‘Tracker’: Justin Hartley Talks ‘Heartache’ of Gina Case, Teases Family Mystery ‘Gets Real’

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Tracker Season 2 Episode 9 “The Disciple.”]

Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) has solve his white whale of a case: With the Tracker midseason premiere, he’s found what happened to Gina Picket after a decade of looking for her.

Unfortunately, there’s no happy ending here: Gina is dead. But the man responsible, the Teacher (Nicholas Lea), who manipulated others (off the sex offender registry), including Frank Whales (Ryan Dorsey), has been caught. And Gina’s sister Camille (Floriana Lima) has the opportunity to truly lay her sister to rest.

Below, Hartley unpacks the midseason premiere, teases what’s ahead with the mystery about his father’s death — will Jensen Ackles and Melissa Roxburgh return as Colter’s siblings? — and more.

The Gina Picket case has been solved, but how is Colter feeling now that he finally has that closure? It’s been so long.

Justin Hartley: Yeah, it’s an interesting feeling. I would describe it as relief, instant relief, also just heartache and sorrow because of the way he found her. He found her, but he didn’t find her alive, so that’s not good. There’s closure, so he’s able to give the family closure, which is something that is, again, relief. And then also, in a weird way, he’s carried this with him for 10 years. It’s been part of his life, part of the fabric of his purpose. This is his origin story in a way, and now it’s gone. And so we’ll probably visit a little bit of this — it’s a little Stockholm-y. You’ve had this thing in your life for 10 years, and now you don’t have it anymore, good or bad. So there’s a hole there. So it’s relief, and at the same time, kind of like what? I don’t wake up haunted anymore by this thing. So now what?

Darko Sikman / CBS

It didn’t seem likely that Gina would still be alive after all this time, but was that ever considered?

Not to my knowledge. It was never talked about in front of me, but probably they kind of work everything out. I’m sure every scenario was visited, if not for a moment, but I don’t know how that would’ve looked really. Although I will tell you, later on in the season, there’s something that happens in one of the episodes and the way the original story was written, and I had a bunch of meetings with the writers and stuff, I just thought it should have gone another way based on where Colter came from with this Gina Picket thing. And I think it’s cool when we harken back to other jobs; in terms of what he’s going through with the current job that we talk about to these other jobs that the audience has seen and he pulls from those things and learns from the past and uses those sort of things that he learned, those aha moments to just sort of help with the current job that he’s on. So it’s over in terms of figuring out where she is. But I think the things that he had in terms of the will to want to find her and being haunted by it every day and never not looking, just almost looking like a psychotic, and people are like, what are you? He is, it is just not the way I’m wired. I am going to look forever, forever until I have an answer. And that certainly that fight isn’t gone in him.

Could Colter and Camille ever have worked out given the Gina of it? It feels like once it became more like a trauma bond, there was no future.

Exactly. I think you’re right. Or at least you have to step away for a bit and redefine it and almost treat it like a brand-new relationship, which I don’t even know is possible. I don’t know if that’s possible. That’s a lot of — I mean, I can’t even imagine that that’s a lot of trauma. And thank God it turned out the way it turned out, except for the fact that he found her dead. Thank God they have closure at least. I guess that’s the least you can ask for. And even if he did find her alive, who knows what state of mind she’d be in, right? I mean, so yeah. That’s a tough one, isn’t it? I mean, how do you rebuild that?

So one mystery is solved, but there’s still the matter of his father’s death. What can you say about what’s coming up there? Are we going to see Jensen or Melissa again this season?

Yeah, I think hopefully so. Yeah, that’s the big thing, right? I don’t like the idea of wrapping things up in a pretty little bow just for the sake of the fact that it’s the final episode of the season, and so we write to the plot so that everyone’s like, oh, great, everything’s perfect and fine, and we can go and make a third season. I don’t really like that idea. I’m not really interested in that. I’m more interested in propelling the story in a way that makes sense, and if it ends up being four episodes or 44 episodes or 144 episodes to tell the most compelling story, then that’s what it is. Not just trying to get more episodes in the bag or trying to finish a story in time. I think there’s a beautiful way to tell a story in sort of the best way, and I think that’s what we should do. And all the writers are on board with that, too, everyone wants to do that.

So we’ll definitely dive back into that this season, and we’ll figure out a lot more and he’ll get more leads. But sometimes when you get more leads and find out more information, it just unravels more s**t. And sometimes that’s more interesting. And the way in which he died and the mystery behind it and what he was involved with and who he was involved in it with being the government and all that kind of stuff. There are so many threats to this that he’s following, and it is almost like he almost needs a wall to write things down, almost needs like a Dexter wall. You know what I mean? And maybe he will have that, but it certainly unravels here towards the end of the season.

Sergei Bachlakov / CBS

Colter and Russell’s relationship is in a much better place than it was, at least at the start of the series.

