'Tracker' Finally Moves the Needle on the Mystery of Colter Shaw's Father | Review

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Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) looks at his phone in the 'Tracker' episode

Published Apr 12, 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 wife and daughters. At Collider, he writes features, reviews, recaps, and conducts interviews. In addition to writing about stories, Michael has told a few of his own. His first work of self-published fiction, The Beast of Bear-tooth Mountain, was released in 2023. His Western short story, The Devil's Left Hand, received the Spur Award for "Best Western Short Fiction" from the Western Writers of America in 2025. Michael currently resides in North Idaho with his growing family.

Well, folks, for those waiting patiently for Tracker to juggle every one of its plotlines and characters in a single episode this season, "Struck" is here to seal the deal. As Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) tackles a new case involving a missing husband, he also takes some important steps forward in the investigation into his father, Ashton Shaw (Lee Tergesen), and the strange work he did before his death. Meanwhile, Reenie Greene (Fiona Rene) continues to wrestle with her PTSD, deciding that the best way to move on is with someone else by her side — and it's not who you think.

"Struck" Begins With Colter Shaw Investigating Two Fathers — His and One Gone Missing

In Buffalo, New York, "Struck" begins with a wounded man, later identified as a local electrician named Finn Helms (Chad Michael Collins), running from an unknown gunman. Falling to the ground, he begs for mercy as he stares down the barrel of a gun. The next day, Colter gets a call from Randy (Chris Lee), who informs him about the job, which was posted almost instantly by Finn's wife, Grace (Natalie Jane). Only a few hours out, he takes the job then and there, but not before he asks Randy for a favor. After calling around and diving deeper into this "David Pearson" character, Colter learned that his father and Pearson were working for an organization called the Chronos Stasis Institute. He hopes that Randy can track down some intel about the organization — and considering that the show could easily just be called Tracker in reference to Randy's digital sleuthing, he's on the case. Upon arriving in Buffalo, Colter meets with Grace, who is eight months pregnant with their baby girl. She insists that Finn would never just leave them and that he was so excited about the baby. After looking around in the nursery, Colter finds a bloody rag in her husband's jacket pocket.

Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) looks around in the 'Tracker' episode "Struck"

Deciding that the best move is to visit Finn's job site, Colter speaks with the supervisor, Kelly (Paul du Toit), who is in the middle of dealing with a younger electrician named Doyle (Sean Savoy). But according to Kelly, he fired Finn two months back for stealing equipment on the job — though Doyle later insists that Finn wasn't a thief, that he was only borrowing the equipment. It turns out that after he was let go, Finn began taking jobs on an app called Power Up, though that method of employment can be a bit sketchy. Doyle reveals that he heard from Finn the night before when he asked him to help out with a job, but he was too busy and didn't end up going. He hasn't heard from Finn since. Tracking Finn's work van to the job site, he finds two pairs of tools and other equipment left behind. Calling Randy, Colter believes that they were cutting into the fiber to steal information before someone was electrocuted. This is confirmed when Randy hacks into a neighboring security camera to find two guys carrying a body. Randy tracks the truck to another side of the city.

Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be
Your 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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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.

Rambo

Your 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 Bond

Your 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 Jones

Your 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 McClane

Your 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 Hunt

Your 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

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, at Reenie's Denver-based law office, Tracker's resident legal counsel receives a visit from Mark (Cesare Scarpone). Now, if you don't remember Mark but feel like you're supposed to, that's because he was introduced earlier this season as Reenie's random one-night stand in "Eat the Rich." It's kind of strange that the show is bringing him back after all this time (especially since he gave Reenie his number way back when), but he explains that he found himself in town, remembered she was from here, and looked her up. When asked if she's free for dinner, Reenie appears to accept. Back in New York, Colter finds the truck in question in the woods. Hearing something in the distance, he happens upon two men throwing a body into a hole. Confronting them at gunpoint, they reveal that the man they're burying is not Finn, but rather some "tweaker" who got too high on the job. Apparently, Finn was hired by their boss, Paolo (Robert Daprocida), but after the man in question was electrocuted, he freaked out. Paolo left with Finn to talk him down, but, as Colter notes, he never made it home.

'Tracker' Puts Colter Up Against One of His Most Unbalanced Threats Yet

Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) looks around in a warehouse in the 'Tracker' episode "Struck"

Colter heads downtown to a building owned by Paolo and finds stains of blood outside and the door ajar. Upon entering the warehouse, he finds Paolo, wounded and propped up against some pallets. The ringleader admits to trying to scare Finn before he fought back. He was the one who shot Finn, but Finn wasn't responsible for his injuries. Just before Paolo was to pull the trigger on Finn, he was hit by a car driven by a woman who he thought was his wife. The problem was that this woman wasn't pregnant, leading Colter to suspect that Finn may have been having an affair.

