Any hour that has Colter face-to-face with his closest allies will almost always be a top-tier hour.
And when that ally is Randy? Well, then you know you’re absolutely in for a treat.
Bringing in Reenie for more in-person scenes with Colter, which have been scarce this season, made this one of my favorite Tracker episodes.
I’ve never been shy about my deep appreciation for the supporting cast in the series over the years and how often they are underutilized.
Yes, this is The Colter Shaw show, and it should remain that way. But the other characters are talented and have great chemistry with Colter, yet there are times we barely see them except for the occasions they’re on the other end of the phone line.
It’s unrealistic for Randy’s friends to disappear every week, but ensuring he has a personal stake in a case each season is working well.
Therefore, any opportunity to team up Colter and Randy should be taken.
Tracker Season 2 Episode 16 took Colter and Randy to Minnesota as they searched for Randy’s best friend, Simon, who had gone missing. Randy admitted he hadn’t been the best friend lately, which added personal stakes to their search.
Life is always going to life, and there are times when you don’t respond to that text or forget to return that call. While it doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad friend, the guilt can still settle in.
Because Randy uses his skills for good, it’s easy to forget that a lot of what he does is illegal.
Similarly, part of the reason Colter is so good at what he does is that he has someone like Randy — and Bobby before him — who let him cut many corners.
As for Simon, he seemed like a noble hacker, or at least someone trying to use his skills for good. But even so, he got caught up, and he was paying that price with the house arrest sentencing.
Initially, the plot felt like the movie Disturbia: troublemaker on house arrest spies on neighbors, gets bored, and sees something dangerous.
Unlike in that movie, which was made nearly twenty years ago and showed no drones, here Simon had a trusty drone flying around to help him pass the time. And he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see.
Once Colter and Randy started their investigation, the number one thing to find out was how the hell Simon was missing and yet his ankle monitor hadn’t been tipped off. Once they found that out, they started to put some things together.
There was a lot of animosity between Randy and Bill, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the two of them trying to one-up each other, all while standing in this warehouse full of illegal gadgets with Colter Shaw looking on like he could not be bothered with the posturing.
It was obvious that Simon staged his escape, but why?
The drone footage showing a woman being forcibly yanked out of the back of a truck spurred Simon to do something after his plea to the police went nowhere.
On the surface, I could understand why he’d want to do something because he knows what he saw, but did he show the drone footage to the police? Wasn’t there any other way to do something than to barge into this home and potentially put himself and the woman in even greater danger?
When Colter and Randy got to the house, I had a feeling there was going to be a twist, especially when Randy got out of the car after Colter told him to sit tight.
Following the events of Tracker Season 2 Episode 14, it marks yet another week when someone did not listen to Colter and did not sit tight, thus getting themselves into a situation that Colter had to get them out of.
I love Randy, but he had no business entering a stranger’s home like that, given the gravitas of the situation. He may have seemed like just an overly involved neighbor, but never willingly put yourself into a space where someone else has the upper hand.
He’s worked with Colter long enough to know better!
The neighbor was, of course, not to be trusted, and he was perfectly willing to set Randy up to die if Colter had stopped his plans.
The neighbor recounted his role in the whole ordeal like he was so far-removed from everything, and NOT part of a seriously dangerous kidnapping ordeal. But his retelling started to paint the picture of what was really at play here.
I found it odd how heavy the neighbor was going in on Bruna, because he was framing her as the bad guy at times. It just felt like an interesting perspective to take, but it planted a seed of doubt in my head that only blossomed when we then met up with Simon and Bruna.
From the second Bruna woke up in that apartment and refused medical care, you could tell something was amiss. She’d just survived a kidnapping, and instead of immediately caring for herself and trying to bring those men to justice, she couldn’t be bothered with that.
Poor Simon. This hour was like a PSA about minding your own business, but he saw something, said something, and when nothing happened, he tried his best to help. He obviously didn’t know he was stepping into something far more complex than he realized.
