Categories: Television

Tracker Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Noble Rot

Tracker got back to its roots.

That’s to say, they paired Colter and Reenie up during Tracker Season 2 Episode 4, and we got to see their effortless chemistry shine while they tried to track a missing woman.

This series is always at its best when it allows the team to get off the phone and into the same room.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

Forget about Billie. Russell Shaw, who?

When you’re deprived of Colter and Reenie’s delectable chemistry, you forget how great it is. You forget how wonderfully they play off one another, especially when they mix a little business with personal.

Colter was called into a fancy Napa Valley winery where a fancy-schmancy corporate retreat was taking place, and I love scenarios where Colter is a bit out of his element.

Hob knobbing with the rich and famous will never be Colter’s thing, but it’s certainly Reenie’s. And she was perfectly in her element in a place like that, making connections and doing enough to get Colter in the front door when a CEO went missing.

From the start, there was a lot off about this case, including the fact that the police weren’t called. Sure, people sign NDAs and whatnot, but it’s not as if Quinn was just missing, and there was no real reason to assume she was in any danger just yet.

It was completely the opposite! There was a literal crime scene with blood, a broken mirror, and a window askew, and yet nobody knew a woman was missing and were going about their wine tastings, mud baths, and meditations.

Without Colter on the case, Quinn wouldn’t have stood a chance because no one was looking for her.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

They did cursory sweeps and whatnot, but they weren’t doing the investigative work that really needed to be done. Without police involvement, they were truly never going to find her.

When Colter arrived, he seemed more interested in Reenie’s date than the case itself, but I almost didn’t blame him. Elliot was handsome, kind, and intelligent, and after Russell took her out and now seeing Elliot, I could see where the jealousy bug may have bitten him!

The Colter and Reenie will-they/won’t-they has existed since Tracker Season 1 Episode 1, though it’s always very much been in the background.

This was the first hour they kind of played into in a while, with Colter taking any and all opportunities to ask Reenie about her plus one. The playful banter between the two will always be a bright spot of the series because there’s a natural fun and flirty vibe.

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I’ve seen people think the two give off brother/sister vibes, but I don’t buy that because there’s an obvious attraction, even if both have resigned themselves at the moment to be friends who work together on occasion.

But back to the week’s case, Quinn’s disappearance had shady written all over it, and the first meeting between Colter, Reenie, Locke, and Reynolds was a serious case of everyone trying to get one over on the other.

Locke was way too concerned about keeping things hush-hush for my liking, and clearly, Colter felt similarly because he could tell the guy was hiding something.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

Initially, he was an obvious suspect, and his refusal to let them see the security footage was a big fat red flag. But when have denials ever stopped Colter and Reenie?

Seeing Reenie sweet talk the security guard and slip his badge off so we could be spared another scene of Colter putting someone in a sleeper hold.

Scenes like that make me wish Colter and Reenie teamed up more often, though we’ve already established that, given Colter’s lone-wolf status, that will most likely never be the case.

The footage being tampered with was about the least surprising thing ever because Locke didn’t want something to be seen. But going by television logic, it was too early in the episode for the bad guy to be caught, so from there, it was obvious Locke knew more than he was saying but wasn’t necessarily the bad guy.

As I’ve discussed in the past, there’s at least one moment in every Tracker installment where something bizarre happens. And here it was, the toad venom.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but is toad venom a thing? Is this a high-end psychedelic or something I’ve never heard of? Where does one go about getting toad venom?

Locke wanting to hide his toad venom dealing was one thing, but it was sad that he knew he sent Quinn off on her own and wasn’t more invested in trying to find her. He may have had his security sweeping the premises, but they needed to be doing a hell of a lot more.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

Quinn could have gotten lost or a million other terrible things, yet he was still doing his business.

There was a lot of odd behavior going on here.

This was one of those odd mysteries where the further it went on, the more puzzling it became.

If it wasn’t Locke, then who else could it have been? The head of security, Reynolds? That didn’t seem very likely either.

When Colter discovered the blood in the vineyards and the water trap, it became apparent that this was about far more than just Quinn. Someone was killing people and disposing of their bodies right there on that property.

Locke may have been lying to save himself, but it honestly did not seem like he had anything to do with Quinn’s disappearance, nor would he have kept all those dead bodies right on his property and then signed off construction in said area.

The same went for Reynolds.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

That put Colter back at square one, and I was confused because we were this far into the hour without at least one viable suspect.

Tracker works a little better when we can follow along and make guesses along the way, but this one was nothing like that because we didn’t even hear the name Jesse Pardue until more than half the hour had passed.

They only have a little time to hook us as an audience and get us invested in the mystery. The outcome and part of that investment come from trying to solve the case alongside the characters.

You couldn’t possibly have guessed any of this because you didn’t know that the groundskeeper or Pardue existed until the very end.

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Colter always gets so lucky when he’s out doing his Colter thing because what do you mean he went snooping around and literally ran directly into the groundskeeper helping Pardue dispose of migrant workers whose deaths he covered up?

Colter got his one required action scene in when he beat that worker up in the barrel room, and I’m so glad they gave us a scene in the beauty that is a barrel room when the whole episode took place on that disgustingly gorgeous property.

When we finally met Pardue, he was losing his mind, but it was anticlimactic because we knew nothing about the man. Quinn could have been abducted by one of those creepers from The Strangers movies, and it would have had the same impact.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

But having said all that, the final showdown with the beaten-down groundskeeper lifting herself up after Pardue knocked her out cold to shoot him and then watching him stumble into the woodchipper was peak TV goodness.

We then saw everyone with disgusted looks on their faces as his bones were crunched, and that was just too funny.

The little wrap-up where Elliot praised Colter for the work he does was a little on the nose.

Still, I will never not love a long look between Reenie and Colter, where they both wonder if maybe things could have turned out differently between them if they were in a different place, had different lives, and Colter wasn’t hellbent on living in an Airstream.

Ah, the power couple those two could have been.

(Darko Sikman/CBS)

Tracker Notes

They need to give Velma something to do other than sit in Reenie’s office and look up things. I know Velma and Teddi did the same thing last season (from the comfort of their own home), but I assumed in getting rid of Teddi, they had something bigger planned for Velma, but so far, we’ve seen nothing.

Do we really think Colter Shaw leaves his truck with a valet? I don’t believe it!

I like to think Locke offered Colter a villa for the night, and he chose instead to park out in the vineyards and enjoy the night air with some beers before moving on to his next stop.