‘Tracker’ Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: Colter Shaw Searches For Kidnapped Girl Against All Odds

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Tracker Season 3, Episode 8.

Nearing the mid-season finale, Tracker proves once again that Season 3 may be the best of the show yet. With the eighth episode, “Eurydice,” the series tosses Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) into another cold case that the police have long given up on. These are the stories where Colter thrives, connecting the dots and threads that have long been abandoned and relying on a little bit of luck to pull it all together. If the title of the episode itself tells you anything — Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus, who he went to hell and back to save from the underworld — it’s that Colter Shaw is not one to give up, no matter if everyone else has.

“Eurydice” Sends Colter Shaw After a Missing Child — a Year After She Was Taken

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This week’s Tracker begins with every parent’s worst nightmare as Sierra Allen (Jessica Sipos) wakes up to a children’s cartoon, broken glass everywhere, and absolutely no sign of her daughter, Aubrey (Hailey Lambert). Rushing through the house, the intoxicated mother panics and runs outside into the night, screaming her daughter’s name. It’s a horrible sight, but it’s made even worse when “Eurydice” flashes forward an entire year. As Colter arrives in town to meet Sierra, who got a referral from their mutual friend Liz (who we can only assume is Jennifer Morrison‘s Lizzy Hawkins from Season 1’s “The Storm”). Things take a dark turn when Sierra shows Colter her daughter’s blood-stained dress, the same dress she always wore, which she found hanging in her backyard.

When Colter asks Sierra about her drinking habits, she admits to her past mistakes, having been drunk and broken a bottle the night Aubrey was taken. Although the grieving mother knows the odds of finding her daughter alive are low, Colter agrees to help find her Aubrey, but only after calling the police. It isn’t long before Detective Tyson West (Franco Lo Presti) arrives and Sierra’s home is made into a crime scene. Tyson is pretty hostile to Colter at first, and doesn’t share the rewardist’s view that the mother is innocent, despite having been sober for the better part of the past year — and who can really blame him?

However, he’s not alone. Tyson brought former detective Arthur Poness (Gareth Williams), the original investigator on the case, with him to consult. The pair speaks with Colter about his connection to Sierra, though Tyson dismisses Colter’s theories, believing they’ve apprehended the party responsible. Nevertheless, Colter walks Arthur through what he’s found, believing that someone was on a bike, hopped the fence, and placed the dress in Sierra’s backyard. His suspicions are confirmed when he spots a security camera on a nearby house, with Randy (Chris Lee) coming in with an assist to send Colter the hacked footage. It appears that a teenager on a bike knows something, and while Randy can’t ID him, he notices a “Captain Calabash” logo on the back of the hoodie the suspect is wearing.

‘Tracker’ Season 3, Episode 8 Is Full of Wild Twists and Turns

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Back at police headquarters, Tyson begins to question Sierra. The two have known each other since they were young, and so the detective has come to his conclusions, especially after reading from her sobriety journal. In it, she admits that her selfishness killed her daughter, something Tyson believes is just as good as a smoking gun. But before he can go further, Reenie (Fiona Rene) arrives to kick out the single-minded detective. She tells her new client that although she believes that law enforcement will now have enough evidence to charge her, she knows that all they can do right now is wait for Colter to come through. Speaking of, Colter arrives at Captain Calabash to speak with a kid named Spencer (Colin O’Brien), who runs off the moment the rewardist arrives.

But our hero is already a step ahead of the lad and is waiting for him at his home, where the boy admits that he believes his father, Trevor Flint (Brett Zimmerman), may have done something to Aubrey. Colter presses Spencer further and learns that Trevor had previously beaten up Spencer’s uncle, Derek (Kaiden Berge), and chopped off his fingers when he thought he was stealing from him. So, when Spencer found the dress in the nearby storage shed, he connected it to his father. Colter goes to investigate and calls Tyson, who says that the cops cleared Trevor back in the day, but that his romantic history with Sierra and this new development is enough to investigate. Unfortunately, before Colter could get into the shed, Trevor comes home, grabs Spencer, and confronts the rewardist.

Angered by Colter’s investigation, Trevor eventually tries to run, but the rewardist takes him down right in front of his son, holding him until the police arrive. After Colter and Tyson question Trevor, they learn that everything in the shed belongs to his brother, Derek, who hasn’t been seen in a year. Things get even dicier when Colter and Tyson break into and investigate the shed, where they find one of Aubrey’s shoes as well as some of her hair. Even worse, it appears that some hair dye and a receipt for the boy’s clothes were left behind, and so the pair conclude that Derek may have taken Aubrey, disguised her, and gone on the run with her. Talk about a fate that may have been worse than death.

This Week’s ‘Tracker’ Offers a Satisfying Conclusion

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With very little to go on, Colter has Randy run a digital trace on Derek, but he hasn’t used a credit card or his old cell phone in a year. So, with nowhere else to turn, Randy sends Colter the suspect’s last known location. Our hero has to start somewhere, even if that somewhere feels a bit too convenient, but we’ll let it slide. Upon arriving at the dock, Colter takes a look around and notices something in the water. Turns out, it’s a skeleton, more specifically a skeleton that belongs to Derek Flint, which Colter puts together based on the fact that the bones are missing two fingers — the same ones Trevor cut off. Even worse, upon looking into the financials of the land, Randy reveals that it was Arthur Poness who owned the land Derek’s body was hidden on. Colter wastes no time warning Tyson that Arthur is not who he seems, but the moment the detective is ready to meet the rewardist on-site, the retired detective arrives and pulls a gun on him.

Elsewhere, Colter breaks into Poness’ house and looks around. Finding evidence that someone left in a hurry, he soon stumbles upon a girl’s bedroom with photos of Aubrey alongside Arthur and his wife, Iris (Lindsay Collins). Beside the photos are drawings done recently by Aubrey, who believes that both of her parents are dead. It’s here that Colter puts everything together, calling Sierra to learn that Arthur is indeed Aubrey’s grandfather. As it turns out, the ex-detective’s son, Jason, was Audrey’s father, and everything falls into place. Trying to call Tyson to warn him, Arthur answers and tells Colter that he was investigating Trevor when he found that Derek had taken his granddaughter, and was going to do horrible things to her. He and his wife took the girl, telling her that her mother had died in hopes of giving her a normal life. But when Colter pushes back, telling Arthur that he had no right to keep the girl from her mother, Arthur shoots Tyson to distract the rewardist so he will have time to get away.

After Randy tracks the call, Colter arrives just in time to stabilize Tyson, who tells him that Arthur owns a boat. So, Colter rushes to the docks where Arthur is about to set sail with Iris and Audrey. After a brief tussle, Colter stops the ex-detective from taking off and finds Audrey, safe and sound. Iris introduces the girl to Colter, telling her that she’s safe. Afterward, Reenie sets up a supervised visit for Sierra and Aubrey with Child Protective Services present to mediate things until they can be sure that Audrey will be returning to a stable environment. When Colter shows up, he extends Tyson’s apologies to Sierra before telling her that what happened wasn’t her fault. Still, Sierra understands what Arthur and Iris were trying to do, and wonders if perhaps they were right for doing it. “I suppose sometimes people do the wrong thing for the right reasons,” Colter tells her. With the mother and daughter reunited, our hero leaves town, and “Eurydice” ends much happier than it began. Despite the impossible odds, Colter Shaw has done it again.