'Tracker' Breaks From Its Trusted Formula for the First Time Since Season 1 | Review

Image via CBS Published Oct 11, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT Michael John Petty is a Senior Author for Collider who spends his days writing, in fellowship with his local church, and enjoying each new day with his wonderful wife and precious daughters. At Collider, he writes features, reviews, recaps, interviews, and breaking news on select occasion. In addition to writing about stories, Michael has told a few of his own, from supernatural thrillers to historical fiction. His Western short story, The Devil's Left Hand, received the Spur Award for "Best Western Short Fiction" in 2025 from the Western Writers of America, of which he is a member. Michael currently resides in North Idaho with his growing family. Sign in to your Collider account Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Tracker Season 4, Episode 2.After a solid Season 4 premiere, Tracker has returned in full form with Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) ready for his next adventures. The CBS drama continues to lean into its change of production location by highlighting the new scenery of Sunny California. "Switchback" takes our hero up the Pacific Coast for an adventure in hiking that gets a bit twisted along the way, but it's nothing that he can't handle. As Tracker turns Colter on to his next new case, the series sets up some subplots that will likely string across the next several episodes. So, strap in, because here's where Colter ran off to this week. "Switchback" Keeps Colter Shaw in Sunny California This week's Tracker begins with mother-daughter duo Leanne (Sarah Jane Morris) and Kayla Reilly (Mallory Bechtel) going missing on the Pacific Divide Trail after being stalked by someone taking photos of them from afar. Distracted by the fact that his brother Russell (Jensen Ackles) hasn't gotten back to him, Colter leaves his brother a message. Considering this is the first season where Russell hasn't appeared in one of the first two episodes since Season 1, Tracker appears to be keeping us on edge here regarding that deal Colter's brother made last season. But Colter doesn't wallow for long, because he soon gets the details from Randy (Chris Lee) about the latest case, who turns him onto the $15,000 reward posted by Leanne's other daughter Anya (Skyler Day). They've only been missing for a day, but everything's a bit strange — as these jobs typically are. Colter heads to the trailhead to speak with Anya, who reveals that they were all in the area to honor their deceased father by spreading their ashes; only she didn't go with her mother and sister because of her own family. So, partnering with "trail angel" Becca (Erica Hernandez), Colter heads off in search of the missing pair. Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would BeYour Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back. 🎖️Rambo 🍸James Bond 🏺Indiana Jones 🔧John McClane 🎭Ethan Hunt FIND YOUR PARTNER → 01 You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you. ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged. NEXT QUESTION → 02 You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission. AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method. NEXT QUESTION → 03 You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of. ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead. NEXT QUESTION → 04 The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are. AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability. APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership. AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters. ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had. ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up. NEXT QUESTION → 09 Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together. AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked. NEXT QUESTION → 10 It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one. AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been. REVEAL MY PARTNER → Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse. RamboYour partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know. James BondYour partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing. Indiana JonesYour partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them. John McClaneYour partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay. Ethan HuntYour partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Back in Denver, Reenie (Fiona Rene) returns to the rest of the cast's temporary office at Maxine's (Kathleen Robertson) firm. This is sort of a strange way to shoehorn Maxine back into the story after it felt like her part in the show was done last year, but what can you do? She doesn't appear here, however, and instead, Reenie finds herself having a heart-to-heart with Mel (Cassady McClincy Zhang), who asks for help finding out what really happened to her mom. Recently, she found out that a man named Eric Jefferies, a former military officer seemingly "honorably discharged," worked with her mother in the weeks before her murder. Reenie plans to poke around, using her own military contacts to dig something up. Sometimes we forget that Reenie was an "Air Force brat," but it's moments like these where that little bit of Tracker trivia comes in handy. Meanwhile, back in California, Colter and Becca make quick work of the trail. It isn't long before they discern the area where the women probably went off-trail, and they eventually come across a makeshift campsite seemingly put together by a man named Jonah Gammon (Billy Lush). Boasting