Spoilers ahead for the winter premiere of Tracker, called "The Disciple" and available streaming now with a Paramount+ subscription.
Tracker is officially back after two months of hiatus and a big "To Be Continued" to resolve, with Colter heading into "The Disciple" seemingly closer than ever to finding out the truth about Gina's disappearance. Sadly – although not surprisingly, as Justin Hartley previously pointed out – the end was bittersweet; Gina had been dead for years before Colter caught the bad guy and found the truth about her, but now both Colter himself and Camille have some degree of closure. Hartley spoke with CinemaBlend regarding Tracker's first episode of the 2025 TV schedule, getting back to that Shaw drama, and what could have gone very wrong in making "The Disciple."
Even though the news that Gina has been dead for a long time wasn't exactly the best case scenario for Colter and Camille, they can move on. For Gina's sister, that means finally being free to travel without worrying about missing something. For Colter, it remains to be seen what his life looks like after resolving a mystery that has overshadowed him for a decade. On the subject of Colter's closure, Justin Hartley shared:
There's a lot of closure, but a lot of pain in an interesting way. He wakes up every morning for the last 10 years looking for this person in some capacity, and haunted by this. And now, all of a sudden, that's not part of his life. So it's a bit Stockholm-y, in a way. It messes with you psychologically. That's got to be strange. Something that you've had for 10 years that haunted you, now all of a sudden, you just don't have it. That's got to be very, very strange.
Getting any degree of closure surely couldn't have happened if Colter hadn't caught the killer as well as learned Gina's fate, and the reveal was a total shocker... for any fans who didn't know actor Nicholas Lea as the hard-to-kill Krycek from The X-Files and automatically distrust him, anyway.
In all seriousness, Lea's character of Noah Darview seemed pretty insignificant at first, with a tangential tie to The Farm. By the end, though, the big reveal came that Darview was the serial killer known as The Teacher, who had been prolific across the country over the years in not only committing murders, but also recruiting people to do dirty deeds for him.
So, what was it like to work with Nicholas Lea as he portrayed not only the main bad guy of the episode, but the killer behind the murder that had been driving Colter throughout the first half of Season 2? I asked Hartley that very question, and he shared:
It was great. That's a tough role. That's always hard when you ask an actor to come in and do something like that, because it's so over the top, or it can be, and yet at the same time that's a really easy thing to botch up, and he nailed it. It's also hard because he's playing such a sick guy, but at the same time, you can't give it away. Otherwise, the audience is sitting there going, 'Oh yeah, it's obvious.' You want the opposite. So I thought he nailed it.
Of course, catching The Teacher and finally closing the case on Gina's fate means closure for Camille arguably even more than Colter, and her decision to travel seemingly means that she won't be back any time soon. Was this the end of A Million Little Things vet Floriana Lima on Tracker? According to Hartley, fans shouldn't 100% rule it out. He said:
I think for now. There's always a chance to rebuild that. There's a lot of history there and a lot of pain. I don't know how you would rebuild that, but anything's possible.
With the end of the Gina mystery, Tracker has wrapped its big serialized story of the season so far. There's still a full second half of Season 2 still to go, though, and ending one arc doesn't mean that CBS' hit drama is going to be entirely procedural moving forward. Justin Hartley previewed:
There'll always be a serialized element to our show. And we still have the family issues, the death of the dad, the mystery behind that. Who was responsible? Why did it happen? Was Dad paranoid, or was he really on to something? Is the government involved? That's what's in the box here. [laughs] We have all of those questions to answer.
Returning to the Shaw family mystery hopefully means Colter gets some answers about that Season 1 finale bombshell about his sister, although he was still dodging Dory's calls as of the fall finale. My fingers are crossed to see both Jensen Ackles as Russell and Melissa Roxburgh as Dory back as Colter's siblings before the final credits roll on Season 2, and the odds seem quite good on at least Roxburgh, based on what Hartley has said. For his part, Ackles appeared in an early episode of Season 2.
Whatever the future holds for the drama of the Shaw family, the next case of the week – which will unfold on Sunday, February 23 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS – should be an intense one, based on the promo. Take a look:
If you missed the winter premiere of Tracker or any of the earlier episodes, you can find them streaming now on Paramount+. I'm tempted to revisit the Russell and Dory episodes in particular in light of what Justin Hartley teased about the ongoing Shaw family drama. And why not the Season 1 finale as well? It certainly delivered a fun This Is Us reunion with Jennifer Morrison as well as the news about Dory back in 2024.
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