Everything to Know About Tracker Season 2
As CBS is happy to shout out to the world, Trackerwas the top show of the 2023-2024 season that didn’t involve some sort of football being thrown around (airing after the Super Bowl — the biggest show featuring a football — didn’t hurt). The procedural now has a tough act to follow in Season 2, but CBS has confidence that Tracker will continue its hot streak. Not only is Tracker returning earlier than it did last year, but it will have a lot more episodes this time around.
Starring This Is Us’ Justin Hartley, Tracker follows Colter Shaw, a man who makes a living taking on cases usually involving missing persons, using his innate ability to track down people to work with law enforcement and regular folks in exchange for reward money. The producers call it “an old-fashioned show, but an elevated old-fashioned show,” and it certainly falls under that category, with cases of the week that wrap up at the end of the episode and a hero at the center, but certainly a more complicated hero than we’re used to.
We’re rounding up everything we know about Tracker Season 2, including when it will release, how many episodes it will be, who will be in it, and more.
More on Tracker:
CBS 2024 fall TV show premiere dates and schedule
Tracker Season 2 release date
Tracker will return for Season 2 on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. But the time it airs will depend on where you live. On the East Coast, Tracker will premiere after an NFL doubleheader around 8:30 p.m., and on the West Coast, it will air at 8 p.m. The late fall premiere is unusual for CBS, but it looks like the network is leveraging its NFL broadcasts to boost awareness; CBS is using most of October to premiere its big scripted series, so expect NFL games broadcast on CBS to be packed with promos. It will be followed on Sunday nights by a new season of The Equalizer.
Last season, Tracker aired on Sundays at 9/8c. Season 1 premiered after the Super Bowl in 2024 and became the most-watched scripted program on television en route to being the No. 1 new show of the season.
How many episodes will Tracker Season 2 be?
After just 13 episodes in Season 1 — Tracker was a midseason show — a proper fall launch means that we’ll be getting a lot more Tracker in Season 2. At the Television Critics Association press tour in July, executive producer Ken Olin confirmed that Season 2 will have 22 episodes.
Is Tracker based on a book?
The drama series is based on The Never Game, the first book in a series by Jeffery Deaver. (The TV series was originally titled The Never Game.) The Never Game was published in 2019 and is the first in a series of four books centered on Colter Shaw. The other three books are The Goodbye Man (2020), The Final Twist (2021), and Hunting Time (2022).
What will Season 2 of Tracker be about?
Obviously Colter will be criss-crossing North America working with cops and private citizens to solve cases that no one else can. But as for the ongoing drama about Colter’s family, that will continue to develop.
“Colter, he came from a dysfunctional family,” executive producer Elwood Reid said at the Television Critics Association press tour in July. “And if you’ve ever come from a dysfunctional family, you know nobody has any information that’s correct, everybody has their own different reality. And so I think one of the things that’s interesting about that and unpeeling that is just the different perspectives they have on the way they grew up and what happened to their family, what particularly happened to the father. But Colter, we’re going to learn, was the guy that really bore the brunt of that family dysfunction. And we’re going to get into that more this season when we unpeel some more stuff with his sister. And of course, we have a little secret that we planted in Episode 13 last year that we’ve learned that his sister is in possession of some information that may shed some light on family affairs.”
But you can also expect more expanded storytelling for some of the other characters. “Our story is pivoting a little bit,” Reid said. “We’re going to — and I don’t want to give too much away in the first episode — but you’re going to see Velma [played by Abby McEnany] is taking on a very interesting role with something that was hinted at with Reenie’s [played by Fiona Rene] character in the final couple episodes. And so we’re going to sort of go in a different direction, and she’s going to still be sort of like front and center with helping him find cases, but we’re also going to get the two women together in an interesting office space as Reenie goes out and tries to open her own business.”
Tracker Season 2 trailer
There’s no trailer out yet for Tracker Season 2, but when one is available, you will be able to watch it right here.
Who will be in Tracker Season 2?
The big question: WILL JENSEN ACKLES BE BACK? Yes, he will. At the Television Critics Association press tour in July, executive producer Elwood Reid confirmed that Jensen Ackles, who plays Colter’s older brother Russell, is returning to Tracker for multiple episodes, but he wouldn’t say how many. “We got him,” Hartley said. “He’s coming back. So we’re having fun with that. It’s going to be great. It’s a great story, too.”
In a May interview with Deadline, Hartley teased that Sofia Pernas (his real-life wife) is “definitely coming back” in Season 2 as fellow reward seeker Billie Matalon. He also suggested that the show would be “remiss” not to bring back Jennifer Morrison, who appeared in the Season 1 finale as Lizzy, an old family friend.
Hartley added that there are plans for all of Colter’s family to return, including his mother, Mary Dove Shaw, played by Wendy Crewson. “We have a lot of questions to answer with Colter’s mother,” Hartley said.
As for everyone else, expect the regular crew to return for Season 2.
Tracker main cast:
Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw
Robin Weigert as Teddi Bruin
Abby McEnany as Velma Bruin
Eric Graise as Bob Exley
Fiona Rene as Reenie Greene
Where can I watch Tracker?
Tracker airs on CBS and can be streamed on Paramount+
