‘Tracker’ — and Melissa Roxburgh’s Dory — Just Set Up Jensen Ackles’ Introduction as Russell
It’s only at the end of the latest Tracker episode that Colter (Justin Hartley) sits down to dinner with his sister, Dory (Melissa Roxburgh).
They haven’t spoken to each other in a year when they reunite (he doesn’t call her back), and he shows her the file he has on their dad—including something they didn’t know: Their dad worked for the government for years. According to Dory, their mother is just as crazy as their late dad, and she’s happy to put all that in the past. She comments that their brother, Russell (Jensen Ackles, who guest-starred in the May 12 episode) says Colter is avoiding his calls (yes, they’re still in touch) and tries to encourage him to talk to him. Although he didn’t commit to dinner at the time, he did sit down to dinner with her at the end of the episode.
Dory assumes that Colter doesn’t come over more often because part of him resents her for leaving to live with their aunt and uncle while he stayed behind. He insists that their mother needs him. Their father is dead, Russell is dead, and she has no one. While Dory argues that their mother wasn’t a weak woman who was taken away against her will and instead indulged in their father’s every crazy idea, like living off the grid, Colter doesn’t see it that way. She got over it, and she hopes that by talking to him, he can do the same.
She wants her brothers back, she explains, and everything their mother told him was either an outright lie or a bullshit story to keep him. “What happened happened, but I’m not going to let it dominate me. And Mom, that’s all she has, is the past, and that’s why she keeps it with us because she can’t let it go. She has this image of her father, and sure, that’s one version of events, but that’s not what happened,” Dory said.
“I want to know what everyone else wants to know. I want to know what happened,” Roxburgh told TV Insider.
That dinner scene was the first scene she filmed. “It was great to have that as the first scene. It was a lot of proper conversation,” she recalled. “I think she herself had a lot of question marks around what happened, but I think she knew that if they continued down that path as a family, it would only drive them further apart.”
Plus, she continued, “I think there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to know the truth. She just wants everyone back together and she wants to have a family. But knowing that Colter doesn’t share that or isn’t willing to talk about it with her the way she wants to, it’s hard. I think you just see two brothers who have been through so much together and been raised a certain way, figuring out how to bring that into their adult lives.”
Dory also encourages Colter to call Russell, and he seems to consider it as the episode ends. According to Roxburgh, Dory thinks her brother will.
“I think she knows that she’s the voice of reason in both of their lives,” she said. “Russell obviously listens to her a little more, and I think she thinks Colter will eventually do the same.” And she’ll step into that conversation as a mediator, “as long as it brings them closer together, not further apart.”
Well, it looks like Colter might take his sister’s words to heart when he reunites with Russell shortly after Russell asks for his help in finding an old army buddy who went missing after weeks of paranoid behavior.
What do you think about Dory? Who do you think is right about their mother, Colter or Dory? Let us know in the comments below.
