Keaton’s Fate Puts Tracker’s Biggest Issue to the Test

Tracker returned Sunday, March 1st, with the conclusion to the shocking midseason finale. Colter, the lone-wolf survivalist, who uses his special skill set to find missing people, teamed up with Brent Sexton’s Keaton. The pair of dogged investigators began unraveling a criminal conspiracy and found themselves in mortal danger.

An important element of CBS’s hit show is Colter’s humanity and fallibility, but with the latest episode, Tracker is at risk of falling into a common trap for procedural dramas. Keaton was shot in the abdomen and was coughing up blood. His fate in the winter finale was left up in the air, placing Tracker at a pivotal crossroads. To maintain the life-and-death stakes of Colter’s job, people have to die. If they don’t, the show will fall into the “plot armor” trope.

Keaton’s Fate Was Left Up in the Air in Tracker’s Shocking Midseason Finale

Image via CBS

In Tracker‘s midseason finale, Keaton called Colter to help him track down a former cop, Dobbs, who has gone missing. As the duo tracked Dobbs’s movements before his disappearance, they found themselves on the trail of an assassin named Emile Lang. Lang was killing his way through a criminal organization in search of a woman named Cassie Lindstrom.

Dobbs was discovered near death by the side of a road after being tortured by Lang. It turned out that there were several cops, both past and present, who were on the take. Dobbs was one of them, and Lang was hunting them down one by one until someone could tell him where Cassie was. Colter and Keaton were hot on Lang’s trail, and when Keaton found himself face-to-face with the hitman, the retired cop took a bullet to the gut.

Colter found Keaton unconscious and had to revive him. Things only got worse from there as Keaton was bleeding profusely and coughing up blood, which puts a short clock on his life without immediate medical attention. As Colter sped to the hospital, Keaton choked out his apologies for getting Colter involved. Before Colter could finish assuring Keaton that he would be alright, Colter was shot. The car veered off the road, crashing through the woods.

The final moments saw the overturned car at the bottom of a ravine. When Tracker picks up in the midseason premiere, Colter drags himself out of the car and hikes to a parking area. He breaks into a car to borrow someone’s phone. Colter called for an ambulance for Keaton and then passed out. For the rest of the episode, Keaton was in surgery with no one saying whether he would survive his wounds and the delayed medical attention.

“The Fallout” ends with Colter sitting by Keaton’s bedside as his ally lies unconscious. Colter tells Billie that Keaton may not pull through, but Billie assures him he will. Billie will no doubt prove to be right, because why would they kill Keaton off-camera? While fans will be happy the beloved character didn’t die, it unfortunately highlights one of Tracker‘s biggest issues.

Keaton Surviving Gives Audiences a Happy Ending, But Removes the Stakes from Tracker

Image via CBS

Tracker fans will delight in Keaton’s survival, but there are only so many times the writers can throw Colter and his team into life-threatening situations before the show loses tension. Procedural television often falls victim to “plot armor.” When characters are frequently thrown into danger but walkaway unscathed, audiences will no longer believe the high stakes of the plot.

Midway through season three of Tracker, Colter has been sliced, beaten, chased through the desert, and skewered by an arrow to the center mass. While he may walk away with some cuts and bruises, maybe a scar, he always walks away. He faced off against drug dealers, mobsters, serial killers, and more. His skills and intelligence have always seen him through whatever crisis the rewardist stumbled into.

Reenie has been kidnapped at gunpoint twice. The first time, she walked away unscathed and none the worse for wear. The second time, Reenie thought it was the end, and she has been struggling with the emotional and mental ramifications of the experience this season. While both Colter and Reenie carry their literal and metaphorical scars, they always survive.

With Keaton surviving his fatal injuries, Tracker risks becoming more formulaic and losing the tension and high stakes of Colter’s work. As devastating as it would’ve been to kill the fan-favorite character, Keaton’s gunshot wound plus the car crash made his survival incredibly unlikely. Giving audiences the happy ending they wanted for the retired cop sets an unfortunate pattern. If they hadn’t made his injuries so severe, it wouldn’t feel as though they were cheating the life-or-death stakes.

One of the things that makes Tracker so special is how, despite being a procedural, it doesn’t subscribe to the rules of one. Colter and his team repeatedly surviving mortal danger and deadly wounds highlight one of the show’s biggest issues. When everyone else dies, but the team survives, viewers will stop believing that the characters are ever really in danger.

When showrunner Elwood Reid spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, he said, “I don’t want our audience to forget that this man is mortal, he’s not a superhero. He can die! The things he is doing are very, very dangerous.” Unfortunately, this is exactly where the show is headed after Keaton’s unlikely survival. Now, if Colter dies, the show is over, so there is a certain amount of plot armor he will always have, but the show could build those stakes with its recurring and supporting characters.

Reid is fully aware of the consequences of the trap in which Tracker is headed, having told Us Weekly, “When I watch a lot of these types of shows, the minute the character becomes infallible or perfect, then I’m uninterested.” The show has had Colter make mistakes and get wounded, but that’s not enough to maintain the danger and tension he and his team face on their cases.