This may have been my favorite hour of Tracker yet, and that’s saying something because Reenie wasn’t even in it. And I love me some Reenie!
Tracker Season 2 Episode 8 centered around a case that was a little different because Colter wasn’t trying to find someone who had been taken or simply disappeared into thin air. He was looking for a dead man.
Like all of Colter’s cases, this one involved much more than he initially thought.
Tracker has done a great job this season with its cases, even the ones that have bordered on ridiculous. They’ve been entertaining and interesting at the same time, and this hour was no exception.
Traveling out to San Francisco, Colter’s job was centered around a grieving sister who was convinced her dead brother was back and paid a visit to their ailing mother. And the whole story was very sad on the surface.
Alicia was still grieving her brother while simultaneously grieving her mother, who was actively dying in front of her.
You couldn’t blame Colter for being skeptical initially because he’s nothing if not a realist, especially when he starts getting the facts surrounding the job.
People do grieve in different ways, and sometimes, it can be difficult to accept the cruelty of life. No one should have to bury a brother and a parent so closely together. It’s unimaginable.
But once Colter started to piece some things together, it became very apparent that there was something shady going on with Lucas and his death, to the point where it wasn’t so much wondering whether or not he was dead, but why would he have faked his death?
Bobby, per usual, was an essential piece of the puzzle here, and God knows where Colter would be without him and his ability to hack anything and everything within seconds.
Once Colter got to Lucas’s former job, which was broken into around the same time that Lucas supposedly visited the hospital to see his mother, it was apparent that someone needed something from that store.
Now, could someone have been after something Lucas had and broke in to retrieve it? Absolutely.
That break-in could have been explained away, but the hospital visit? Would someone be cruel enough to visit a dying woman in the hospital and pretend to be her son for no reason other than to be cruel?
It didn’t make any sense, and thank goodness for the paranoid co-worker who put a camera in his dinosaur figurine collection because that broke the case wide open.
I assumed, at first, that this would be a story where Lucas, indeed, was dead, but Colter was able to discover who killed him and bring his killers to justice and at least be able to give his family some closure.
But I should have known better.
Lucas was very much alive, as evidenced by the recording of the break-in, and once Colter discovered that the questions only got more complicated.
One of my favorite parts of a Tracker episode is finding out how helpful or unhelpful the law enforcement person Colter inevitably has to deal with will be. Are they friendly, useful, and willing to accept the fact that Colter may be better at their job than them?
Or are they combative, useless, and trying to derail Colter at every turn?
Detective Goodman seemed receptive to Colter. She even did a little tit-for-tat with him and showed him the footage of Lucas’s crash.
But Colter Shaw is Colter Shaw. And within seconds, he had his next break in the case.
If you’ve watched enough ID Channel or Dateline and 48 Hours in your lifetime, then you know that faking your death isn’t just something they do in the movies.
Phillip and Barbie running a ‘disappear people’ operation out of the back of their market was a neat little development. Barbie was quite the pistol, and I love it when Colter meets someone who matches his intensity.
She was almost detached from her husband’s death, but that seemed to be more because the minute she discovered he was killed, her mind immediately switched into revenge mode.
Phillip dying seemingly right after Colter discovered who he was had dirty Detective Goodman written all over it because nothing had happened to him in nine months, but then suddenly Colter pointed Phillip out to an officer, and hours later, he ended up dead.
My antennas went up high then, but Colter still needed to figure out how everything was connected while watching Barbie commit arson.
Barbie was such a great character here, and if we could have spent more time with her, I would have welcomed it.
I’m sure that, over the years, she helped many bad people disappear since she operated under a policy of not asking many questions, but for someone like Lucas, Barbie was doing a good thing in the sense that she saved his life.
Without faking his death, Lucas was a dead man. Just like Stephanie. And just like her husband.
But, once you fake your death, that’s it. It’s all for naught if you waltz back into town like you’re not dead and you put Phillip and Barbie in danger because what they were doing wasn’t exactly legal.
Lucas wasn’t trying to get anyone hurt, but he wanted to see his dying mother, and by grabbing that flash drive, he wanted to potentially try and work out a deal for himself or something.
