementioned Yellowjackets parallels, it’s honestly a miracle that the protein in the stew was actually elk and not something worse.

Colter leaves the girls with these strangers to search for Roger on foot, which again seems deeply irresponsible. Sure enough, he finds Roger bleeding in the woods. He got injured by a trip wire. Then someone starts shooting at them! They manage to stumble back to the cabin, but wouldn’t you know it… the girls and the “digital detoxxers” are gone with the only working snowmobile. Not only that, but some photographs in a drawer indicate that it was not in their family at all. Colter goes out back and finds the dead bodies of the real owners in a tool shed.

A Local Legend Covers a Sinister Truth in ‘Tracker’ Season 2 Episode 16

Cousin Randy (Chris Lee), who is finally reunited with Bobby (Eric Graise), calls Reenie (Fiona Rene) with some concerns about where their boss has disappeared to. Randy learned online that this area is known as the “dead zone,” and a lot of hikers have gone missing. Shelly and Brianna weren’t just there to snowboard. They were doing some tracking of their own, scouting the area with plans to make a documentary about a missing nature photographer.

Colter repairs the remaining snowmobile and leaves Roger in the cabin to find the girls. He finds Amelia outside of Gray Hollow Lodge, which is honestly way too big for an allegedly remote location. There are two stories and an attic! How is that not easy to find? He learns from the young woman that she herself was kidnapped by the family that lives in the lodge eight or nine years ago. Brianna also kneels in front of him and suggests that he wants to hurt her, indicating that she may have been brainwashed into submitting. She says that Father Eamon, played by Sean Bridgers — who played a similar kidnapper role in Room — is who they really need to be worried about. Sure enough, Eamon is inside the lodge terrorizing the girls. He’s a religious fanatic. He’s the one who wore the antlers in the woods. Amelia goes back inside and plays along while Colter uses a radio to call for help.

Reenie’s New Client Gets More Mysterious in ‘Tracker’ Season 2 Episode 16

Meanwhile, Leo Sharf (Pej Vahdat) arranges a dinner meeting with Reenie. We also learn that his assistant or associate, Francie (Kaylah Zander), is friends with Reenie’s boyfriend, Elliott (Michael Rady), and that they recommended her for this position. That’s an additional red flag on Elliott for those rooting against that relationship. They talk vaguely about something Reenie is not aware of yet… so secretive, this guy!

However, when Leo comes to Reenie’s office with “fire” takeout, they seem aligned in their goals. He wants to take down a former partner called Grimes and Reenie is not necessarily against it, even though he is a liability and Reenie doesn’t want Velma (Abby McEnany) to know anything about him. Grimes is a bad dude, so Reenie’s morals are not totally compromised by what Leo is asking of her. But then, Randy and Bobby receive an SOS text from someone they assume is Colter via radio. They relay this information to Reenie, who asks Leo if she can borrow use of a helicopter to get him out. So now she owes him a favor.

Back at the lodge, Father Eamon puts on “Shambala” by Three Dog Night, a song some television fans might associate with the Dharma Initiative on Lost, and asks for the titular “mercy seat” – a wooden throne. Eamon leaves Shelly, whose head injury is not properly healing, at his dining room table and swings Brianna around. With Rufus and Dash’s help, he puts her in the seat and starts to strangle her with a scarf. But Colter, who has at this point sent his SOS to Randy and Bobby, is now free to go upstairs and rescue all three girls. Brianna, who hid a fork under her napkin, provides backup. She attacks Rufus while Colter shoots Dash and Eamon. So, to recap: Colter Shaw may have temporarily made Shelly and Brianna’s situation worse by taking them out of the wilderness and into the arms of a murderous family cult. But he managed to rescue them and one of their previous victims, Amelia, in the process. That evens out to a job well done, right?