'Tracker' Season 3 delivers heart-stopping midseason finale with the death of a fan-favorite character

Justin Hartley's Colter Shaw loses an ally in the explosive midseason finale of 'Tracker' Season 3
PUBLISHED DEC 15, 2025
A still of Justin Hartley from 'Tracker' (Cover Image Source: Instagram | @trackercbs)
A still of Justin Hartley from 'Tracker' (Cover Image Source: Instagram | @trackercbs)

In the jaw-dropping midseason finale of 'Tracker' Season 3, viewers had to bid farewell to a fan-favorite character. In the final episode, Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) faced a shocking challenge when he teamed up with retired cop Keaton (Brent Sexton) to investigate a dairy farm hiding multiple dead bodies. As the episode progressed, the case took several dark turns, with Colter facing escalating danger, eventually losing a strong and trusted ally.

Justin Hartley in a still from 'Tracker' (Cover image credit: CBS | Photo by Sergei Bachlakov)
Justin Hartley in a still from 'Tracker' (Image credit: CBS | Photo by Sergei Bachlakov)

After discovering that the dead farmer had been receiving large payments from Armenian crime boss Zhan Menassian (Arnab Biswas) to bury bodies, Colter snuck into his apartment, only to find him dead. Hacking the security system, Colter and Randy (Chris Lee) discovered that Nat Dobbs (Dean McKenzie) had killed Menassian, shocking Keaton. The footage also revealed that Dobbs wasn't alone, identifying contract killer Emile Lang (Mark Engelhardt), as per Entertainment Weekly.

Keaton explained that Lang, a contract killer presumed dead for five years, resurfaced to shoot the farmer and abduct Dobbs. Lang interrogated a restrained Dobbs about who sent him to the farm and, dissatisfied with the answer, tortured him with electric shocks. While their motive for attacking Menassian's apartment remains unclear, the duo later got into a car accident, leaving Dobbs critically injured. 

When Colter and Keaton arrived, Dobbs died after handing Keaton Menassian's cell phone, apologizing, while Lang escaped into the woods. Colter focused on tracking down Lang, even as the phone may hold crucial answers. Lang then stole a car, changed his appearance, and armed himself before breaking into accountant Bradley Weitz's (Trevor Hinton) home by pretending to be from the gas company

After sending a threatening text, he intercepted Weitz, ultimately killing him execution-style. Colter and Keaton arrived, and in the ensuing gunfire, Lang escaped with a stolen box and shot Keaton. As Colter rushed a wounded Keaton to a doctor, Keaton revealed that Lang was searching for Cassie Lindstrom, the same cop he had killed in the nightclub years earlier.

As the episode neared its end, Colter's attorney Reenie (Fiona Rene) uncovered that Messarian ran a shell company involved in fraud, which made payments to both the farmer and Dobbs. This suggested that Dobbs may have been taking bribes and hinted at a wider conspiracy involving prominent figures. Speaking to TV Fanatic about the cliffhanger finale, 'Tracker' showrunner Elwood Reid promised there will be no time jump when the show returns. "It picks right up. I'm not going to speak to who lives or dies out of that car, but suffice it to say, Colter doesn't just jump up and dust himself off," he said.

The 'Tracker' showrunner added, "He's got some severe problems. But as you know, the assassin and the rest of the case are ongoing, and we're going to learn that there is somebody who needs saving, and it comes from a weird place." He revealed that the two-part episode allowed the team to tie threads together and explore more backstory, explaining, "It was also an opportunity for us because we had a two-parter, we could set up more complicated, I hate to use the word 'complicated', but more backstory, more kind of like, what are the cops up to?"

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