Season 3 of Tracker came to an end — but was there another surprise cast exit?
During the Sunday, May 24, finale, Colter (Justin Hartley) and Russell (Jensen Ackles) dug into their father’s past. The episode ended with Russell agreeing to work a suspicious — and questionable — job in exchange for nothing about his dad coming to light. He had a call with Reenie (Fiona Rene) where he hinted he would be gone for a while, which he didn’t disclose to Colter.
The season ended on a hopeful note after previously weathering several changes. CBS’ hit series, which premiered in February 2024, introduced fictional survivalist Colter as he travels the country to help solve various missing persons cases. The ensemble cast grew with characters such as handlers Teddi (Robin Weigert) and Velma (Abby McEnany), hacker Bobby (Eric Graise) and attorney Reenie.
Weigert’s character was written off and McEnany and Graise soon followed.
Justin Hartley’s Tracker is easily CBS’ biggest hit show — so why has it gone through three cast shakeups in just two seasons? When Tracker premiered in 2024, it introduced Us to survivalist Colter Shaw (Hartley) as he travels the country to help find missing people, track down information on criminal cases and more. The […]
“I do think it’s evolving. If I can’t evolve those characters — Randy or Reenie or Bobby — they’re not just people that just pick up the phone and go, ‘OK, here is the answer.’ That’s when the show is phoning it in,” executive producer Elwood Reid exclusively told Us Weekly in May 2025. “The challenge is when you got to learn about them, which I thought was interesting. That’s the challenge of the show is not having it fall into a formula.”
Reid noted that they didn’t want Tracker to “fall into complacency.”
“The only rule I really have of the show is each week Colter is going to come to a new place and there’s going to be a new case. How he gets those answers and what he uses on the team, that’s all something that’s up for grabs,” Reid teased. “Meeting these [local] weird characters is something we’re going to try to do more of as the season goes on. Just Colter coming in and interacting with other characters. That’s fun to see Justin flex those muscles with really good guest cast members.”
More recently, Reid weighed in on the onscreen changes. “What we’re realizing is there are characters that come on that if it worked, we’d bring them back,” he told Us in December 2025. “I do think the show can’t always do that. But when it does do that, it makes the world feel a little bit more connected.”
Reid noted there was only one constant on the show: Hartley’s fan-favorite character.
“The audience leans in because they’ve seen that character before. But I think they’re still thinking the central DNA of the show is Colter. With this guy, what makes him appealing is he is a mystery to himself,” he added. “He’s a mystery to the audience. We see him and his off time putting together some pieces of his past.”
He concluded: “I don’t know if we’ll ever put it all together, but he’s going to struggle to continue to do that. That’s just as far as we have thought. The biggest improvement we made this year — in my opinion — was getting people in the same room. Just that connectivity, I do think the audience is enjoying seeing their characters in the same place physically.”
Tracker is streaming on Paramount+.
