Justin Hartley‘s cowboy moment in the newest Tracker trailer elicited a lot of strong reactions — including some jealousy from costar Jensen Ackles.
CBS released the first look at season 3 on Wednesday, September 24, which showed Hartley’s character, Colter, riding a horse. In the comments section of Hartley’s social media post, Ackles, 47, questioned the scene-stealing moment.
“A HORSE?!?!” Ackles wrote via Instagram. “Why didn’t I get a horse???”
Elsewhere in the sneak peek, Ackles was seen reprising his role as Colter’s older brother, Russell. The Shaw siblings are set to reunite after Colter made some startling revelations about their father Ashton’s mysterious death.
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Ackles’ return comes after Eric Graise, who played Bobby in the first two seasons, and Abby McEnany, a.k.a Velma, both departed the hit CBS show. This leaves only Hartley, 48, and Fiona Rene from the main cast as the series prepares to kick off production on season 3.
Tracker previously saw Robin Weigert exit the show following the season 1 finale. Weigert’s character, Teddi, was written off in the season 2 premiere by having her wife, Velma, reveal that they needed some distance. Velma then started working with Reenie (Rene), and Teddi wasn’t discussed despite her prominent presence on the show’s first season.
Executive producer Elwood Reid exclusively told Us Weekly about the upcoming onscreen changes.
“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 in May. “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 highlighted their attempt to make sure that Tracker won’t “fall into complacency.”
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“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.”
Tracker, which premiered in February 2024, largely focuses on fictional survivalist Colter as he travels the country to help solve various missing persons cases. While the hit CBS is looking to switch some things up, Reid didn’t rule out expanding the universe with a spinoff.
“I’m going to try to steal Jensen,” he quipped to Us. “We worked on another show of mine before, so I’m going to try to kidnap him back from The Boys [and Countdown].”
Tracker returns to CBS on Sunday, October 19, at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Paramount+.
