Justin Hartley’s Tracker is easily CBS’ biggest hit show — so why has it gone through three cast shakeups in just two seasons?
When Tracker premiered in 2024, it introduced Us to survivalist Colter Shaw (Hartley) as he travels the country to help find missing people, track down information on criminal cases and more. The procedural quickly found success after being coined the most-watched broadcast premiere since NCIS‘ final episode with Mark Harmon in September 2021. Its average viewership was reported to be 18.2 million per episode, according to Paramount+ and broadcast measurements.
Variety’s annual list of the year’s 100 most-watched primetime telecasts revealed that Tracker episodes earned 15 top spots. The second season dominated viewership with the premiere bringing in 8.3 million total viewers — a nearly 10 percent increase in viewership from the season 1 finale. The season 2 premiere also marked the show’s highest audience since the series debuted after the Super Bowl.
While Hartley’s performance has been the draw for viewers, so has the rest of Colter’s team. After CBS renewed the show for a third season, executive producer Elwood Reid teased some surprising onscreen changes.
Which ‘Tracker’ Stars Are — And Aren’t — Returning for Season 3?
“I do think it’s evolving. If I can’t evolve those characters — Randy or Reenie or Bobby — they’re not just people that just pick up the phone and go, ‘OK, here is the answer.’ That’s when the show is phoning it in,” he explained to Us Weekly in May 2025. “The challenge is when you got to learn about them, which I thought was interesting. That’s the challenge of the show is not having it fall into a formula.”
Reid noted that they didn’t want Tracker to “fall into complacency.”
“The only rule I really have of the show is each week Colter is going to come to a new place and there’s going to be a new case. How he gets those answers and what he uses on the team, that’s all something that’s up for grabs,” Reid teased. “Meeting these [local] weird characters is something we’re going to try to do more of as the season goes on. Just Colter coming in and interacting with other characters. That’s fun to see Justin flex those muscles with really good guest cast members.”
In addition to Robin Weigert’s exit before season 2, it was later confirmed that Abby McEnany and Eric Graise would be leaving the show as well. Keep scrolling for a breakdown of why Tracker has gone through so many cast shakeups so far:
The Key Players
Since Tracker premiered in February 2024, viewers have become accustomed to watching their favorite fictional survivalist Colter help solve various missing persons cases with help from his team: handler Velma (McEnany), hacker Bobby (Graise) and attorney Reenie (Fiona Rene).
The Gist
Season 2 marked the first cast exit when it aired on CBS in February 2025 without Weigert, whose character was written off in the premiere. At the time, Teddi’s wife mentioned that they needed some distance from each other, and Velma subsequently started working with Reenie.
The changes kept coming when Graise was noticeably absent from six episodes during season 2. That paved the way for his cousin Randy (Chris Lee) to be brought in to help Colter. The decision caused backlash from viewers who grew used to seeing Graise on their screen.
Shortly before production started on season 3 in summer 2025, news broke that McEnany and Graise were not returning.
“It’s one of those things where actor availability is always an issue. There have been shows where people don’t even notice [if a character is missing],” Reid teased to Us in May before McEnany and Graise left the show. “One of the challenges in season 3 is going to be reconfiguring the team and figuring out what that team looks like.”
What People Are Saying
According to Reid, there have been ongoing conversations about keeping the show fresh from season to season.
“I don’t want the show to be ‘phone a friend’ every week,” Reid told Us. “I think that gets old, and Justin is always challenging me on that. He’s like, ‘Do we need to do this? Do I need to call Bobby all the time? Can I do this?’ … You don’t [always] see Reenie. He talks to Velma for two seconds. He may talk to Bobby for one phone call. The show works because you are over Justin’s shoulder.”
What’s Next
Season 3 will continue to focus on Colter solving new cases while still getting to the bottom of who killed his father. Reenie, meanwhile, is the last member of Colter’s team still around and Tracker is expected to keep following her professional issues after branching out on her own.
Rene also spoke to Us in November 2024 about what she would like to see for Reenie going forward.
“Obviously we’re building on Colter’s relationships and what he’s able to do. We are getting to see more of him. But then for Reenie, we’re seeing her identity without Colter,” she teased to Us. “Before it was like, ‘Who is she? What was her relationship to him? Who was she alongside him? How could she help him?’ And even though all those things are still true, now we’re seeing Reenie. Who is she and what’s her life and what’s she interested in and where is she in her life?”
The other perk of Tracker is Hartley’s ability to bring certain guest stars back around including Jensen Ackles, Hartley’s wife, Sofia Pernas, Melissa Roxburgh and Jennifer Morrison.
“Maybe it goes more toward the CBS audience but we’ve been trying to get someone from the country music scene to come to the show,” Reid revealed to Us. “We tried to get Jelly Roll and I think we lost him to Fire Country.”
He added: “We’ve tried some other people. Luke Combs is a guy we’ve always been trying to get. Or a guy like Hardy. It is just about trying to figure out a fun role to write for them and then bring them into the show in a natural way.”
There will also be appearances from other past characters.
“We’re going to bring back some characters from seasons 1 and 2 — we’re going to see them more and more,” Reid teased to Us. “There’s been some fun characters that I think are fun to see in Colter’s world [season to season].”
