Tracker Season 3 Quietly Solves Justin Hartley’s Most Painful Mystery

Tracker Season 3, Episode 5, quietly solved Colter Shaw’s most personal and painful mystery while the survivalist is working on his latest missing persons case. The third season of Justin Hartley’s series has had a massive start so far, with Tracker Season 3’s premiere amassing nearly 13 million views. The numbers prove Tracker is still dominating television despite recent shake-ups.

With Velma Bruin (Abby McEnany) and Bobby Exley (Eric Graise) exiting the cast after Tracker Season 2, Colter’s team has two new members. Randy’s (Chris Lee) gig from last season has extended into a full-time position, and Reenie Green (Fiona Rene) has hired a new assistant for her law firm, Melanie Day (Cassady McClincy Zhang), who will likely help out.

Tracker Season 3, Episode 5, Evokes Ashton Shaw’s Mystery

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As Colter’s team gets adjusted in Reenie’s Denver law office, with Velma’s replacement setting up a new mystery in Tracker Season 3, Episode 5, Shaw works a case that hits close to home. When a couple hires Colter to search for their missing kids, Shaw discovers their biological father has abducted them while they were hiking in the woods.

Jaden (Preston Oliver) and Sara Canfield (Ava Telek) are deep in the woods in Santa Cruz, California, when their biological father comes for them. He kidnaps them and makes Jaden and Sara hike further into the forest, planning to teach them to live off the land. The father, imparting “the old ways” to his kids, reminds Colter of his father.

Established in the first episode of Tracker, Colter’s father, Ashton Shaw, raised him and his siblings to live off the land and survive in any situation, giving the reward-seeker his skill set for finding missing people. While it forged the incredible person that Colter Shaw is, Ashton pushed him, Russell (Jensen Ackles), and Dory (Melissa Roxburgh) to their maximum.

The biological father, Richard Sanford (Hunter Emery), is involved in an offshoot of the Earth Liberation Front, an extreme environmentalist group, and rants about modern medicine and technology, evoking Ashton Shaw. While Colter has found out what happened to Ashton the night he died, he hasn’t unlocked why his father was paranoid, just like the dad he is tracking.

Colter Shaw Resolves the Latest Case and Feelings About Ashton Shaw

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Due to his familiarity with how Richard Sanford thinks and operates, Colter finds him, saving Jaden and Sara. Rather than turn Sanford in to the authorities, Colter gives him a head start to evade the police. Shaw tells Sanford never to contact his kids again, ensuring Richard doesn’t interfere with their lives or reappear in another high-stakes Tracker episode.

By convincing Richard to walk away by reconciling that the life he wanted to give his kids wasn’t the one they wanted or needed, Shaw saved Jaden and Sara from their extremist father. In a sense, it redeems the fact that Colter wasn’t able to defend himself from his dad, enduring Ashton Shaw’s extreme parenting until he died.

With careful negotiation, Colter shields Jaden and Sarah from his own childhood, perhaps resolving some of his personal issues by coming face to face with a man who reminded him so much of his old man. It likely helped Colter sort out some of his long-standing feelings and pass on to Jaden and Sara a final message from Richard.

Whether Richard passed along the message is unclear, but Colter tells the kids their dad says he’s sorry and loves them. Shaw reassures them, giving them a sense of resolution that he probably wishes he had at their age. He tells Jaden, perhaps seeing a bit of himself, that it will heal in time, imparting earned wisdom.

How Colter and Russell Can Continue Unraveling Ashton Shaw’s Mystery

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It’s difficult to imagine that, getting so close to a mystery that reminded him of his dad, and then resolving it, Colter didn’t experience some sense of resolution about his issues, solving one of his most painful mysteries vicariously. The Tracker character can never reconcile with his father, but he could come to terms with one who evoked him.

Still, while Colter’s latest case probably helped him resolve some of the emotions he had when he was Jaden and Sarah’s age, Shaw has work left to do in discovering what happened to his father that caused him to unravel. Ashton Shaw was unstable and paranoid when he died, and Colter believes there’s a reason for his collapse.

Tracker needs to bring Russell Shaw back so he and Colter can trace the lead they uncovered at a Department of Defense site in Tracker Season 2. An agent working at the site tells Russell he has “a long family history of getting in the government’s way.” There’s more information out there, and Colter just has to find it.

Tracker Season 3, Episode 5, even teases new developments in Ashton Shaw’s mystery. Randy gets Freedom of Information Act-related redacted documents from Russell, related to David Pearson, a man whose phone number Ashton Shaw kept in a journal. Therefore, Colter is looking for answers, and, in the meantime, he quietly resolved the effect the mystery had on his younger years.