How ‘Tracker’ — and Melissa Roxburgh’s Dory — Just Set Up Jensen Ackles’ Introduction as Russell

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Tracker Season 1 Episode 11 “Beyond the Campus Walls.”]

It only takes until the end of the latest Tracker episode, but Colter (Justin Hartley) does sit down for dinner with his sister, Dory (Melissa Roxburgh).

It had been a year without a phone call when the two reunited (he doesn’t call her back), and he showed her the file he got about their father—which includes something they hadn’t known: Their father was employed by the government for years. As Dory sees it, their mother was just as crazy as their late father, and she’s more than happy to leave that all in the past. She remarks that their brother Russell (Jensen Ackles, guest starring in the May 12 episode) says Colter’s ducking his calls (yes, they keep in touch) and tries to encourage him to talk to him. Though he doesn’t commit to dinner at the time, he does sit down for a meal with her at the end of the episode.

Dory suggests that Colter doesn’t stop by more because part of him resents her for leaving to live with their aunt and uncle while he stayed. Their mother needed him, he insists. Their father had died, Russell was gone, and she didn’t have anyone. While Dory argues that their mother wasn’t a fragile woman who got dragged along against her will and rather went along with every wild idea of their father’s, like living off the grid, Colter doesn’t see it that way. She’s moved on, and she was hoping that by talking, he could, too.

She wants her brothers back, she explains, and as she sees it, whatever their mother told him is either a complete lie or a BS story to keep him around. “What happened happened, but I’m not going to let it have power over me. And mom, that’s all she has, is the past and that’s why she holds it over us because she can’t let it go. She has this image of who dad was, and sure, that’s a version of the events, but that is not what happened,” says Dory.

“I want to know what everyone else wants to know. I want to know what happened,” Roxburgh tells TV Insider.

That dinner scene was the first one she filmed. “It was kind of nice to have that be the first scene. It was a lot of proper conversation,” she recalls. “I think she has a lot of question marks herself around what happened, but I think that she knows that if they keep going down that path as a family, then it’ll just move them further and further apart.”

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Furthermore, she continues, “I think there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to know the truth. She just wants everyone back together and she wants a family. But knowing that Colter doesn’t share that or isn’t ready to talk about it with her in the way that she wants, it’s hard. I think you just see two siblings who have gone through so much together and been raised a certain way, figuring out how to bring that into adult life.”

Dory also encourages Colter to call Russell, and he does seem to be considering it as the episode ends. According to Roxburgh, Dory does think her brother will.

“I think that she knows she’s the voice of reason in their lives to both brothers,” she says. “Russell clearly listens to her a little bit more, and I think she thinks Colter will eventually as well.” And she’d be game to be part of that conversation as a mediator, “so long as it brings them together and not further apart.”

Well, it seems like Colter will likely have his sister’s words in mind when he reunites with Russell shortly, after the latter enlists his help to track down a former army buddy who’s gone missing after several weeks of paranoid behavior.

What did you think of Dory? Who do you think is right about their mother, Colter or Dory? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Tracker, Sundays, 9/8c, CBS