Some weeks, Tracker will do something that genuinely shocks me, and Bruna shooting Bill dead in the middle of that apartment was one of those moments!
One of my least favorite things is when some innocent person gets caught up in these cases and pays for helping out with their life. Bill may have been running a highly illegal operation out of that warehouse with the fake dogs, but he came when Simon called because he wanted to help.
He didn’t deserve to meet that fate because of it.
Kidnapping Bruna was a massive mistake. After regaining consciousness in the apartment, her main goal became killing her husband, not escaping or seeking justice.
Nothing else mattered, and that’s why she shot Bill, seeing him as a roadblock to getting what she wanted.
If there was a weak spot in this one, it was the end of the hour, which felt a little rushed. The shootout between Bruna and Leon was very anticlimactic, and Colter swooping in to shoot Leon dead in his tracks felt like overkill.
Colter is such a trained shooter; couldn’t he have shot him in the arm and then knocked him out or something until the police arrived?
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I now notice each time Colter adds to his body count and consider how it might have been avoided. It seemed possible that both husband and wife could have been captured and faced justice instead.
I know that Tracker is not in the business of dealing with the fallout of these cases too much, namely because they don’t have enough time, but man, Bill was killed right in front of Simon a few hours prior, and Simon and Randy were yucking it up like it was any other day.
I’m not saying we needed to see the two of them sulking on the couch when there was reason to be happy that Simon was okay, but a little nod to Bill would have been nice! Because again, the man did not deserve to die!
A major pro to this case was that Reenie also made the trip to Minnesota, and even if it was far too quickly, we finally got a Colter and Reenie conversation in the flesh. And it was lovely.
Colter’s never been one to beat around the bush, and him just asking her whether she was okay, and seeing how she couldn’t even answer at first, felt like the realist Reenie has been with anyone all season.
Yes, she followed it up with the tried and true, “I’m fine”, but I have a hard time believing that Colter Shaw, someone who reads people all day long, didn’t see right through that response and decided not to push in that moment.
Yes, we can often be fooled by the people closest to us when they hide their feelings, because we want so desperately to believe they’re telling the truth and that they truly are fine, but I think Colter knew in that moment that he wasn’t going to get more out of her.
So instead, he simply asked her to spend time with him, maybe hoping she would open up to him rather than him feeling he had to back her into a corner.
I’ll eat my words if later we discover that Colter believed her wholeheartedly, but I think he knows her well enough by now to know that something’s not right. And he’s hopeful that she’ll come to him when she’s ready.
Tracker Notes
- Maybe I missed it, but where did Bruna get that gun she killed Bill with? Was it Simon’s?
- I liked the conversation between Colter and Randy about Reenie because it came from a place of pure concern and love.
- There are times when a case is so twisted and sad that I think to myself, “There’s no way Colter will take these people’s money!” But then he does. I didn’t even think money was on the table for this one, but I’m glad Colter turned it down. Randy is like family at this point!
This wasn’t the perfect hour, but it was very good and further emphasizes why teaming up the cast in person should always be a priority and something we need more of every season.
You will never lose when you get the whole band together.
Let me know your thoughts about this one below!
You can watch Tracker on Sundays at 9/8c on CBS.
-
Dark Winds Season 4 Finale Brings On The Intensity and Horror For Its Darkest Hour Yet
Dark Winds Season 4 Episode 8 front-loads the action and delivers emotional sucker punches during the second half.
-
Tracker Season 3 Episode 15 Reminds Us Why Colter and Randy Team-Ups Always Hit the Mark
Colter and Randy team up when one of Randy’s best friends goes missing while on house arrest during Tracker Season 3 Episode 15. Our review!
-
American Classic Season 1 Episode 7 Review: We Happy Few
On American Classic Season 1 Episode 7 “Camelot,” the show goes on with heart and subtle larceny… until it doesn’t. We review that big twist!
The post Tracker Season 3 Episode 15 Reminds Us Why Colter and Randy Team-Ups Always Hit the Mark appeared first on TV Fanatic.