Unfortunately, though, his re-emergence triggered many actions, including Colter’s presence, and ultimately, Phillip paid the price for it.
When Colter called Detective Goodman to Lucas’s hotel, I had no idea what he was up to, but I fell for the fake-out Lucas death hook, line, and sinker. Even knowing Goodman was probably shady, I thought perhaps they were too late to save him this time.
Sometimes, it’s okay to be wrong, and I sure was.
What’s better than faking your death once? Faking your death twice!
Did anyone think Barbie was going to hurt Lucas when she opened that van and came face-to-face with him? She seemed determined to get her revenge, and Lucas’s coming back set everything into motion, but he didn’t pull the trigger on Phillip or give the order.
No, Goodman and Tim Crosby were responsible. They needed to be punished, and only Colter Shaw (and the magic of television!) could quickly get an entire FBI sting operation up and running!
Why Goodman and Crosby were casually conversing about their illegal activities in the middle of that crowded restaurant made no sense. Neither did Goodman pulling her gun on Colter like that would do anything for her.
She was desperate, but her reaction made her look even guiltier in front of a room full of witnesses.
They were careful not to tell us what was on that Crosby flash drive, meaning it was most likely pretty horrific, and he and all those connected with him most definitely needed to be put away.
Stephanie and Phillip lost their lives, and Lucas went through hell to return to his life, but Goodman and Crosby and his people were brought to justice.
I appreciated that Lucas understood the part he played in everything, and Colter very gently told him that’s something he’ll have to reconcile with because it’s true.
There’s no true happy ending here because so much destruction took place that can never be undone.
Outside of the case, we finally returned to the Gina Pickett case, which has yet to be seriously addressed since Tracker Season 2 Episode 1 when Colter visited Whales.
Getting more context about the relationship between Colter and Camille was nice because now we know these two were involved before Gina’s disappearance. It’s not as if we desperately needed to know that, but it shaded in their relationship more.
They had a connection that preceded their “working” dynamic, and it could be part of why he’s been so unwilling to give up, though Colter’s also someone who doesn’t easily move on from things.
Camille finally reached a point of acceptance, and it was sad to see her and Colter have that conversation because you could tell how upsetting it was for Colter to feel like he failed her and Gina somehow.
But Camille had evidently reached a point where she realized she had to make a change for herself. She’ll never forget her sister, but it was probably unhealthy for her to continue living the way she was.
I felt for them because they both want the same thing: clarity and closure concerning Gina’s disappearance, but Camille’s too emotionally drained to continue to hope.
When the hour opened up, re-introducing us to Keaton, whom we met during Tracker Season 2 Episode 6, it was obvious he was coming back, but damn, did he make a comeback!
I liked Keaton and the dynamic between him and Colter, but it hit me that we don’t really know Keaton, and neither does Colter. He asked Keaton to do some digging and put fresh eyes on a cold case.
But did he ask him to kidnap a man and beat him into submission until he gave him the information he was after?
Colter seemed taken aback momentarily, but the information also mesmerized him. Once he heard the name Whales, he no longer seemed to care about the physical and mental warfare being waged on the stranger.
Things got icky very quickly, but so damn intriguing because what next?
Is Gina alive? Who is the man they call Teacher? What will Whales say now that Colter actually has information?
What the hell happens to Alex now? Is Keaton OKAY?
This was a great cliffhanger, and while we wait for the series to return, there are some serious questions to consider.
Tracker Notes
- Isaac Newton as an alias was a pretty genius move, but did Phillip and Barbie give ALL their clients famous names? How many George Washington and Charles Darwin fakes are walking around Tracker land?
- Colter declined the call, but Dory called him. Shall I call off the search party for the Shaw Family drama?
- Get Velma out of Reenie’s office! I know she wants a change of scenery.
- Colter is a terrible actor. Everything at the hotel was so stilted and awkward, but it fooled Goodman, so it did the trick.
Tracker Season 2 continues to shine and find its groove with another great hour. The series has always been strong, but it’s reached new heights over the last few weeks.
There was a lot to unpack during this one, so please let me know what you thought and how you’re feeling about the Gina Pickett case in the comments!
You can watch Tracker on CBS on Sundays at 8/9c.
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