After Jensen Ackles' Comment About Returning To Tracker, I'm Flashing Back To What Justin Hartley Told Us About Filming The Finale
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The weeks are counting down until the return of Tracker in the 2024 TV schedule, to hopefully pick up where the Season 1 finale left off with Colter facing a bombshell reveal about his own family. So far, not too many details are available about what’s to come aside from the good news about the premiere date, but Jensen Ackles confirmed that he’ll be back as Russell Shaw early in Season 2. Upon looking back at what the Supernatural alum shared, I couldn’t help but remember what Justin Hartley told CinemaBlend in the spring about filming the finale.
Jensen Ackles confirmed his return on Instagram, allaying any fears that his upcoming spinoff of The Boys would prevent him from returning to Tracker. His caption said this about filming his second episode of the hit CBS series:
Love this beautiful city! Thanks @justinhartley and all the folks at @trackercbs. It’s always a blast! ????Till next time. See you when I see you.
Admittedly, that caption is really just a succinct way to announce his return without dropping any spoilers about how Tracker picks up for Russell and Colter, but Ackles mentioning Vancouver as a “beautiful city” reminded me of Justin Hartley opening up about filming on location to end Season 1.
I was fortunate enough to speak with the star back in the spring for the Season 1 finale, including about his This Is Us reunion and the dire straits Colter was facing. He also opened up about how he recruited Jensen Ackles to play his on-screen brother and how he managed his grueling schedule as Tracker became a massive network TV hit.
Having already seen the finale at the time, I noted that I would be tempted to watch it a second time just to fully appreciate the scenery on the water as Colter completed his job of finding his friend’s daughter. Hartley responded:
It was beautiful, right? It almost looks fake in a way. Not in a bad way, but almost like too beautiful to be [real]. It is, it's incredible. And that's one of the great things about our show. What we've been able to do is make the locations a character in the episode, especially this last one I thought was incredible.
The finale was of course set in a small town and not the city of Vancouver, but “beautiful” seems to be a recurring theme when it comes to filming Tracker. Acknowledging that the beautiful location was also where somebody died in the finale, though, Hartley joked:
What a place! If you gotta go. I mean, hopefully you're not murdered, but if you have to go, that'd be a way to do it.
Colter wasn’t laughing by the end of the hour after he learned some troubling news about his father and that his sister knew a whole lot more than she let on in the episode that featured Melissa Roxburgh as Dory Shaw. The finale concluded with Colter grabbing a surfboard and running into the water as the sun set, with The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” playing over the soundtrack.
It was visually stunning, but after the emotional ride of the episode’s job, it was also easy to understand why he’d just need a bit of a break from his life to go surfing. Justin Harltey had his own take:
I thought maybe – is he surfing? Or is he just walking straight out into the ocean and just gonna sink? [laughs] I don't know. We'll see. Hopefully he knows how to surf because it's a long swim to the other side.
Now, months later, it’s not too much longer before fans get to get back into Colter’s head after what he learned in the Season 1 finale. Jensen Ackles didn’t state if he’d appear in the Season 2 premiere, but it’s a safe bet that his episode is early in the season. The show also has to set up one character’s exit after the actor's departure was announced over the summer.
Tracker returns to CBS for Season 2 on Sunday, October 13 at 8 p.m. ET. In the meantime, you can always revisit the full first season – including that high-stakes but beautiful finale – streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
