Critic’s Rating: 3.8 / 5.0
3.8
Billie Matalon returned to Colter’s life during Tracker Season 2 Episode 3, and later in the hour, she had a line that may have summed up the whole affair: This got super weird.
Now, it wouldn’t be Tracker without a curveball or two, and this one had a twist you’d never see coming.
And I don’t say that to mean it’s a good thing.
While Tracker Season 2 Episode 1 had a more straightforward missing persons case, the follow-up installment involved potential extraterrestrials, and this one had us learning about the dark world of biohacking blood donations.
Yeah.
Look, there are a lot of shows that are similar to Tracker, at least in the sense that their main objection each week is to solve a mystery. And they have to stand out, right? There can’t just be rudimentary cases of the week.
But blood donations, biohacking, and blood serum electrolyte conversations?
Look at me agreeing with Billie; it is getting weird.
Billie’s return was the highlight of the hour if you’re a Billie fan, that is. We last saw the willy reward-seeker during Tracker Season 1 Episode 6. And her appearance was a bit polarizing.
Some people were here for the banter and flirting between Colter and his rival, with whom he had a complicated relationship. But others didn’t feel the connection, nor were they interested in seeing Colter have a partner other than Reenie or the others within his circle.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for real-life cuteness that spills over onto the screen because I thought Justin Hartley and Sofia Pernas were great together. There’s an obvious comfort there, seeing as they’re married, and it translated into an on-screen dynamic that felt lived in.
You could buy that these two had a history, that there was A LOT of tension between them, and that things were left unsaid.
But while that first episode dove into a lot of that and set up a will-they/won’t-they, that wasn’t the case here. They forgo much of that banter and flirting and instead fell into step as partners, with Colter taking the lead.
I have to imagine those who were not thrilled with Billie overall didn’t care too much for the personal aspect of the case, which saw Billie returning to the hometown that shunned her as a means to do something good (and maybe change her legacy?).
We don’t know nearly enough about Billie to get too overly invested in her personal business, but seeing how cruel people were throughout the hour was a lot, especially considering once we found out the root cause of the town’s hatred was toward her mother, not her.
But I digress; the case was about Eric Dobbs, a promising high school pitcher who up and vanished.
It felt like we were headed toward a boyfriend and girlfriend being mixed up with the wrong crowd, or maybe even a girlfriend who set the young pitcher up for some reason to get money or something else relatively basic for the audience to understand.
But things took a whole different turn when Colter and Billie found the railroad car with the blood bag. Suddenly, it was wildly apparent that something much more complicated was happening.
The more that came out about Eric and Ashley, the more it pointed to a young kid trying to do the right thing. Maybe he was feeling the pressure from an overbearing father and the expectations of being a high school phenom, but he was also a teenager in love.
There was an interesting story about Eric and his father, that dynamic and how it may have pushed him even further toward his girlfriend happening that never got the chance to fully develop because ultimately it became about blood donating, which was certainly a choice!
Colter and Billie’s discovery of that office building, with its clinic-like setup and the drained corpse, changed this hour from intriguing to a bit of a head-scratcher.
Tracker flows nicely, and then things just take a wide left that doesn’t always work. This one got even whackier in Tracker fashion, especially when Shane made his presence known. It was so obvious he was shady and had something to do with what was happening.
Every character you meet on a Tracker episode should be considered a suspect, and the way we never met Shane. Still, Billie kept bringing him up, and it felt like he should be considered the number one suspect, even if we had limited information to make that assumption.
The missing coach was as big a red herring as it gets, and as soon as Billie met with Shane, something was off.
He went from blowing her up at all times to find Eric and then suddenly bowing out because the college Eric was going to sign with rescinded their offer? A young boy was still missing, and the politics outweighed doing the right thing?
That had evil written all over it.
It’s hard to get a grasp on Billie because, much like Colter, she keeps her cards close to the vest. She and Colter only know the versions of themselves they’ve allowed the other to see.
Her decision to leave town, because the reward was off the table, felt odd, but ultimately, it shouldn’t have because we don’t actually know the kind of person she is. We know Colter would never do something like that because once he makes a promise, he intends to keep it, but Billie doesn’t seem to play by the same rules.
It seemed like she was maybe going to turn the car around at various points after she hung up with Colter, and hell, perhaps she would have, but we never saw that because Shane knew the jig was up.
Colter’s perceptive as all hell, which you have to be in his line of work, and within minutes of being in the overly chipper and accommodating Shane’s house, it was pretty obvious he was behind the blood scam.
He didn’t even need Bobby’s expertise, but it was nice to have the confirmation!
The series continues to be an action drama that’s light on the action, but the one action sequence we did get felt overly long and borderline unnecessary, though it was meant to give Shane the time to run away and take Billie hostage.
Colter, not even hesitating before shooting Shane, was lowkey funny because of the way Billie reacted. She was legitimately upset at him!
This case had a very positive outcome outside of the kid who fell victim to the blood draining, and that can not be said for all of Colter’s cases, especially this season.
Billie opening up about her past felt like a way to try to endear her to Colter and the audience, but did it work? If you were one of those who wasn’t too fond of Billie in the past, did anything during this hour change your mind?
Her story was sad, and she was definitely a victim in everything. Her mother did something wrong, after all. And Billie uses the things she learned for good in helping people, even if she’ll only do it for money.
If Billie’s poised to be a recurring character that occasionally teams up with Colter, that’s fine. But long-term? The series struggles to set up meaningful storylines for the main characters they already have without adding anyone else to the mix.
Tracker Notes
- I loved the tiny side plot about Colter charming Penny “The Pitbull” Bullard, which clearly got under Billie’s skin. Sometimes, Colter’s charms do nothing, but sometimes, they do work!
- The show working in a way to get Justin Hartley throwing a baseball around and talking about how his dad never let him play was a nice way to continue working Ashton in the narrative.
- No Reenie. And Velma had seven seconds to pop in and tell Colter that Billie equals bad. I need them to give Velma something more to do and don’t deprive me of Reenie!
Alright, Tracker fans, how did you feel about this one?
Thoughts on Billie Matalon?
Did you see the blood donation storyline coming?
How are you feeling about the start of the season?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
You can watch Tracker on CBS on Sundays at 8/7c.
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