Tracker is an action drama that runs like a procedural. Colter Shaw is a skilled survivalist who lives on the go, driving his truck across the U.S. with his Airstream attached to the back that serves as his home. He works with a remote team to find people offering reward money for missing persons and takes on the cases to earn his living.
It’s a lonely lifestyle, but the choice to lead it stems from Colter’s childhood. That backstory was told in season one with twists, turns, and big reveals that have had fans eager to find out more. But the storyline has been abandoned through season two to date, leaving fans unsatisfied and questioned when it will pick back up.
Colter’s Father Tragically and Mysteriously Died
Colter, played by Justin Hartley in one of his best roles, grew up with his parents Ashton and Mary along with an older brother Russell and younger sister Dory. At one point in their lives, Ashton, a brilliant professor, grew increasingly paranoid and he moved the family out to the wilderness to live off the grid. It’s unclear if he was running from someone or something that was legitimately after him or if he suffered from mental illness. But he will often have “episodes,” as Colter referred to them in a brief mention in season two.
During one of these episodes, his father ran out of the house without explanation. A teenage Colter went looking for him an hour later and found his father’s dead body at the bottom of a cliff. When he looked up, he saw Russell peering over from the top. From that moment on, he was convinced his brother killed their father.
The things he learned from his father and the lifestyle he led, along with his now fractured relationship with his brother, are what drove Colter down the path he went in his adult life. He was comfortable being on his own, trudging through the woods to find victims or survivors. He has incredible tracking and survival skills which gives him a unique perspective when handling cases. There are small details that law enforcement may ignore or don’t even notice, but Colter does, thanks to everything his father taught him.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that Colter has never dealt with his past. Keeping it all bottled up inside takes a toll. Colter often removes himself from social situations. While he works with a remote team, he’s reluctant to meet up for dinner after they solve a case and happen to be in the same town at the same time. He rarely reaches out to his sister, and when he does, she mentions that he’ll sometimes not show up, leaving her hanging. He prefers a solitary life.
While he still has questions about his father, it seems that most people in Colter’s life wish he would let it go. However, when revelations bubble to the surface that suggests there’s a lot more to the story that Colter doesn’t know, it makes sense that given his personality, not to mention the deeply personal nature of the case, he’d want to investigate.
What Colter Finds Out About His Dad Is Shocking
Towards the end of season one, Russell finally tracks Colter down and confronts him in one of the best season one episodes of Tracker. Played by Jensen Ackles, he assures Colter that he did not kill their father. In fact, he recalls seeing another person in the woods that day. He doesn’t know who it was, but he recognizes the person as someone their mother had met with previously.
Colter’s mother, meanwhile, lives on her own, and he sees her from time to time, whenever he happens to be in town. But she is reluctant to talk about the past. When Colter brings up Russell prior to meeting with him, his mother Mary urges him to ignore his brother and stay away from him. It seems like she wants to protect Colter from something more than it does that she doesn’t want them seeing one another. Russell may know something she doesn’t want Colter to find out about.
In another later season one episode, one of the cases Colter is called in to handle is that of an old friend, Lizzy, whose daughter is missing. After he recovered her daughter, safe and sound, the two caught up. Lizzy casually mentions the fact that her mother was having an affair with his father, believing that Colter already knew. She was surprised that he didn’t. She reveals that his father came to visit her mother just before his death, and they had an argument. She didn’t know what it was about but was in the house at the time and heard it.
Lizzy’s mother recently passed away and Lizzy found a box of Ashton’s things among her belongings. Unsure of what to do with it, she gave it to Dory, Colter’s sister. Yet Colter had met with Dory not long before while handling another case at the university where she worked, and she made no mention of this. Instead, Dory’s attitude has always been to leave the past in the past and move on.
It’s evident that everyone is hiding something from Colter, and that each person in his family knows more than they are revealing. Theories abound from sleuthing fans, and they run the gamut. Some suspect his father isn’t really dead or his mother is a secret agent who had him killed, or whose job was to watch him and he ended up getting killed when his location was found out. A far-fetched one is that Colter killed his father and repressed the memory, which is why everyone is trying to protect him. Another more likely one is that his father was involved in dangerous government work, or found out something he shouldn’t have and wanted to blow the whistle on it. Whatever the story, fans want answers but haven’t been getting any.
The Colter Family Mystery Has All But Paused
Despite this riveting storyline being teased in season one, season two of Tracker has put the entire Colter family mystery on pause. Russell is seen in one strange early season two episode when Colter’s job looking for a missing man leads him to a secret government project in the woods. Russell only shows up because of Ree
There’s a light hint in this episode when, after Colter and Russell discovered a potential government black site, Russell had an exchange with the man who abducted their victim. The man knows who Russell is and says their dad “asked too many questions.” This suggests that their father did get caught up in something and his paranoia may have been justified. With Ackles confirmed to have a bigger presence in Tracker season 2, fans can only infer that more episodes with him are coming soon.
However, since that episode, the focus of the show has shifted to Colter handling a series of random cases. The only recurring romantic case was that of an old interest’s sister who went missing years ago. Colter had been following up on it annually ever since, convinced he would one day crack it open. This case of Gina Picket took over the focus while the Shaw family mystery faded to the background.
With the Picket case solved in episode nine, however, fans are hopeful that the attention will go back to Colter’s family mystery. To date, the episodes since have still not resurrected anything notable about Ashton, his death, and what the family is hiding. There was only a single mention of Colter’s family in episode 12, entitled “Monster.” After solving a case, Colter and Reenie enjoy a rare dinner together. As he chows down on pancakes, Reenie comments that she didn’t take him for a “pancakes for dinner” kind of guy. He regales the wonders of the breakfast food and how they are suitable for any time of the day. But then, for the first time, he actually opened up to his friend. When his father was having one of his “episodes,” he recalls, his mother would make the kids pancakes as a symbol of them being able to start the day over. Ever since then, pancakes are his comfort food.
Reenie recognized this as a perfect opportunity to suggest that Colter talk to someone, namely a therapist, about his childhood because there are clear things he needs to get off his chest. But he brushes her off, highlighting that he’s talking to her and that’s good enough for him. She let it go, and they continued to enjoy their meal.
Fans hope this minor mention of Colter’s mother is a teaser of what’s to come. Tracker has already confirmed that Mary, Russell, Dory, and Lizzy will appear in the series again, which means the Shaw family mystery won’t be completely forgotten. This long hiatus as Colter has been distracted by other cases has fans irritated that the storyline was paused for so long, but it may have just been a temporary reprieve.
Tracker has been renewed for a third season, and season two is only halfway through its 22-episode run. So, it’s likely that the back half of the show will pick back up with this haunting case and fans will finally get to learn more about what was truly going on in Colter’s childhood and how it might affect him now once he finds out the truth.