As Randy looks into it, he discovers that Finn was hired by a woman named Adelle Mucino (Lyndon Smith) for a job on the Power Up app a few weeks back. Upon some further digging, they learn that Finn had previously met Adelle on a dating app a few years back while he and Grace were on a break. However, once Finn and Grace got back together, he immediately ended things, only for her to take an interest in his life after all this time. Although this goes far beyond a casual interest. Elsewhere, Finn wakes up to Adelle, who has cuffed him to her bed and is holding him captive, believing that they can be together after all.

That night, Colter breaks into Adelle's home and takes a look around — and boy, is it frightening. Not only has she drawn up mock wedding invitations for her and Finn, but she has been obsessively writing about him in her journal. On her calendar, Colter discovers that she has been actively tracking his work schedule, and clearly, this has been her plan for quite some time. She’s even cut Grace out of their wedding photos to put herself in her place. So, when Reenie calls and tells Colter that Adelle isn't who she says she is, we can see what she means. Our favorite rewardist believes that she may have been stalking him for some time, only to intervene the moment she thought he was in danger from Paolo. Finding a luxury home rental brochure, Colter believes that she may have taken him there.

On the other side of town, Finn tries to escape but is caught by Adelle. She recalls their first date and believes that whatever they had was ruined when he went back to Grace. When Adelle slips up and tells Finn that she's been in his house, things get really weird. But she justifies it by saving his life, believing that they can still start over. When he tells her that he can't just leave his wife and child, she threatens to cause an "accident" that will get them out of the way, revealing a gun.

Back in Denver, Tracker makes its very best use of Mel Day (Cassady McClincy Zhang) yet, as she oversteps her employer-employee relationship just a bit to try to convince Reenie to meet up with Mark. Mel tells this whole story about how she used to run track in high school, using it to outrun the grief in her life. For a while, it worked, but then she tore her ACL and everything changed. She was forced to actually deal with how she felt. Of course, Reenie sees right through this and notes her, Randy, and Colter's concern, but believes it's unwarranted. According to Reenie, it's her mother and sister who are the "feelers," and that temperament keeps them from getting things done. On the other hand, she's like her late father, a "doer." As she explains, "Someone's gotta keep the ship running." Of course, Mel pushes just a little more, and Reenie seems to finally budge.

This Week's 'Tracker' Ends With a New Heading For Colter's Investigation Into His Father

Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) with his gun and flashlight in the 'Tracker' episode "Struck"

Meanwhile, Colter arrives at the rental home to find Finn tied to the bed. Unfortunately, Adelle is already on her way to his house to kill Grace and the baby. At her home, the unsuspecting wife answers the door and is deceived by Adelle into thinking that her husband had had an accident. Adelle uses Finn's bloody clothes to "prove" that she's telling the truth, and it works. Everything is so urgent that Grace leaves her phone behind. From Colter's truck, Finn logs into their security camera to see that Adelle has already taken his wife. But hope is not all lost. Colter believes that she would have taken Grace to a place that would mean something significant to her, something that connects her and Finn. With no better lead than the bridge where they were trapped on their first date, Colter and Finn arrive just in time as Adelle marches Grace toward the ledge.

Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) and Randy (Chris Lee) stand together in the 'Tracker' episode

Colter jumps into the line of fire, and Adelle holds Grace firmly at gunpoint. When Finn arrives to try and convince her to leave his wife and unborn child alone, things only change for Adelle when she sees that the police are on their way. Watching the wheels turning in her head as she climbs on top of the bridge, Colter tries to stop her from ending her life. But before he can convince her otherwise, she steps off the platform. Yet, at the very last second, Colter catches her just in time, pulling her up to face justice for her crimes. Elsewhere, Reenie goes to meet Mark, but instead of starting with dinner, she seduces him to bed. However, unlike their last sexual encounter, it appears that she wants things to go further this time around.

The next day, Colter stops by the Helms household on his way out of town, this time bringing gifts. Following in his father's footsteps, he gives them a wood-carved owl for the baby, but ultimately refuses to take their money. "I'm just glad everyone's okay," he says. Leaving their home, Randy calls Colter with more information about the Chronos Stasis Institute. According to his research, about four months before Ashton Shaw was murdered, he and David Pearson were going up to Alaska on some work-related trip. At the same time, the government was using a subcontractor named TIC to lease a large plot of land up in the Great North. "Thanks, Randy, I know what I have to do," Colter says as this week's Tracker comes to a close.

Tracker airs Sundays on CBS and is available the next day for streaming on Paramount+.