Tracker Season 2 Episode 20 Gets the Case Right, But Everything Else Feels Stuck

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Critic’s Rating: 4.3 / 5.0

4.3

Imagine going all the way to Alaska, looking for information about your father’s mysterious death from 20 years ago, and literally stumbling upon a missing couple.

That’s the life of Colter Shaw.

Whatever he planned to do during his mini Alaskan retreat was quickly derailed when he saw that kid breaking into his parents’ pickup truck.

Colter gets around the United States, but correct me if I’m wrong, he hasn’t been to Alaska yet.

And he wasn’t specifically there for a case; instead, he was trying to follow the breadcrumbs of the Shaw family drama.

At this point, while I’m still heavily invested in figuring out more about Ashton’s death, I’m also extremely frustrated with the way it’s been handled this season.

Tracker Season 2 Episode 20 leaves off on this killer cliffhanger with Colter looking into the eyes of the man who was with his father the moment he died at Mary Dove’s request. In many ways, it feels like that never happened.

Beyond the fact that we still haven’t seen Mary Dove, when Ashton is brought up, all we’re getting are small chunks of information that just lead us to new people we don’t know and corporations that make little sense to us.

On the one hand, we’re learning the information at the same time as Colter, but when something just feels like falling down a rabbit hole with no end in sight, and it’s not even a fun hole, then it’s hard to find the positives.

The visit to Buck Avery only adds to the problem, introducing yet ANOTHER character without giving us a reason to care. It’s just hard to get excited or feel invested in any of this right now because it feels like a never-ending revolving door with zero real progression.

The only thing that piqued my interest even the tiniest bit was that ending phone call to Russell, because that means we’re likely to get another Colter and Russell team-up hour, something the show does well.

I could never be upset about that.

I also couldn’t be upset with this hour as a whole; it was focused and straightforward, without the red herrings and redirections that Tracker typically likes to employ.

Tracker Season 3 Episode 18 began with Hal and Vera getting snatched up by a man at gunpoint, but it was not at all clear why, and it didn’t help that Hal and Vera were acting a little suspicious before TJ arrived.

Ian was understandably worried when his parents didn’t pick him up, but shouldn’t he have called the police before trying to break into their car? Had Colter not happened to be there and have the perfect job to step in and help him, so much precious time would have been wasted.

And this felt like a case about timing.

Colter’s a man of many talents because he found a boat and got out on that water with a quickness, and the show will sometimes forget that he’s, you know, a tracker, but those skills came in handy here.

Without his ability to track footsteps and such, he would have been out of luck.

Leave it to Colter to rush into a dilapidated home with gunshots all over the place and make it out not only alive, but on top.

At this point in the story, it became clear this wasn’t a case of piecing things together. And there’s nothing wrong with hours that shy away from the mystery and just lean into the thriller aspects the show excels at.

Based on what Robbie told Colter, it seemed pretty obvious that this was some kind of thievery gone wrong. And Hal and Vera may have found themselves just wrapped up in something that spiraled out of their control.

TJ and Molly were clearly the ones in control of this drug situation, and Hal and Vera were brought along for the ride, which made sense based on what Ian mentioned about Vera specifically knowing the island so well.

Wyatt Griffin being known enough via his drug game that those two kids called him immediately when they spotted his drugs would lead one to believe that he’s a person of influence, or at the very least, a level of power that would scare TJ and Molly to the degree that it did.

And everyone in that small room was lucky that only two people were shot because that had disaster written all over it when the shots started firing.

As I previously mentioned, time was of the essence, and I appreciated that the show stayed true to that and didn’t have Colter, an out-of-towner, miraculously chase down the foursome or Griffin.

Instead, he had to take a methodical approach through the dense woods and rocky terrain, and it literally took all day, and well into the night, for him to make headway.

Checking in with the foursome gave greater insight into what was happening, and basically, TJ and Molly got in over their heads and then began to panic.

TJ seemed like a loose cannon, and Molly appeared to be someone who sold her boyfriend a dream, but didn’t take into account all of the dangers. She sold him a dream, not maliciously, but still a dream, and it went south the second those guys recognized the stolen drugs.

Griffin was scary in a very restrained way, which is always the most fascinating of bad guys.

When Griffin was confronted by the park ranger, you got the first taste of the kind of man he was. He could have turned around and shot him, likely showing zero remorse, but he was more interested in playing deadly mind games.

There was something about him that was mesmerizingly intimidating, and that quick scene showed why TJ and Molly were losing it out in the woods trying to outrun him.

Hal getting shot was actually a bit of a blessing in retrospect, because it seemed inevitable that Griffin would catch up to the group, and with Hal left behind, his meeting Colter gave the tracker insight into where his wife would lead them.

Side note, the hour was visually stunning in that beautiful, dreary northwest way, but the night visuals were shot so well and added to that thriller vibe. It was DARK out there, and that limited visibility added an extra shot of tension to the whole affair.

I’m not exactly sure whether or not Vera really thought they would be able to escape Griffin by hiding out at the cannery, or if she just realized that they would have a better chance there than continuing to traverse through the woods essentially blind.

It wasn’t surprising that Griffin found them, but the way he got into TJ’s head was.

It’s not like we knew a whole lot about TJ and Molly’s relationship, but all Griffin had to do was plant a little seed of doubt, and he was willing to abandon her without hesitation. What a guy.

No shade to Hal, but Vera was like the only person out there with some sense. She clocked it from the minute they arrived inside that building that if they wanted to make it out alive, they needed to depend on each other, but Molly refused to hear that.

Griffin wasn’t leaving without Molly in some way, shape, or form. Dead or alive, that’s what that entire jaunt through the forest was about, because that was a man who never learned what it means to lose.

He could only stand to lose those drugs because in return, he was going to get Molly back, the win he was after that entire day.

The final action sequence played out fairly quickly, which was a little surprising because they had that big building to work with.

I was imagining gun fights and racing around that abandoned building until Colter got the leg up on Griffin, but instead, everything was pretty bang bang, with Griffin left dead, and TJ and Molly seemingly getting what was coming to them, via law enforcement we’ll have to assume was called, because we certainly didn’t see it.

All in all, it may not wind up being the most memorable of hours, but is that what Tracker is really after?

It’s in the business of entertaining us by putting Colter in a series of hostile environments, all for him to bring someone a happy ending.

On that level, it delivered, even if the overarching narrative still feels stuck.

Tracker Notes

• Reenie is being watched and intimidated because of the case she’s working on, and I have a feeling this is going to end horribly, one way or another.

• Can we get a REAL conversation between Colter and Reenie this season? Enough with the thirty-second check-ins, and give us some tangible insight into Reenie’s mental state with a person she has a history with and trusts explicitly. Is that asking too much?

• There was not enough Randy in this hour. But that’s the price to be paid when the stories are like this one, and Colter knows exactly what he’s after.

With only four episodes left this season, where do you see things headed from here?

Are you excited for Russell to return at some point?

What’s next for Reenie?

As always, let me know all your thoughts below so we can talk it out!

You can watch Tracker on Sundays at 9/8c on CBS.