Tracker’s penultimate episode, Season 11, Episode 21, titled “Chrono Stasis,” saw a guest appearance from the fandom’s favorite Shaw brother, Russell Shaw, played by Jensen Ackles.
And his return was key in finally bringing clarity to the mysterious case of their father’s work with DARPA.
After Colter Shawn (Justin Hartley) got more insight about his father’s time in Alaska, running a covert project that ended in some kind of accident that no one wanted to talk about, he called Russell to help him track down a woman, Serena Jukic, who used to work with Ashton Shaw.
Russell didn’t give him a call, but he showed up—grilling meats, no less—which is all that matters. And they were both committed to finally getting to the bottom of what happened with their father, including the mysterious work he was doing and the events leading up to his death. This has been the central, overarching mystery for nearly three seasons of Tracker, so it’s exciting that there’s finally momentum, though, admittedly, it was a little too easy to seek out all these answers.
I’m usually willing to suspend disbelief, but for a government experiment that essentially went off the grid, Russell and Colter barely broke a sweat trying to figure anything out.
Their first stop was in Echo Ridge to visit their mother, which made for an emotional heart-to-heart between her and Colter, where she was finally honest about what Ashton was going through, admitting that everything she did was to protect her children. She noted that his research changed him; he was losing grip on reality, and when she wanted to run away with the kids, he wouldn’t let her leave, essentially forcing her hand.
Their next stop was to Serena Jukic, whom Russell tracked down, as she lived off-the-grid, forever changed by the experiment that she was involved in.
And finally, we got insight into that mysterious project, which, honestly, was giving Stranger Things, X-Files, and putting the brothers back on the road to track down the supernatural… we’ve seen this story before.
While they used a lot of big phrases, in layman’s terms, the chrono stasis project was essentially a government experiment on highly intellectual children, “stretching the limits of their capabilities,” to later weaponize it.
While it first started with experiments on adults, it later began to involve children as test subjects, which is where Ashton drew the line, with an accident, the death of one of the children, sending him over the edge. The government revealed that it was due to a heart defect unrelated to testing; however, Ashton didn’t believe it, so he tried to shut the program down. As a result, they doxxed him in an attempt to discredit him. Serena admitted that she was young and ambitious, so she brushed off Ashton’s warnings and continued with the project in a different location.
Eventually, she realized the truth when she tried to protect a test subject, a young boy named Danny, who was extremely gifted and allegedly an orphan, which she soon found out wasn’t true during one of his remote viewing sessions, where he saw his mother in the kitchen. Serena went to confirm his vision, with some digging revealing that the government caused a car accident to stage his death, killing his father, and essentially kidnapping the boy to tap into his high IQ and unique abilities.
Much like Ashton, Serena was kicked off the project, though she never forgot about Danny, wondering if he was still alive after they started applying his skills to real-life DOD applications.
“Chrono Stasis” – Colter and Russell unite in a personal mission to uncover their father’s mysterious work, on the CBS Original series TRACKER, Sunday, May 17 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+. Pictured: Jensen Ackles as Russell Shaw. Photo: Darko Sikman/CBS ©2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Colter’s so great at getting in over his head, so he promises that he and Russell will try to track down Danny, despite it being very obvious that the government doesn’t want anyone messing with this project. The fact that Serena is lying low, yet they are still running surveillance on her, tells you everything you need to know about the dangers that come with looking into this project.
But that’s never stopped Colter or Russell. Those two welcome the danger, as Colter tells his brother that this is what their dad would want. In a way, they are sort of carrying out his life’s work.
Russell connects with a former government buddy who essentially tells him to keep his nose out of it if he doesn’t want to end up dead, while Colter gets intel from Randy about where the now private military contract company may be operating out of. As I said, for a program that’s not supposed to exist, with the government trying to keep its hands clean of it, finding the location tied to a pharmaceutical company called Dorix Logics was just a smidge too easy.
But here we are—with Russell and Colter breaking into Dorix in their attempt to locate Danny nearly two-decades later. It’s an ambitious plot, so they’re lucky that we’ll follow Colter and Russell literally anywhere.
Before their break-in, Russell acknowledges that the kind of level of testing, where the kids are used for combat, and pumped with all kinds of drugs and shock therapy, likely means that the now 23-year-old is very broken and messed up. After all, this has been his entire life—it’s all he’s known, and he knows exactly what they are capable of if he doesn’t comply.
Colter doesn’t really believe that these remote viewing abilities are possible, but Russell, who was also in the military, shares a story about seeing it firsthand in Yemen. Though, as he points out, it doesn’t matter if Colter believes in it, because someone does, and there’s a whole secret government program as a result of it, where innocent children are being exploited.
Once inside, Russell gets caught, though he’s not sweating it, as usual, with his calm demeanor bringing a little levity to an otherwise intense storyline. Meanwhile, Colter’s able to locate Danny with ease, though the part where he tries to save him doesn’t exactly pan out in the way he’d hoped.
“I will keep you safe,” Colter promises Danny, who tells him, “You don’t understand, I can’t leave,” before pressing an emergency button hanging around his chest that will have the place swarmed with armed guards in minutes.
It’s honestly not a great situation for Colter to be caught up in, but if I know anything about the Shaw brothers, well, these two always have a backup plan.
“To be continued” pops up on the screen, leaving audiences hanging until the second part of the story in the season finale airing Sunday, May 24. Will Colter and Russell escape unscathed? Will they be able to free Danny?
Will they be able to avenge their father’s death?
What do you think of how the mystery is shaking out? Are you intrigued by the redacted government work Ashton was a part of, or does it feel too far-fetched?