Oh, yeah.

But how is he feeling about his brother? Because how much does he trust him? There’s still the matter of what Russell does…

Colter is very skeptical just by nature. And part of it is his job, part of it is upbringing, all the lessons that his dad taught him. I mean, he hung out with this guy who became more increasingly paranoid and nuts more and more, and that can rub off on you. I mean, if you hang out with crazy, you’re going to get a little crazy on you. That’s just the way it works. So you try not to hang out with crazy. But then as he is growing older, he’s realizing, oh, snap. Maybe my dad wasn’t so crazy. Maybe he was onto something. And so that’s where it starts to unravel. And then there’s a sense of responsibility that comes at that, too. If you start to treat things like an eye roll and you just ignore it, and then all of a sudden a year later you realize, oh no, those were cries for help. I shouldn’t have been rolling my eyes. There’s sort of a sense of responsibility and a sense of, I don’t know, the shame that comes along with that, I guess.

What would you say Colter and Russell’s relationship is the next time they see each other?

I think at this point it’s trying to get up to speed and make sure that everyone’s up to speed, and that I have all the information that he has and that it jives. If he has some information about something and I have different information and different facts about the same exact subject, then it’s a meeting of the minds and going, okay, so what’s the truth here? What actually happened? Were we both being lied to, or was I being lied to? Were you in on the lie? What are you protecting me from? Because Colter’s not lying. The audience knows what Colter knows, but the question is, if the siblings know more than he does, why? What’s the point of protecting him? Why was he the one that — what are they protecting him from? And are they talking to each other or are we all just kind of in the dark here and Colter is the one that is pursuing this, and everyone else is like, well, just let it go. Who cares? It’s dangerous. It’s not worth it. Nothing can change the past, but that’s just not the way that Colter operates. So he’s sort of got different blood flowing through his veins, I think.

Are there definitive returns for Jensen and Melissa?

We’re writing for them, yeah.

It’s always great when Sofia Pernas (Hartley’s wife) shows up — the Colter and Billie relationship just has so many layers, and it’s also just fun to see how she approaches the job. Will she be back this season?

Yeah, she just finished actually last week, I think. And yeah, no, something really big happens between them. He calls on a favor. She doesn’t remember owing him any favors, so he has to remind her. And then she comes in and delivers and she does exactly what he asked for. And then by the end, he realizes that maybe he asked for too much. And they have this really great moment that is just honest and pure and raw, and you find out a little bit more about their relationship and not necessarily what exactly happened, but that something big happened and that it was sort of unfortunate and now, are they going to rebuild? There’s a lot of feelings there and a lot of emotion there. And you see it in this episode, and I think it’s 215, I believe.

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Tracker has such great casting. Are there any other guest stars coming up? Anyone from This Is Us or any other kind of reunion for you?

Yeah, we’ll have some more. And you know what? It’s so funny when you’re in this business for as long as I’ve been in it, and I didn’t realize it until Tracker, really? I’m like, s**t, I’ve been around. You develop all these relationships and you can call on friends who otherwise wouldn’t do these things. And you get all these really wonderful people that come on. You’ll see some really familiar faces, some really big TV name, familiar faces come on and just do stellar work on our show. It elevates the show. I just think it’s wonderful that we’re able to do that.

Colter and Reenie (Fiona Rene) relationship’s is so interesting. How would you describe it and the possibility there?

I think they developed this really good trust between the two of them. I think there are very few people that Colter trusts and she’s one of them. And you don’t see that a lot on TV where there’s just this platonic friendship that’s a really good friendship. It’s not driven by will they or won’t they, which I just think it’s more of just a mutual respect and a true friendship. It’s something that grew from kind of a one-night stand years and years and years ago. So it’s really interesting how their relationship has evolved.

What else can you tease about what’s coming up?

The family thing gets real. We have a lot of action in the back part of the season. There’s a really cool — and Sofia involved in it, my wife’s involved in it — episode coming up where we dive into this, I guess, sort of world that we haven’t seen on our show, and you really haven’t seen much of it on TV, if ever, maybe you have. But we dive into this really interesting world. And then I just love the fact that our locations end up being the star of the show. I love that. Wherever he is, he’s fully immersed in a culture. And because it’s a really big country, so you go to northeast and you go southwest and it’s like almost two different countries. So I just love that he’s traveling all over the place and we got a lot more action.

We have a couple episodes coming up where the person that’s missing, there’s a ticking clock. A clock is ticking, big time. I mean, we don’t have a day or two or it’s like, right now. That I really love. And then just some interesting, really psychotic characters that come on. Also have unsuspecting “bad guys” that you’d be like, wait, who this person, what the hell went on here? But it’s all related to childhood, probably childhood trauma. But I think our show gets better. I would say our show’s in a better place now than it was when we started the season, to be honest with you.

Tracker, Sundays, 8/7c, CBS