Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Tracker Season 3, Episode 9.After eight solid episodes of Tracker’s third season, the CBS drama continues to kick butt on a weekly basis, giving us plenty of thrilling weekly mysteries to solve alongside famed rewardist Colter Shaw. While the Justin Hartley-led series has admittedly drifted from its Jeffrey Deaver-penned source material, Tracker is the kind of show that always finds something interesting to get audiences excited about. With this week’s midseason finale, “Good Trouble,” the show begins a two-part narrative that threatens to claim the life of one of Colter’s greatest allies as the rewardist investigates a conspiracy that may just go deeper than he anticipated.
“Good Trouble” Brings Keaton Back to ‘Tracker’ as Colter Travels to Tacoma, Washington

John Keaton (Brent Sexton), Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley), and Detective Willa Simms (Jes Macallan) in the ‘Tracker’ episode “Good Trouble”Image via CBS

The episode begins one night in Tacoma, Washington, when an unsuspecting farmer, Clive Sherman (Jaren Moore), walks outside to hear his cattle mooing in his pasture. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, that is, until he goes to check on his cows. The moment he leans up against a fence post, headlights appear — and the farmer is suddenly executed and left for dead. Sometime later at Reenie Greene’s (Fiona Rene) Denver-based law office, her occasional assistant, Mel Day (Cassady McClincy Zhang), helps Reenie with a deposition. But all this is prologue for her to contact Colter to see if ex-Seattle-adjacent detective John Keaton (Bret Sexton) would be interested in some private investigative work for her. Yes, that’s right, fan-favorite Keaton returns here, finally with a first name that we can refer to. Of course, everyone still calls him Keaton, and it turns out that Colter is actually in Tacoma on Keaton’s behest, having called the rewardist in to help find his old partner Nat Dobbs (Dean McKenzie). Dobbs has been missing for a while now, and Keaton has a bad feeling. Needless to say, Colter takes the case. Following Keaton to Dobbs’ place, Colter takes a look around. The back door has been left open, but that’s not a lot to go on. It’s when he sifts through Dobbs’ trash that Colter finds a newspaper clipping about the dead dairy farmer who had been shot and killed in the opener. Wondering why Dobbs would’ve had an interest in it, Colter gets a call from Randy (Chris Lee), who reveals Dobbs’ last known location — and that his tracking services have been turned off for two days. Upon arriving at the location, it’s the farm from the teaser (as if we had any doubt), and the pair take a look at the fence line where the dairy farmer was killed. It’s then that Colter notices a brand-new excavator in the field. He believes that whoever was behind this wanted to wait until the police investigation was over to search the property for whatever it was they were after. Hot-wiring the excavator, Colter finds plenty of bodies buried beneath the pasture — though Dobbs is nowhere to be found. In fact, he’s elsewhere being tortured by the man who seemingly shot the farmer, who wants to know who Dobbs was working for. After calling in the bodies, the police arrive to comb over the pasture. Detective Willa Simms (Jes Macallan) reveals that three of the bodies had long rap sheets, implying that whoever was burying them was targeting criminals specifically. But although Simms appreciates Colter and Keaton’s help thus far, the Tacoma PD stonewalls the pair, making it clear that she doesn’t want them involved any further. Of course, neither of them has any intention of letting this go, but Keaton is quickly called away by Tacoma Police Commissioner Ross Bogart (Sasha Roiz), who asks him to come downtown. As Keaton deals with that, Colter contacts Reenie and Randy, and although they don’t have anything connecting the bodies to Dobbs, they do find a financial connection between Sherman and an Armenian crime boss named Zhan Menassian (Arnab Biswas), who was depositing large sums quite regularly into the dead farmer’s account.

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‘Tracker’s Midseason Finale Is a Manhunt With Plenty of Turns

Brent Sexton as Keaton kneeling down next to Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw over Dobbs in Tracker Season 3Image via CBS

