‘Tracker’: Could Colter & Billie Have a Future? Sofia Pernas Weighs In

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Tracker Season 1 Episode 6 “Lexington.”]

Colter (Justin Hartley) crosses paths with his match, Billie (Sofia Pernas, also Hartley’s wife) in the latest Tracker, and sparks definitely fly—but it’s not just a complicated past that’s holding them back.

In “Lexington,” the two reward seekers team up to find a racehorse and, after a lot of danger, a little danger, and a near-kiss, once again part ways. But they do so with hints about their future. After all, he admits it was fun working with her and ultimately wouldn’t have double-crossed her. She claims she was thinking about it, then takes a raincheck on grabbing dinner with him because she says she’s late for a job.

But why’d she really turn down that dinner? TV Insider spoke with Pernas about that and more.

Talk about filming that scene with the fire.

Sofia Pernas: Oh, that was so fun. That was so, so cool. Obviously our stunt doubles did all the hard work and made it look really, really easy, but it’s cool to see characters like that in life-threatening situations and then watch what that tension does when you think that you might die, watch how that tension feeds into the next scene because you gotta play the fact that you just ran from a burning barn and you didn’t think that you would survive. Of course, Colter, with his observational skills and the way he knows structure and the way things work—whereas Billie’s probably not spent a lot of time in a barn or around barns—is able to go, “Oh, no, there’s probably a loft hatch that we can jump out of.” And in that moment, we have to trust each other because we either trust each other or we die. And those sort of moments forged out of trauma or, like I said, life-threatening situations is what I find so interesting in how characters move forward in their relationship in the show.

Speaking of, after that is a near-kiss, and of course, it’s interrupted.

Yes, of course.

Ed Araquel/CBS

And then they talk about the dinner that could happen in the future. Given the nature of what they do, is a relationship that works out possible for these two?

I don’t think so because one has to concede the upper ground. I don’t think she’s ready to give up what she’s doing and he’s not ready to give up what he’s doing. I think that might’ve been what happened in the past, that she might’ve given him the idea that she might for love or for [something else], and then all of a sudden, she got cold feet and sort of backed out of it, and that’s where the betrayal comes from. But I think they’re not ready to give up what they’re doing yet to settle down and do the thing. I played it like it made her sad. I think that makes her really sad because she sees this glimmer, this glimmer of opportunity where she’s like, “You know, maybe,” and she’s like, “Nah, what am I going to do? Just give it all up? I’ve worked towards all of this, and I don’t know if I can trust him.” I don’t know, there’s all this uncertainty. So yeah, it’s just a not now sort of thing—and maybe not ever.

So did she not actually have a job and just asked for a raincheck because she wasn’t ready to go to that dinner and see what it could lead to?

Oh, 100 percent. We don’t know if she really had a job or she was just being glib to get what she wanted in the moment. But I think both are very viable. I like to think that she does have a job because I think she’s a successful reward seeker, but at the same time, maybe the tight timeline that she was suggesting was not as tight. So yeah, I agree.

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What are the chances of seeing you again, whether it’s this season or, since we already know there will be a second, which is so great, next?

Yeah, I think she will definitely be making an appearance in the second season. And I can’t wait. It’s been so fun, and I love this character that they’ve made. She’s so strong and so vulnerable, and I love playing females that convey both sides of that coin because we have strength, but in that strength, there are little peep holes of, “Oh, I’m feeling something, and it’s okay if I feel it.” And I love putting that on the screen.

Do you think Billie really would have double-crossed Colter?

I don’t think so. I think she would’ve thought about it because it’s that thing that protects her from being hurt. She’d rather leave than be the one that’s left. If she thought he might double-cross her to get back at her for the past, then she might do it first. But I don’t think she would’ve had it in her to do it twice to him, because I think doing something like that twice to Colter means that door is shut forever because he’s never going to let her back in or trust her ever again. And I think inherently, intuitively she knew that.

Tracker, Sundays, 9/8c, CBS