Will Jensen Ackles & Melissa Roxburgh Return in ‘Tracker’ Season 2? Justin Hartley Teases Plan

Now that Colter (Justin Hartley) has solved his white whale of a case — the disappearance of Gina Picket a decade ago —there’s still another ongoing mystery for him to tackle in Tracker Season 2: that of his family.

The series began with Colter thinking that his brother Russell (Jensen Ackles) may have had something to do with their father’s death. But, as Colter instead learned from Russell, someone else was there that night in the woods. In fact, their mother had secrets, too, because he’d seen the same man who was there that night talking to her before. Their mother then told Russell it would be best if he left and kept quiet about what happened after their father’s death. Their sister, Dory (Melissa Roxburgh), has secrets, too, such as the box of their father’s stuff she hadn’t told either of them about.

In Ackles’ Season 2 return, he helped Colter out with a case and in the process, learned a bit more about their father. “You have a long family history of getting in the government’s way,” the man who previously held Colter in some sort of government facility when the rewardist was looking for a missing man, told Russell. “What, you don’t think I know who you are?”

With so much still unanswered, returns from Ackles and Roxburgh are needed. “Hopefully” we’ll see them again this season, Hartley told TV Insider. “We’re writing for them.”

Roxburgh did tell us she hopes to return as well while discussing her new show, The Hunting Party. “I think that’d be super fun,” she shared. “I’d love to go back and play.”

Sergei Bachlakov / CBS

Hartley promised that the show would be diving back into the family mystery as Season 2 continues and it “gets real.”

“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,'” he admitted. “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 that’s what we should do. And all the writers are on board with that, too, everyone wants to do that.”

Hartley continued, “We’ll figure out a lot more, and [Colter will] 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. 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 threads 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. It certainly unravels here towards the end of the season.”

He agreed that Colter and Russell’s relationship in such a better place than it was at the start of the series. That being said, there are mysteries about Russell and there’s the matter of his off-the-books type of work.

“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. He hung out with this guy who became more increasingly paranoid, and that can rub off on you,” Hartley noted. “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. There’s a sense of responsibility that comes with 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, shame that comes along with that.”

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Justin Hartley Teases What's Ahead in Family Mystery on 'Tracker'

So looking ahead to what Colter and Russell’s relationship will be like the next time they cross paths, “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,” says Hartley. “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? Are they talking to each other or are we all just kind of in the dark here? 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.”

What are you hoping to see from the Shaw family mystery this season? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tracker, Sundays, 8/7c, CBS