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Critic’s Rating: 4.3 / 5.0
4.3
We’ve seen Colter in some rough situations throughout Tracker thus far, but perhaps never in worse shape than in the closing minutes of Tracker Season 2 Episode 5.
He was bleeding out, and it was NOT looking good. But if there was one person he needed by his side at that moment, it was Emmaline Trace.
We rarely see Colter need to saving, but Emmaline was literally the only one who could do it.
One of the things that’s always been so great about Tracker has been the crisscrossing across America, which puts him in new and different environments every week.
Tracker Season 2 Episode 4 saw Colter in gorgeous Napa Valley surrounded by vineyards and Silicon Valley elites, and this week, he was in the deep woods of Kentucky in a mining town.
The missing was a young teenager who was taken while out in the woods looking for something.
The case clearly struck a nerve with Velma and Colter, who were willing to take the case even though the reward was much lower than he used to.
I’ve always understood the negative attitude people sometimes have toward Colter because, from the outside, it seems like he’s in it for the money. But we know who Colter is at his core and that he’s not taking a dime if he doesn’t fulfill his promise.
I sometimes forget about the monetary aspect until it’s mentioned, and when Velma was almost apologetic for bringing him a case that paid so little, I wanted to scream that, of course, Colter would take the case!
But that’s not actually the case because it would never have landed on his radar if there hadn’t been a reward. And quite frankly, Colter was probably the only person who could have found Emmaline.
We’re used to seeing Colter in towns he’s not wanted, and that was very much the Kentucky vibe. And it felt similarly for the Trace family, who were dealing with dead roadkill on their front porch all because people thought Emmaline had the devil running through her.
Jasper seemed like a well-meaning guy, but did he truly have no idea his sister was also a healer? Or, at the very least, was into the same things as their mother?
Yes, she had that place out in the woods where she was honing her skills and making balms and concoctions and whatnot, but how did random people in town know what she was doing, and yet the guy who lived with her genuinely seemed so in the dark?
Colter’s jaunt around town led him further and further away from thinking that Emmaline was taken as some retaliation for Jasper being a mining narc and more toward people thinking she was strange. That strangeness made people do more than intimidate her; they made her disappear.
We’ve seen the whole ice cream shop exchange so many times at this point. Colter goes to someone friendly enough and willing to help, and out comes someone who’s NOT. Then, Colter must sneak around to the nice person to get the critical piece of information he needs to make serious inroads on his case.
Side note: what WAS that boss lady’s issue? She had a lot of built-up animosity for a teenage girl. She and the man from animal control were doing the absolute most.
It was not even remotely clear what Colter would find out when he went to the home of the man who yelled at Emmaline, but it would never be as simple as Colter busting in there and Emmaline being right there.
Finding out she was a healer, and one that cured the man’s wife of cancer, was undoubtedly not what Colter was expecting, but at this point, what hasn’t Colter seen?
I do enjoy that so many of the cases not only allow Colter to empathize and relate due to the personal elements, which often have him thinking about his family or his past, but they also challenge many of his own views of the world.
He’s a survivalist and sees things in a black-and-white manner that not everyone does. He’s open-minded enough not to let that thinking cloud his judgment, but he’s not the kind of man who will fall for anything.
I imagine if he were someone who had inspirational quotes written on his bathroom mirror, one of them would definitely say, ‘Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything.’
Once Colter got the information about the Drell clan, it was really just a matter of tracking Emmaline there. Leave it to Colter to head to a whole drug-dealing compound without telling anyone and with zero backup.
That place was crawling with eyes, and there was a whole drug lab on-site, yet Colter could get into the main house without anyone seeing him in the way only this show could pull off.
Once he got inside, it was apparent what was happening: Axel kidnapped Emmaline so she could heal his father. But you can’t just kidnap people, though they made a thing of explaining the Drell clan as some off-the-grid family that didn’t have to abide by the laws like everyone else.
Colter getting into the house and all the way into that man’s bedroom was crazy, but it led him to Emmaline, and their back-and-forth was so interesting because they were really at a standstill when there were armed men all over that property.
On the one hand, poor Emmaline must feel like she has this amazingly scary but beautiful gift (if you believe it), and it’s not right not to use it if she can help someone. She seemed to be forgetting a bit that she was kidnapped and forced to do what she’s doing, but she’s still a kid, and she’s a little stubborn.
Colter, ever the voice of reason, was basically just imploring her to think about herself because, gift or no gift, she’s not something people can use as they see fit.
It’s not her responsibility to heal anyone, but in Emmaline’s mind, she had the means to do it and wanted to. And she wasn’t fully aware of how expendable she was to those men.
The healing scene was intense, and it was obviously meant to go south with how agitated each of the brothers was when their dad didn’t hop up out of bed and start doing the YMCA the second Emmaline put her hands on him.
Now, Colter shooting Gideon at point-blank range and then the two getting out of the house and into the woods without getting caught was TV magic. Colter’s good, but he’s not that good.
The two of them should have been dead to rights based on how outnumbered they were. And then Emmaline hurting her leg only slowed them down even more.
I genuinely believe there is nothing scarier in this world than an abandoned shopping mall, and this one was as creepy as they come.
There are a lot of gems dropped in any given Tracker episode, and perhaps the best line from this one was just Colter very simply telling Emmaline, “Never let panic take over.”
It’s much easier said than done, but Emmaline was a rockstar under pressure, considering once again the two of them were in a position where they were outnumbered, and if those men were just a wee bit smarter, they could have both died inside that dilapidated JC Pennys.
Colter looked like he was about to die after getting shot in the stomach with the arrow and feel free to correct me in the comments, but I don’t remember a time when he looked like he was in more danger than this one. Nothing comes to mind, at least.
He was able to literally un-impale himself from the arrow, but he was losing blood rapidly, and it’s a miracle he found them and was able to employ that nifty little fire extinguisher tactic that allowed Emmaline to take control.
Gideon patching himself up and rushing over to let his bro know that the healing worked was odd, but it set up what I assumed none of them were smart enough to realize: Emmaline was extremely valuable.
The Drells stole her for selfish purposes, but imagine they took her and the kind of money and nefarious things they could do with her “power.” I shudder to think about what would happen to her.
Emmaline’s quick thinking saved Colter from imminent death because if she left there with those men, he would be a goner. Instead, she was able to call 911 AND get her hands on Colter to use whatever healing powers she possessed.
Was Colter converted into a healing believer after that day? At the very least, he had to admit that there wasn’t much explanation outside of Emmaline helping him survive that day.
I kept thinking as the hour was set to wrap up that even if that evil compound was finally getting raided by the cops, Emmaline was never going to be safe there.
I hate to think of her and Jasper having to leap from town to town, but Emmaline’s always going to have to watch herself because, unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where everyone sees that power as anything more than something to abuse.
Tracker Notes
- They still don’t know what to do with Velma, but at least she had a few minutes to share some of her backstory with us. She and Reenie need their own case or something to get them out of that office.
- They have yet to do much with the Shaw Family drama thus far in Tracker Season 2, but maybe Colter reaching out to Dory was the catalyst for something to happen soon.
This was an exciting case of the week, and I liked how things came together with Colter truly needing someone to save him for a change. We love a little variety!
Let me know what you thought about this one in the comments so we can discuss!
You can watch Tracker on CBS on Sundays at 8/7c.
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