CBS’s incredible show about a guy who makes a living finding missing/lost people for rewards is back for a second season. I’ve watched the entire first season of Tracker, and I have a few questions.
One of them involves his success rate. Colter Shaw, played by Justin Hartley (Aquaman, Smallville, This Is Us), found everyone he was looking for in season one. A 100% success rate? The average person doesn’t succeed 100% of the time at anything. And neither does Colter. Season two opens with him tracking down a guy he suspects of kidnapping someone he can’t find. That one failure is a big deal for Colter Shaw; he’s not used to failure. I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of the “You Have No Proof I Took Her” guy or the missing woman’s sister, the one Colter slept with. This is the case that haunts him, so he needs to solve it before the season ends.
I shouldn’t be surprised that Colter never fails. He’s a handsome guy, and everyone knows handsome guys never fail. Colter is incredibly handsome, if you ask me. Tracker lives on the road in a camper. He doesn’t have a permanent address, and even though it’s a nice camper with lots of bells and whistles, he still lives very primitively. How hot can those showers be? Why are his clothes so clean and well-kept? He’s also very damp. If you told me, “Hey, I know a guy who travels across the country to get rewards for finding people,” I wouldn’t in a million years picture someone who looks like Justin Hartley with his chiseled, chiseled features. He’s not even as rugged as the guys in Fire Country, and those have to be the best-looking firefighters ever.
Then there’s the issue of his income. In the season two opener, Colter… I don’t know, is Velma his keeper, his guardian? Maybe a research assistant? She (Abby McEnany) tells him she has a big fee for him. $30,000 for a job. That’s a lot of money for three days of work. But in terms of salary, it’s still only about $14 an hour. I can’t imagine every job he takes has that kind of bonus. And he has to pay his support staff. Velma and her friend Bob (Locke & Key’s Eric Graise) know how to use a computer. And now he’s adding Rennie (Fiona Rene) as his on-call attorney. What percentage of Colter’s fee do they live on? Are they freelancers? Do they work for multiple Trackers? Maybe there’s a whole Trackerverse we don’t know about. Idea for a fun episode: get all the Trackers together in an event space at the Super 8. There’d be laughs.
I can’t imagine how much it costs to fill up the gas tank for that giant ad spot on the truck he drives. And then there’s taxes. Maybe he only pays federal taxes because he doesn’t have a permanent address. But that’s still a pretty penny. Or does he pay no taxes at all? It would be hilarious if he ended up in jail for tax evasion this season.
All of that has to do with his success rate, how often he takes on new jobs, and how much each job pays. Factor in travel time between locations, paying employees, filling up the truck, and the math doesn’t work on Tracker.
I did my own research online (hurry up, someone has posed as a plucky sidekick!) and found a bunch of rewards listed on Craigslist. But they were for lost pets and phones. The rewards weren’t even $30,000. Crimestoppers has a section for missing person posters, but none of them listed any rewards. I don’t know where anyone who works for Colter Shaw “finds” these reward opportunities. Even the nice people on Reddit agree that it seems impossible to make a living as a “Reward Man.” But if you like the handsome Justin Hartley, and you don’t mind all the plot holes or how all the characters mostly speak in metaphors, Tracker might be for you. Maybe if you watch it, you can answer some of my questions.