This leads Colter to believe that Sherman wanted to renegotiate the deal leading to his assassination, which Dobbs stumbled upon, leading to his abduction. Reenie and Randy warn Colter about getting in the middle of Menassian’s business, but Colter decides to go at him through his nephew and driver, Narek Barsamian (Navid Charkhi). Meanwhile, Keaton meets with Bogart, who believes that the Russian mafia is making a move on the Armenians, which is why they killed Sherman to expose the body dumping ground. Bogart asks Keaton to step aside, hoping to keep himself from harm’s way and avoid interference in the investigation. But Colter is too busy interfering on his own, as he forces Narek to take him to his uncle. The problem is, Menassian is already dead. ​​Colter calls Randy to see if he can hack into security cameras, but it’s on a network Randy can’t breach. Fortunately, Colter finds a wire that leads him to a small room housing the camera’s security system, giving Randy the access he needs. Afterward, Colter meets with Keaton and the pair watches Randy’s video, which shows Dobbs killing the Armenian crime boss. But Colter notices something that no one else would probably have seen. In the window’s reflection, he spots another man, the assassin who Keaton identifies as contract killer Emil Lang (Mark Engelhardt). But, according to Keaton, Lang was supposed to be dead. Even stranger, he typically works alone, leading Keaton to believe that Dobbs is being framed. Noticing that Dobbs took Menassian’s phone, Colter has Randy trace it to a wooded area just south of them, and the pair head there to find out more. While on the road, Keaton expresses his frustrations as to why Lang would be holding Dobbs captive for so long, but Colter believes there may be more to it, clearly suspicious of his friend’s former partner. He asks his colleague if there is something about Dobbs that he isn’t sharing, to which the former detective replies that he just doesn’t know the guy. While it doesn’t appear that he is hiding anything from Colter, it’s clear that Keaton may not know the full story himself. Arriving at the pinged location, Colter and Keaton wander through the woods to find a wrecked car. Off the trail, they find Dobbs lying on his back beside the toppled vehicle. Colter runs to get a First Aid kit, and Dobbs confirms to Keaton that Lang killed Sherman, but he wasn’t working for the Russians. Before he can reveal the rest, he apologizes to his old partner and dies. An enraged Keaton calls for help while Colter (who now has Menassian’s phone) goes after an injured Lang, who steals a car. As Simms arrives at the crime scene, Keaton speaks to Bogart over the phone, relaying all he knows about Dobbs’ investigation. Bogart begins acting a little shadier here than before, first blaming the Russians before pivoting to the idea that someone else is involved. Is he in on it? We’re not sure, but the episode moves on as Simms offers her condolences to Keaton; he doesn’t stick around after Colter calls him with a lead on Lang, who has since picked up a rifle as well.
“Good Trouble” Ends on a Cliffhanger That Makes Us Fear for ‘Tracker’s Future

Back in the car, Keaton and Colter get a lead on Lang’s next movement based on the stolen vehicle, taking them to a nearby lake. As it turns out, Lang has tracked down a mafia accountant named Bradley Weitz (Trevor Hinton), using the man to get information on a woman named “Cassie Linstrom.” But we only find that out after Colter and Keaton arrive and question a tied-up housekeeper before Colter finds Weitz’s body in the garage — along with boxes of combed-over accounting files. But when he hears something outside, Keaton investigates and finds Lang with the stolen car. The ex-detective fires on the assassin, but takes a bullet in the process as Lang escapes. Unconcerned with the villain, Colter arrives just in time to stabilize Keaton, but his friend is losing a lot of blood. Although Keaton fades for a moment — scaring all of us who were excited about his return — Colter gets him up as they head to a hospital. Back in Denver, Reenie worries about Colter, who is too far out of cell range to take her anxious calls. But she has a right to be nervous. After digging further into Menassian, she finds that he had an old shell company that went under years earlier due to fraud. Having found their old accounting records, Reenie shows Randy that Dobbs was on Menassian’s payroll back in the day, just like the farmer Clive Sherman had been. However, many of the names are unavailable, leading Reenie to believe that there are still plenty on Tacoma’s police force who are still on the take under the current shell company’s designation. This sends the pair further down the rabbit hole as they aim to find out more. Elsewhere, Colter speeds to the hospital as Keaton struggles to keep breathing in the back. The rewardist realizes that he needs to keep the ex-detective talking if he wants to keep him alive, so he asks what else the housekeeper told him. Apparently, Cassie Linstrom has the same name as the detective killed by Lang on his last assassination years earlier, back when everyone thought he was dead. It’s an interesting revelation, but Colter doesn’t have much time to take it in. Before they can get help for Keaton, Colter is shot through the windshield, sending the car off the road and into a drop below. The episode ends with a “To Be Continued…” tease, leaving us terribly nervous that Tracker may have killed off one of its best characters. Well, Colter, is obviously safe (there have been no announcements made about Justin Hartley’s departure, so never fear), but the same can’t be said about Keaton, who was already injured before the crash. “Good Trouble” may not live up to its name if Keaton ends up dead after this, but one thing’s for sure: Tracker knows how to leave us hanging midseason. Tracker airs Sundays on CBS and is available the next day for streaming on Paramount+.

Release Date

February 11, 2024

Showrunner

Elwood Reid

Writers

Ben H. Winters, Hilary Weisman Graham

Justin Hartley

Colter Shaw

Pros & Cons

It’s always great to see Keaton back on the show.
Two-part episodes are a great trend that we can easily get behind.
Colter and Keaton work so well together, so Tracker better not kill him off.

What was the point of Mel Day in this episode? Just to remember that she’s still around?
Waiting for three months to find out what happens is going to kill us…