Justin Harltey’s Colter Shaw took on a few cases in Tracker season 2, but episode 4 had a villainous twist that made the show better. Season 2 begins with an old unsolved missing person case haunting Colter. The case ties into the bounty hunter as it remains unsolved, similar to the mystery of who killed Colter’s father in Tracker. The death of the Shaw family patriarch defines Colter’s story. In episode 2, Jensen Ackles returns as Russell Shaw. The brother goes after Colter at a mysterious Department of Defense location after he goes missing to find a missing person.
Tracker season 2, episode 3, continues to bring back guest stars, with Sofia Pernas returning as Billie Matalon. The “Bonus Hunter” evaluates a case in the hometown of the woman seeking a bounty. All of the Tracker cases are relatively straightforward, with no twists or turns that complicate the case beyond what might be expected. While the show was a hit in its first season, it needs more twists like Tracker Season 2 Episode 4 to maintain its status as one of the most popular shows on television, thanks in part to the appeal of the Tracker characters.
Tracker needs to resolve its obvious villain problem to succeed like the first season: all of the villains in Tracker Season 2 are predictable. In the opening episode, Colter continues to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Gina Pickett, a girl who went missing 10 years ago and who Colter has yet to find. Colter is very close to Gina’s sister, Camille (Floriana Lima), who is introduced as Colter’s love interest in the first episode of season 2. The episode features a prominent villain: a man who knew Gina and is involved in her possible disappearance. The character is foreshadowed as a villain from the minute he appears, creating a plot twist that has no plot twists at all.
Episode 2 continues the trend of unsatisfying villain reveals. Colter and Russell are captured at a DOD location, and there’s only one enemy to speak of. They never learn his name, but the man reveals that he knew Ashton Shaw (Lee Tergesen), adding another layer of mystery to the mystery surrounding Colter’s father’s death. Still, episode 2 introduces a clear villain with an underwhelming ending. Unfortunately, Tracker episode 3 continued this trend as Colter went to investigate a missing high school baseball star whose abduction was apparent in the story and appearance, leading to a predictable ending.
Finally, Tracker season 2 broke its apparent villain streak with a logical twist. In episode 4, Colter investigated the case of a woman who went missing while staying at a high-end wellness resort for executives. Colter was called in to investigate the case discreetly because William Locke (Neil Jackson), the resort’s operator, did not want negative press coverage of the event by involving the police. However, Colter still encountered obstacles in his investigation, including resistance from the people who asked him to go there. William and his assistant, Peter Reynolds (Roshawn Franklin), acted suspiciously, suggesting that both of them could be guilty.
William and Peter continue to help, and eventually, Colter finds a secret cache of corpses in an underground room. Tracker season 2, episode 4, takes a fascinating turn when Colter interrogates a worker, Rona (Gloria Garayua), who immediately calls in her accomplice, Jesse Pardue (Rob Mayes). The bodies are actually construction deaths, and the culprit in the episode is the construction manager who covered up his negligence by burying them. Shockingly, the manager’s accomplice ends up shooting him, and he falls backward into a wood chipper. The case ends abruptly and unexpectedly, finally bringing Tracker season 2 to a satisfying conclusion. Tracker season 2 needs to avoid the villain problem to continue to be a top procedural show. With only 13 episodes in season 1 due to writer’s strikes, Tracker avoids the recurring problems that were apparent in its first run. However, it was narrowly avoided, with all the cases coming to a similar conclusion, including Colter neatly wrapping up the case and wishing the families luck. Season 2 could have made things more interesting, introducing more supporting characters to distract the audience from the real villain, as they did in episode 4 and several episodes of season 1. The show took a twist in Tracker season 1, episode 9, “Aurora,” one of the highest-rated episodes of season 1, according to IMDb. Colter Shaw investigated a number of leads before discovering who the real culprit was: a woman named Maeve Price (Bronwen Smith), an unnamed accomplice of her brother Errol (Jed Rees), a convicted murderer.
