Tracker Season 2’s Recurring Story Mistake Finally Ends After 3 Consecutive Villain Disappointment
Justin Harltey’s Colter Shaw has taken on several cases in Tracker season 2, but episode 4 includes a villain twist that makes it better. Season 2 started with an old unsolved missing person’s case that haunts Colter. The case sticks with the rewardist as it goes unsolved, similar to the mystery of who killed Colter’s father in Tracker. The death of the Shaw family patriarch defines Colter’s story. In episode 2, Jensen Ackles returned as Russell Shaw. The brother went looking for Colter on a mysterious Department of Defense site after he went missing looking for a lost person.
Tracker season 2, episode 3, continued to bring back guest stars, returning Sofia Pernas as Billie Matalon. The “rewardists” investigated a case in the female reward-seeker’s hometown. The Tracker cases have all been relatively straightforward, and there haven’t been any plot twists that complicate a case beyond what could be expected. While the series was a massive hit in its first season, it requires more twists like the one at the end of Tracker season 2, episode 4 to uphold its standing as one of the most popular series on television, a ranking garnered in part by the charismatic Tracker characters.
Tracker Season 2 Has A Recurring Obvious Villain Problem
Tracker Makes This Mistake With Its Villains
Tracker needs to address its obvious villain problem to succeed like its freshman season: all the villains in Tracker season 2 are easy to predict. In the opening episode, Colter continues to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Gina Pickett, a girl who went missing 10 years ago that Colter hasn’t been able to track down. Colter is close to Gina’s sister, Camille (Floriana Lima), who was introduced as Colter’s love interest in the season 2 debut. The episode had a prominent villain character: a man who used to know Gina and was involved in her likely disappearance. That character was telegraphed as the antagonist from the first minute he appeared, setting up a twist that was no twist at all.
Episode 2 continued the trend of unsatisfying villain reveals. Colter and Russell got caught up at a DOD site, and there was only one adversary to speak of. They never caught his name, but the man revealed that he knew Ashton Shaw (Lee Tergesen), peeling back another layer of the mystery surrounding the death of Colter’s father. Still, episode 2 delivered an apparent villain with an underwhelming ending. Tracker episode 3, unfortunately, continued the trend when Colter traveled to investigate a missing high school baseball star, whose captor was obvious in story and appearance, delivering a predictable ending.
Tracker Season 2, Episode 4 Finally Delivers A Decent Villain Twist
Tracker Season 2 Finally Delivers A Shocker
Tracker season 2 finally broke its pronounced villain streak with a decent twist. In episode 4, Colter investigates the case of a woman who goes missing while at a high-end wellness retreat designed for CEOs. Colter is called in to investigate the case discreetly since William Locke (Neil Jackson), who runs the retreat, doesn’t want to call the negative press to the event by involving the police. Still, Colter faces hurdles in investigating, including resistance from the person who asked him to be there. William and his assistant, Peter Reynolds (Roshawn Franklin), act suspiciously, suggesting either could be guilty.
William and Peter continue to help, and eventually, Colter finds a secret stash of dead bodies in an underground chamber. Tracker season 2, episode 4, delivers an intriguing twist when Colter questions a worker, Rona (Gloria Garayua), who immediately calls her accomplice, Jesse Pardue (Rob Mayes). The bodies are actually construction deaths, and the perpetrator in the episode is the construction manager who covered up his negligence by burying them. Shockingly, the manager’s accomplice ultimately shoots him, and he falls backward into a woodchipper. The case ended suddenly and unexpectedly, finally delivering a satisfying conclusion for Tracker season 2.
How Tracker Season 2 Can Avoid Its Villain Problem Moving Forward
Tracker Needs To Replicate Its Episode 4 Success
Tracker season 2 needs to avoid its villain problem to stay at the forefront of the best procedural shows. With only 13 episodes in its season 1 run due to the writer’s strikes, Tracker avoided obvious repetition problems in its freshman run. Still, it was narrowly avoided, with all cases coming to a similar conclusion, wherein Colter neatly ends the case and wishes the families well. Season 2 can shake things up, introducing more supporting characters to throw audiences off the scent of whom the real villain is, like they did in episode 4 and some episodes of season 1.
The show pulled off a twist in Tracker season 1, episode 9, “Aurora”, one of the highest-rated episodes of season 1, according to IMDb. Colter Shaw investigated several leads before uncovering who the actual perpetrator was: a woman named Maeve Price (Bronwen Smith), who was an unknown accomplice to her brother Errol (Jed Rees), an apprehended murderer. The twist came when Colter was deep in Maeve’s house while she was in the kitchen, making for a genuinely suspenseful sequence and a heartfelt reveal. Tracker must follow its playbook for episodes like “Aurora” and “Noble Rot” to maintain the suspense.
