Tracker Season 3 Just Made CBS History — And Fans Didn’t See It Coming

Colter Shaw checks a historic box in Tracker Season 3, with Episode 8’s missing person case giving Justin Hartley’s show some of its highest stakes yet. Colter agrees to find a missing six-year-old girl. However, her mother is a suspect in her disappearance, putting Shaw in new territory as he hunts in a small North Carolina town.

In “Eurydice,” Sierra Allen (Jessica Sipos) hires Colter to find her missing daughter, Aubrey (Hailey Lambert). Although it’s been a year since Aubrey’s disappearance, the young mother hires Shaw when new evidence shows up at her home: the dress her daughter was wearing the night she was kidnapped. However, the dress is damning evidence against Allen.

Colter Shaw Clears Someone of Murder In Tracker Season 3, Episode 8

Image via CBS

When new evidence shows up at her home, Sierra knows it will implicate her, so she calls Colter Shaw, a contact she got from her friend, Liz, before contacting the police. When initially investigating her daughter’s disappearance, police suspected Sierra, believing that she had done something to her daughter and tried to cover it up.

However, when Sierra shows Colter that she’s a caring mother who lost her daughter and pleads with him to help her, Shaw accepts the job, which puts him in uncharted territory, since Allen is a suspect in Aubrey’s disappearance. Shaw tells Sierra that they will have to call the evidence in, and she will be arrested for her daughter’s murder, making it the only way to solve the mystery.

When Sierra agrees to the plan, the police take the mother away in handcuffs, just as Colter predicted. Therefore, by agreeing to help Sierra, Colter put himself on the line in an entirely new way. Not only did he need to find Aubrey to make sure that she was safe, but Shaw was also responsible for absolving Sierra of murder.

Colter accepts a new responsibility in “Eurydice.” Bringing home his missing person has a new weight, not just as one of his youngest victims, but as one of his cases that has the most riding on it. If Shaw failed to find Aubrey, she would still be missing, but Sierra would also spend her life in prison, raising Tracker‘s stakes.

Tracker Season 3, Episode 8, “Eurydice” Confirms a New Trend

Image via CBS

Marking the first time that Colter has been on the line to clear someone of murder, “Eurydice” gives Tracker Season 3 more of a crime-show feel. Since Colter’s finding of Aubrey is the only way to clear Sierra’s name, since the mother had made some questionable decisions, it creates a high-stakes Tracker episode that sets the bar even higher.

Episode 8 isn’t the first time that Tracker Season 3 has raised the bar for Colter. In the premiere of Tracker Season 3, Colter and Russell Shaw make history in the series’ first two-part premiere, wherein the brothers investigate a sinister AI scheme called The Process. “Eurydice” similarly gives Shaw higher stakes, a trend that continues in the third season.

Another aspect that is setting Tracker Season 3 apart from its first couple of chapters is Reenie Green’s (Fiona Rene) burgeoning criminal law firm, where every member of Colter Shaw’s team now works. Shaw initially worked with two married women from Florida who served as his handlers, but in Season 3, he’s consulting with a cohesive team.

With Colter’s team, including Randy (Chris Lee) and Mel (Cassady McClincy), working together rather than remotely, Tracker Season 3 mimics many crime shows, where one party is out in the field, and another is investigating at a home base. It’s a formula seen throughout the most popular police procedurals on TV, and Tracker Season 3 follows it more closely.

What’s Next For Tracker Season 3

Image via CBS

Tracker Season 3 will continue with its serious tone in Episode 9, which will see a fan-favorite member of Colter Shaw’s team return. Keaton (Brett Sexton) will return in “Good Trouble,” with the third season bringing back the retired law enforcement officer whom Colter met in Season 2 and helped solve Gina Picket’s cold case after a decade.

The upcoming episode’s description says that Colter and Keaton will uncover a trail of bodies that leads to a dark conspiracy. It promises that Tracker Season 3 will continue exploring high-stakes crimes, putting Colter Shaw in positions that push him and the audience out of their comfort zones, expanding the show dramatically since Tracker Season 1.