Jensen Ackles Just Wrapped Up His Latest Role on Justin Hartley’s Tracker, and It Turns Out I Was Worried for Nothing
With a summer 2024 hiatus, fans of Justin Hartley’s hit CBS series Tracker have been waiting since May to find out what happened to the game-changing Season 1 finale. Despite some recent good news about the premiere date, there were still some questions about what Season 2 had in store for the Colter siblings, especially since Jensen Ackles has a new show. Well, the Supernatural expert just proved my worries for nothing with his recent post on Tracker!
Jensen Ackles joined his former CW co-star on Tracker last spring, playing Russell Shaw, Colter’s oldest and long-estranged brother. Their episode is a fun one for Season 1, and not just because of all the Supernatural Easter eggs. The actor – who will star in the spinoff The Boys for Amazon Prime Video subscribers – took to Instagram to confirm that Russell will be in at least one episode this fall: Unsurprisingly, the post’s caption doesn’t give away any of the plot, and Ackles describing Vancouver as “this beautiful city” isn’t all that shocking after fifteen seasons of Supernatural filming in the area. “See you soon” is reason to hope that Tracker isn’t just bringing Russell back to kill him off, and my worries that Ackles’ Prime spinoff would mean no more Shaw brothers were clearly unfounded. Sometimes, it’s fun to be wrong!
Considering that Justin Hartley posted a “Back to it” photo on his own Instagram account just a few days ago, Ackles has shared that he’s back on the show, the timing suggests that the Season 2 premiere could be when the Shaw brothers get back together. This fits with how Season 1 ended, when Colter learned some disturbing news about their sister: Dory is keeping a secret about their father.
At the time of writing, Melissa Roxburgh has not been confirmed to return as Dory in Season 2, but she told us in the spring that she’d “love to come back and do” Tracker again. She does, however, have a new show of her own, after she debuted Tracker and reflected on her “messy” days in Manifest.
Justin Hartley spoke to CinemaBlend earlier this year about Tracker’s “exhausting” schedule as both star and executive producer, and took some credit for recruiting guest stars like Ackles, Roxburgh, and his former This Is Us co-star Jennifer Morrison. Hopefully there will be more interesting guest stars when the show returns — at least we can count on Ackles!
If you missed any of Tracker season 1, or just want to rewatch the episodes that featured the Shaw brothers reuniting with Colter, you can watch the entire first season streaming by signing up for Paramount+ now. Instead of Season 2’s original October 27 premiere date, CBS adjusted its fall schedule to debut the new season on October 13. So while there are still months to go before Colter and co. return, at least the wait isn’t as long as expected.
