Justin Hartley teases ‘Tracker’ Season 4’s biggest mystery yet involving Colter’s past
Justin Hartley says ‘Tracker’ Season 4 will bring Colter Shaw and his brother Russell together again. The CBS drama returns on October 4, with Russell set to make a major return early in the season. The reunion comes after the Season 3 finale saw McIntyre blackmail Russell into taking a job. Russell returns early in the season after the Season 3 finale left him with a dangerous deal. The reunion comes as Colter enters Season 4 in a better emotional place after learning more about his father, Ashton Shaw.
Hartley calls the new season the show's “most ambitious” yet and says it will reveal information that could change how Colter sees his childhood. Russell's Season 4 story begins with McIntyre, the man behind the Chrono Stasis operation. Russell visits him with plans to kill him, but McIntyre stops him by revealing a disturbing file about Colter. He claims the file contains details about something Ashton did to Colter as a child. McIntyre then offers Russell a deal: he must take a job for him to get the file and keep Colter from learning what it contains.
“Whatever Russell is doing, whatever secrets he’s keeping from Colter, he’s doing it to protect Colter,” Justin Hartley says. The actor believes Colter will understand his brother's reasons if he eventually learns the truth. Russell will also return in a “big way” early in the season when he and Colter team up over “a really dire situation” involving one of Russell's friends and a person who does not want to be found. Hartley says the brothers will present a “united front” as they deal with the threat.
The reunion could still put pressure on their relationship. Russell knows something about Colter's past that Colter does not remember, while Colter has spent much of Seasons 2 and 3 trying to understand what happened to Ashton. Ashton raised Colter, Russell, and Dory on a remote California compound and trained them as survivalists. Over the last two seasons, viewers learned more about Ashton, including his connection to the Chrono Stasis Institute.
The government-backed program experimented on gifted children and tried to use their precognitive abilities. Ashton eventually tried to shut down the program, making him a target. The government discredited and targeted him, although much of his paranoia at the time was ultimately shown to be warranted. By the end of Season 3, Colter had a better understanding of his father and told Keaton that Ashton “was a good man in the end.” Hartley says that realization leaves Colter in a different emotional place heading into Season 4.
“He’s a little looser,” the actor says. “A lot of that burden is off of him.” But the file McIntyre shows Russell raises a new question about Colter's childhood. Hartley confirms that the information about Ashton and Colter is true, although he does not reveal what Ashton did.
He then compares the possibility to having a blackout period in which someone knows they lived through something but cannot remember it. “It’s almost like having a blackout moment,” Hartley says. “Where you know you were alive, but you don’t remember any of that.”
The mystery also gives viewers a new perspective on the story. Viewers will know that Russell has information Colter does not, putting the audience ahead of the show's central character for the first time. “As an audience member, we know something that Colter doesn’t know,” Hartley says. “This is the first time that the audience in any way has been ahead of Colter.”
Season 4 will also push Colter toward closer relationships with the people around him. Hartley says he will start caring about more people and become more open to relationships that could make him vulnerable. That shift could create new problems for someone whose work regularly puts him and others in danger. “You’ll start to see him do things and behave in his personal life in certain ways that we haven’t before,” Hartley says.
Several familiar characters will return in Season 4, including Keaton, Reenie, Randy, and Billie. Mel, Reenie's new legal assistant, will also return with a tragic backstory and a curious interest in Colter. She arrives with a tragic backstory and a curious interest in Colter, something that immediately raises questions for Hartley. “It just seemed kind of odd,” he says. “This girl shows up and, I mean, no one vetted her, no one asked any questions, and now she’s working in the office, and what’s this all about?”
Billie, played by Sofia Pernas, Hartley's real-life wife, also returns, and she shares a complicated history with Colter. Their relationship blends professional rivalry with romantic tension, though Hartley does not confirm what Season 4 will bring for the pair. As Colter becomes less isolated, his relationships could give him more to lose while he continues taking dangerous cases.