a bounty of stolen material from various hikers and campers, Jonah's campsite is like a rat's nest, but it's the perfect place for their next clue. Finding some of the Reillys' things, Colter and Becca run into Leanne, who has a serious gash on her head. She claims that Kayla — who was injured after the pair ran from their stalker — was taken by whoever attacked her in the first place. The first assumption here is that Jonah is the culprit. This Week's 'Tracker' Throws Some Real Twists in Colter's Direction Image via CBS It isn't long before Colter tracks down Jonah and forces him to talk. The only problem is, he wasn't the one who attacked the women. Still, Colter gets the vagabond to spill, and he explains that he saw Kayla being taken by a man in a baseball hat down some fire road access path. Since he was trying not to be seen, he didn't get a good look, but he described the man's truck as being both old and brown — which could probably describe nearly any run-down pickup in the area. Fortunately, Jonah says he may have seen it up by Sierra Junction. Before Colter leaves him, he tells Jonah to go get some help, because living up here all on his lonesome will ultimately get him killed. It's a small moment, but a sober reminder that Colter genuinely cares for those around him, and rather than just call the police to come and pick him up, he would rather turn Jonah on to the kind of help he needs to get back on his feet. Calling Randy, Colter discovers that Kayla and Leanne had been at Rise & Shine, a local watering hole, a few days earlier. "This wasn't some random snatch and grab," Colter concludes. Having gotten Leanne the help she needs, Colter and Becca head to Rise & Shine and split up to search for clues. This leads Colter to speak to Diana Sanders (Amy Farrington), a local who was working the day that the Reillys stopped in. Unfortunately, she claims to have seen nothing since she was working the pick-up window. Still, she takes a photo of Kayla to see if any of the locals know anything more. But what may have been a dead end quickly turns into just the break in the case they needed, as Becca is nearly killed in a hit-and-run by the mysterious brown truck Jonah saw. After stabilizing her, Colter chases after the vehicle only to find it abandoned on a trail. He chases the driver into a barn, takes a shot at him, and attempts to coax him out to find Kayla. Unfortunately, he refuses to let Colter treat his wound, instead "taking his own way out," as our hero says. In doing so, he takes Kayla's location with him. Investigating the truck itself, he finds blood on the bed and confirms that she had been stashed there after all. Discovering that the driver's name was Jack Owens (Brandon Knabe), he calls Randy to find out everything he can about the kidnapper — which, given how the episode began by reminding us that cell service is really spotty here, feels like a bit of a cheat. Anyway, as it turns out, Jack works at Rise & Shine and lives somewhere nearby. However, when Colter goes to investigate the house, he finds nobody there. Nevertheless, the poor girl is nearby, trapped in another building on the property... "Switchback" Concludes With a Standoff and a Revelation Image via CBS As it turns out, Diana, the woman Colter met at Rise & Shine, was Jack's mother, and knew all about his "urges." She tells Kayla that it's her job to clean up her son's mess. According to Randy, Diana was in a psyche ward a few decades ago and was let out on a probationary period to have Jack. Either way, she's not alright upstairs, and it's because of that mental imbalance that she has thus enabled her son to lean into the same ideas that got her in trouble in the first place. Colter quickly discovers that Kayla is being kept nearby on the same property and arrives just in time to keep Diana from pulling a bullet in the young woman after she so valiantly escaped. Although Diana was prepared for an old-fashioned Mexican stand-off, Kayla knocks her out, and Colter reunites her with the rest of her family. Back in Denver, Reenie's military contact pulls through and gets the information Mel requested about Eric Jefferies. Apparently, his discharge was far less than "honorable," leading her to become more suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Mel's mother's murder. But rather than inform Mel of what she's found — or even Colter, at this point, who is kind of the guy you want in the loop on a case like this — she lets it be for now. And, frankly, we're not really sure why. Wouldn't Mel rather know the truth? She didn't know this Jefferies guy personally, so why would learning about a dishonorable discharge affect her negatively? Either way, Tracker doesn't spend enough time on it to offer any real answers. Instead, "Switchback" ends with a heartwarming departure from the Reilly family, who are anxious to move on from the Pacific Divide Trail and spread their husband/father's ashes elsewhere. On top of that, we get an almost romantic send-off for Becca, who is definitely the sort of love interest we could see Colter trying to make things work with. On his way out, Russell finally texts his brother with an apology and a promise that they'll talk soon. Thanks for teasing us with more Jensen Ackles, Tracker, we can't wait! Release Date February 11, 2024 Network CBS Showrunner Elwood Reid Cast Justin Hartley Colter Shaw Pros & Cons Another solid Colter Shaw mystery that hits all the right beats. Hopefully this isn't the last we've seen of Becca the trail angel. Bringing the Mel plot back around was wise. The Diana twist could've been twistier. Why is it that every Tracker action scene is cut just too short?