Tracker Recap: Justin Hartley’s Colter Shaw Almost Dies After Fan Concerns

Justin Hartley‘s Colter was involved in a near-death experience on Tracker after viewers expressed concerns about the character’s fate.

During the Sunday, November 30, episode of the hit CBS series, Colter met a man desperate to find his daughter after she vanished while working a courier route. Colter was subsequently pulled into a mysterious disappearance connected to a wealthy family.

While digging into the woman’s disappearance, Colter realized that his brakes were tampered with while he was behind the wheel. Colter ended up in a car crash while trying to get the car to slow down, which is when the person responsible attacked him. Colter got the upper hand and subsequently killed the hit man.

The incident comes after Hartley, 48, warned fans that the character could die in the future.

Related: What Tracker’s Justin Hartley Said About Colter’s Mortality: ‘He Will Die’

Since Tracker premiered on CBS, Justin Hartley has taken it upon himself to remind viewers that his character Colter Shaw can — and will — die. Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker centers around a survivalist named Colter who travels the country helping find missing people (or sometimes dogs) and solving cases […]

“It’s important to keep upping the stakes. I like being Colter as a hero, finding people and all that. I also really like seeing him in a suspenseful thriller and a dangerous situation,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in April. “I don’t want our audience to forget that this man is mortal, he’s not a superhero. He can die! The things he is doing are very very dangerous.”

Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker centers around Colter, who travels the country helping to find missing people (or sometimes dogs) and solving cases others couldn’t or wouldn’t. Hartley, who is also an executive producer, hinted at how far the show will push his character.

“I just love that when you watch a show like that and you tune into season 1 and then you tune into the last season, you see the development of the character and you go, ‘Wait a minute, are they playing different roles?’ But then if you watch it throughout the years, you experience those things with the characters,” he previously told TV Insider in September 2024. “As competent and confident as Colter is, I don’t at all think for a second that he doesn’t have a ton to learn, especially about himself and his family and all that.”

Hartley continued: “Going forward, I think that will be how the show lives on a long runway, is that we keep developing this character and he becomes better at what he’s doing. He’s a restless man, and for an audience member, at least shows that I love to watch, you love to see that growth of a character and we have that.”

More recently, executive producer Elwood Reid weighed in on Colter’s fate, telling Us in October, “Some of the danger is in here because he’s not a cop. He is this guy who is poking his nose in places. The network is always like, ‘He can get messed up, he can lose a fight, he can get conked on the head and he can have a gun pointed at him.’ Justin pitched an idea for the season 3 midseason finale where it doesn’t go well for Colter. That’s what makes him fun is he is not a superhero.”

Reid noted that Tracker is always searching for ways to surprise viewers.

“When I watch a lot of these types of shows, the minute the character becomes infallible or perfect then I’m uninterested,” Reid explained. “I like when characters have flaws and make mistakes and are mortal and can be wounded and can screw up.”

He continued: “I’m very conscious of not making Colter too perfect. We are scuffing him up, letting him screw up and letting him do the wrong thing. I think that’s what makes the character fun to write — at least for me.”

Tracker airs on CBS Sundays at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Paramount+.